The Darkest Hour

an intense revulsion at the nature of the abyss has gripped the blogosphere. i'm setting aside at least a hundred dollars by october 1st for the cause. somewhere, there's a race where it will make a difference.

from commentor Neil Sinhababu at matt yglesias' blog:

I've got a paper to work on and I haven't been able to get anything done in the last 24 hours, mostly because of sheer mind-eating fury at these liars.

But I've been feeling slightly better since I read the Rood article. Rood has a nice description of bold tactics that Kerry pulled off as a captain. You can get it here at the Chicago Tribune. (I've excerpted the relevant passage here at my place if you don't want to register with the Tribune.) Read it and think of how Kerry's now decided to pull a political 'Turn 90' on those Swift Boat Liars... you might feel better too.

Off to give money to some Democrats now. We can all be gunners on this boat.

from digby(also at matt's blog):

Yes. Michael Moore did invent the modern mud slinging campaign back when Nixon ran against Helen Gahaghan Douglas's pink panties and Joe Mccarthy purged the "commies" and he's been behind every single one of them right up through Clinton's corruption, Chinese espionage and criminal obstruction of justice witchhunts to the assault on the grieving members of the Wellstone family in 2002. That guy gets around.

Moore is not cause he is the effect --- from years of this crap coming from the republican slime machine and our side finally getting sick of it.

But, sadly, I hate to say that winning will not solve the problem. I thought it would make a difference back in 1992 if we -- you know -- won, but it didn't. Indeed, they are emboldened by their electoral losses (not to mention they make big bucks on the ongoing smear operation while they are out of power.) The only good reason for any Democrat to even try is a deep rooted sense of patriotic duty to save the country from these lunatics, even for a short while, and at great personal sacrifice.

I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that this kind of dirty politicking will only end when the beneficiaries --- the Republicans --- are hit repeatedly and ruthlessly with the same scurrilous style of character assasination. And I don't know if the country will be worth living in by then.