... The Obama campaign is far better than the Kerry campaign was at aggressively responding to attacks launched at it, but they are still clearly unwilling (just as Kerry was, and just as Michael Dukakis was) to attack the GOP candidate with similar attack themes. The Obama campaign seems to believe that such attacks are counter-productive.

... (GG)

This campaign is Obama's to lose, and the only way he could hope to find a way to lose is to let Rove define him for the American public. I do so hope that the Democratic Party someday learns that when one is attacked personally by the opponent then attacking back in like manner is the course to take.

McCain is thought by even supports to be psychologically unfit to control the nation's nuclear weapon system. I think we should pound home the fact that he can not control his temper.

My day is not complete until I am enlightened by your column. I almost always agree with you but even when I do not I find your observations thought provoking. Thanks!

Glenn -- as a lawyer, do you think you could prosecute the media for plagarism? After all, they are stealing Steve Schmidt's own words and writing them or stating them as their own as you indicate through out your post.

Wow. Those comments are blistering. It's gotta be some thick hide that can bounce those blows. If I were Kirchick, I'd crawl back under my rock and stay there.

Although the most recent Obama ad works to dismiss the "arrogant" "presumptive" tag, it too has a bit of subtext, part of which I am not too fond, and the other I find finely apt.

The sight lines of the picture of McCain align quite directly with the word "old" which I find somewhat unseemly, albeit not nearly as obvious as the charges leveled at Obama for his so-called "arrogance". It's like two schoolyard kids slinging "yo' mama" insults at each other (oops, another horrible subtextual slip on my part). On the other hand, I do enjoy the juxtaposition of the word "failure" as it triangulates the pictures of McCain and Bush.

Thank you Pythogorian theorem.

I've been saying these for awhile, that TNR hired "so-called" Dems to trash other Democratics, with exclusive intention of this precise objective.

Jonathan Chait. It would put an end to the politics of Karl Rove. Oh like hell it does, and Chait formulates an outright lie with intent do formulate a lie.

So finally, somebody comes along to say something about it that anybody will listen too, so thank you there Glenn Greenwald.

How long will it be before Jonathan's personally positions on Obama are brought to TV networks, and that somehow his TNR views will soon represents the establishment view of mainstream Democrats everywhere?

It is A VERY coordinated attack and nobody should doubt this with this aspect of a war we have for the truth, for fact, for substance with our media. These news people do it with intent to do it. I have to wonder if Milbank isn’t paid special "fees" to produce his “slanted” hit piece on his VERY slanted, personal take-down and views of Obama’s personality.

Is that the mission statement of the press these days, “We give you our select, personal, slanted take down of somebodies personally minus any real substance, minus fact, JUST pure slant, and what is we do best”? IS that it now!

This is how the press picks our president for us. NO substance - just a brutal savaging by a press unconcerned with facts, unconcerned with policy, to give their hit pieces on personality. Milbank has fallen a long way from telling us that Bush lied about "aluminiam tubes" down to personality hit pieces on Democrats. And these guys have the gall to ask for a shield law for this dribble?

Why is the MSM giving us their individual take of personallity, which is solely based on their own slanted personal judgment?

I was taught in my high school journalism class the professional journalism tried to avoid any slant or the apearance there of, but here we have Milbank, who, as far as I know, is not considered an op-ed columnist, nope, rather Milbank is supposed to be A journalist. So why is Milbank giving us his unfiltered, slanted opinion? It's unprofessional without question, and the media is so compromise with these hit pieces they do, giving us their opinion, minus facts, and Milbank did was a HIT PIECE, nobody should ever doubt that, so I have to wonder, what special fee do they pay journalist to compromise themselves in the way Milbank did, the way so many of them do?

If Milbank is an op-ed columnist, then the newspaper should let us know, its how the Washington Post tells us that Howard Kurtz isn't somehow a radical opinionist that shouldn't also be consigned to some back-burner pages the way they did it to Dan Froomkin for having been about opinion.

We don't get the news anymore, we get opinion - this is why the press doesn't need a damn shield law, they compromise them themselves so badly, and they compromise their articles as if this is the normal way to do journalism. The press has lost all of it's integrity, and it lost it intentionally.

This is why I hate crossfire type shows or debates, because they detract from what is relevant, and they belittle very serious, important evidence, very important facts.

Pythagorean

Did anyone else notice how quickly the Fox News/Talking points "scandal" disappeared? When asked to confront the questionable origins of daily discussion content, even the MSNBC guys were suddenly defending Bill O'Reilly. Meanwhile, on the very same day, ALL of the evening news shows opened with the words "presumptuous" and "arrogance" in reference to Obama. "Talking points" is much too subtle: "Hamlet" is improvised more frequently than "Hardball."

Given the McCain campaign's embrace of the Rove, "slime-em-till-they-drip" strategy, I've been hoping that Obama would set aside his ethics for a while--I can't believe I'm saying this--and just go ahead and throw some serious sludge back in McCain's direction. There's lots of material to work with, and I'm not talking about McCain's age or fund-driven embrace of Bush-Cheney policy, either. McCain's record on women's issues is already wobbly, and if reproductive choice is too divisive, I suggest dragging out the incident from a few years ago, in which Senator McC reportedly--and in front of press at that--called his wife a "c---". Democrats need to imagine what the Rovians would do with that ugly little incident, and then double it. Presented with sufficient swift-boater glee, I'm pretty sure that this would finish off the ancient senator from Arizona. It would definitely kill any chance he ever had with those disgruntled Hilary supporters we keep reading about, and might just make a good many Republican women stay home in November, as well.

Come on, Obama. We admire your committment to the high road, but if the battle's being fought in the sewer, shouldn't we be willing to throw a little s--t?