Why the kerry campaign is going to fritter away another week on this story

Their instincts are all screwed up--they don't respond for weeks to the Swift Vets, yet they lash out against Dubya because somehow he used Rusty's Sith Mind Control Tricks to get Gunga Dan to use forged documents......?

Oooo-kay.

Let's go to the tape:

Sen. John F. Kerry's campaign fired back hard at the White House yesterday, saying President Bush was using the CBS documents scandal as a ``gutless political attack'' and smokescreen to duck questions about Bush's National Guard service. ``You have to question the motives of the people who are asking these questions,'' senior Kerry campaign adviser Joe Lockhart said. ``The White House is raising questions about this because they don't want to answer questions.''

Hmmm. Now why in the world would Joltin' Joe think this is an effective argument that will get the pirhana off his tail? Is this some sort of turn 180 degrees into the path of the torpedo and hope to plow into it before its fuses have engaged? Does he really think that a whole pack of reporters, who are starting to wonder "hmm, do you think I can get Ashton Kuchar to play me in the movie version of this like Bernstein got Hoffman to play him?" are going to say "hey, we've got a story here about a major news outfit coordinating attacks with a political party 6 weeks before a presidential election, but hey, let's drop that story and run with the one Joe and Terry Mac say is good, about some 35 year old issues that the President really doesn't even dispute?"

Hello? Even Estrich has figured this one out.

``This campaign had nothing to do with these documents, nothing to do with this story,'' Lockhart said on CNN. ``I didn't know who the guy was. I talked to him on the phone for three or four minutes. That's the beginning and the end of the story.'' Lockhart said during their brief conversation, Burkett urged the Kerry campaign to respond more aggressively to the attacks by anti-Kerry Swift boat veterans. But Republicans pounced on the Burkett-Lockhart phone conversation, saying it raised questions about the possible role of the Kerry campaign in the document scandal.

Kerry should fire Lockhart's ass instantaneously, but he won't. He's a liability because the story is now focusing in on him, and while he says there's no story here, one wonders how exactly the Dems were able to flount their "Operation Fortunate Son" ad campaign with the 60 Minutes documents provided by Burkett the day after the story aired?

"OOOH! OOOOH! OOH! I KNOW, MISTER KOTTER, I KNOW!!! OOOOOO!"

"Yes, Horseshack?"

"Because they pulled an all nighter?"

Umm, no. Because the had the documents ahead of time, and were working in tandem. Which would be this generation's equivalent of Watergate.

This morning's Judd Nelson/Breakfast Club Award for the person who sits there and asks to be whacked again with detention just to show what a macho idiot he is is none other than Terry Mac:

Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe blasted Bush for shirking his Guard duty, saying the president did not deserve his honorable discharge. ``The president says he received an honorable discharge, but that honorable discharge seems less honorable every day,'' McAuliffe said.

No, what seems more apparent every day is that you are tanking the Kerry campaign to make way for Hillary in 2008.

That's your conspiracy, folks.

Aint Karl Rove a genius?