Hur Bush sopar mattan med Kerry

Guardian har en bra artikel om hur Bush sopar mattan med Kerry. Det omöjligt att förstå hur totalt aningslösa Kerry och hans kampanj är. Kerry är rent pinsam och kan komma att förlora stort mot Bush. Det visar också klart och tydligt att han inte är redo att bli president. Han har helt enkelt inte den tuffhet och den slughet som krävt. Ledsamt och mycket farligt för världen.

When an attack ad from the Republican slime brigade Swiftboat Veterans for Truth - which claimed that Kerry's Vietnam heroism was a fraud - surfaced last week, the initial response of the Kerry campaign team was to ignore it.

Surely, they thought, reasonable-minded people would never take seriously the scurrilous charge that Kerry did not deserve his medals for valour. Surely it would backfire. Besides, it was only running in three states in minor media markets, so only a few people would see it anyway.

But it hasn't worked out that way. The ad picked up a ton of free media coverage, precisely because its charges are so outrageous.

It was a dangerous miscalculation to assume that people for whom Vietnam is not even a distant memory would give Kerry the benefit of the doubt. For many voters - particularly the least engaged, and therefore those who have not yet decided who they will vote for - this story is the first they are hearing about who John Kerry is.

So the initial decision not to respond was plain wrong. Now that Kerry has woken up to the potential damage of this smear campaign, his response so far - to use free news media - has been inadequate and, to some extent, self-defeating.