So, uh… tell me again why experience is so really, very, terribly, terribly preferable to a newbe who is actually capable of thinking outside the box?

If this was the John Kerry that ran for president four years ago, we would be working on his re-election. There’s no question about it.

Probably, but here in lies the problem — in 2004, Kerry let himself get defined by silly rightwing bullshit, like the Swift Boat crap and having people insult his military credentials by insisting that he doesn’t deserve his purple heart from Vietnam, etc. Four years ago I remember having to tell wingnuts that Vietnam is a confusing and horrible warzone, so if Kerry made a mistake that led to him getting shrapnel imbedded in his ass, he still deserves a purple heart because of the climate he was in.

And in my mind, I thought “It was a warzone.. Duuurrrr!” How would we be dedating things so stupid? I think the Kerry campaign thought that, too.. They didn’t fact back because the shit they had to fight against was so silly and inconsequential, who was listening? As it turns out, unfortunately, a lot of people were — first and foremost our lazy national media apparatus.

We’re seeing a replay of this right now. McCain launched web ads against Obama implying that he’s a know-nothing celebrity. Silly, right? The guy got into Harvard without the benefit of his daddy — who wasn’t even around — and even edited the Harvard Law Review. He then could have become a corporate lawyer and been fantastically rich, but instead choose public life and has brilliantly succeeded. Implying that he’s a dumb celebrity is silly. But the ads have had an effect, because now when I pick up a newspaper there are headlines saying that Obama has to battle his “celebrity” image — like fucking Matt Damon is running for president or something. This bleeds into their “Not Ready” slogan for Obama, which well be all we’ll hear from their convention next week. Every speaker will use the words “Not Ready” in their speech at least 50 zillion times.

Which is silly, right? Using the standards McCain has set up, most presidential candidates have never been ready. But the silliness of the talking point doesn’t preclude the braindead zombie media from repeating it ad nauseum since these people are too lazy to dig for their own stories, requiring words to be shoveled into their mouth — which Rove and his minions are more than happy to do.

They aim to take down a candidate’s strongest side. In 2004, they impugned Kerry’s military record which he based his whole convention on. In 2008, they will try using Obama’s popularity against him by labeling him as a celebrity and “not ready”. The media is starting to buy it. How will the Obama campaign combat this?