And we thought Kerry wouldn't play hardball...

John Kerry really started to put the smackdown on his foes this past week, for which I could not be more thrilled. It's about time he stood up and said "no, you are lying and can't talk about the real issues." Is it just the liberal haze or is John Kerry becoming an even better candidate?

Yesterday, Kerry's team went to town on chief Swift Boat Liar John O'Neill. O'Neill has repeatedly challenged Kerry's statements regarding his crossing of the Cambodian border. Firstly, who cares? It's such a non-story, but since the media won't drop it and seems to fawn all over anything these liars come out with, we'll play that game for a bit.

O'Neill said Kerry would have been "court-martialed" for such an act. Further, that he did the same patrol two months after Kerry and it only ran "50 miles from Cambodia. There isn't any watery border."

But yesterday, the Kerry campaign alerted both Fox and CNN to a taped conversation between O'Neill and Richard Nixon where O'Neill explicitly says the opposite:

O'NEILL: I was in Cambodia, sir. I worked along the border on the water.

NIXON: In a swift boat?

O'NEILL: Yes, sir.

Can they get any more discredited?

And yet the media still gives these whackos air-time and (as an extension) relevancy. Rather than call these attacks for the outright distortions and lies that they are, the media plays the objective observer(yeah, right) and allows the charges to fly without studying them or supplying any context.

We need to prepare to fight back against a lazy media and force them to learn from the mistakes they made during the 2000 election and the Iraqi war coverage. The Swift Boat veteran debacle is the first real sign of this. Brace yourself, all. It's going to be a infuriating Fall.

Finally a moral argument you can take all the way to the bank...

I've got a great idea for a new and unique way of advertising for certain products that taps into the zeitgeist of our sad, sad reality. Why should the Saudi royal family and Bush's friends in the oil business be the only people to make money off of the political climate of the war on terror. Marrying bully politics and baseless labels with good ole consumerism, millions are just waiting to be made. Just picture it!

Frame One: A man of obvious ethnic origin sits at a computer in a small dark apartment. The room's only light leaves all but the man's shifty eyes in shadow. The camera slowly pans around to reveal blueprints of a tall building on the computer screen.

Frame Two: A phone begins to ring across the cramped apartment. The man slowly picks up the phone and very nervously begins to talk in a foreign language. Something the average American won't recognize, like Farsi or French.

Frame Three: Suddenly we hear through the door "Open up this is the police!" as the door is busted open by two men in police uniforms.

Frame Four: The foreign man drops the phone and puts his hands up in the air. He is visibly shaking from the fright.

Frame Five: The policemen aim their weapons at the generic foreigner. "Get down on the ground! Slowly! Slower! I said SLOWER you piece of [beeped for your family's enjoyment]!" The men open fire on the dangerously unarmed man.

Frame Six: The men share a stick of gum as they step over the lifeless ethnic cliché. And we hear the voice-over: "Freedom Chew: The Anti-Terror Gum. "

Just think of that huge demographic of mindless working class illiterates who will be voting for Bush. This will appeal to their need to support the War on Terror through shopping (the only thing the administration has asked Americans to do so far, besides sacrifice their children), while satisfying their God-given right to kill things with their guns. It also has the added effect of helping people feel morally superior to those who chew any other gum.

"What do you mean you don't chew Freedom Gum? Don't you know it's the Anti-Terror Gum?"

See, no matter what you can't defend yourself. If you don't chew the gum you either love terrorism or you hate gum. Either argument reveals you to be un-American!

Ahhh, it's so fruitful being despicable.