I don't know what the ads prove, but I think it's evident that Rove is running his typical b.s. campaign, using the "liberal" media to dump stories that suggest that there is dissension in the ranks or to dig up dirt on Kerry. The Freepers eat it up like Doug eats up a story from Financial Times. IT's stamped with some kind of authenticity! It works on the independents, too.
I saw James Moore on CNBC last night describing it in precisely the way my Republican insider friend has described it recently and over the years. Moore wrote Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential. Moore said that Rove's strategy is to attack the opponent on their strongest point, in this case the war and the economy.
CAmpaign Desk, below, captures some of it. Daily Howler, albeit overwrought and not especially neutral, also argues that it's a repeat of the Gore-ing of Gore. Interesting stuff if you like reading about the propaganda machine. Howler goes at it from a very micro-analysis:
And now, for our thrilling conclusion: PART 4
THE GORE-ING OF KERRY: At Time, the Gore-ing
of Kerry has started. To understand how bad it
gets in Karen Tumulty's current report, let's
recall a pointless event from Kerry's March
vacation.
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh050704.shtml
I guess it's all more obvious in the limpdick state where Rove's presence it really palpable. I think it's important to criticize Kerry, but it misses the point to play right into Rove's hands and criticize Kerry for stupid shit like whether he said, 25 years ago, that it was ribbons
Fear and Gnawing in Palm Beach
On Monday, Campaign Desk pointed to stories by the Associated Press's Ron Fournier and The New York Times' Adam Nagourney, reporting that Democrats were fearful and had begun questioning the efficacy of Sen. John Kerry's campaign efforts. Both stories relied heavily on unnamed sources, such as "party officials" or "many Democrats" or "one Democratic member of Congress, who spoke on condition of anonymity."
Today, Scott Shepard of Cox News Service offers his variation on the fear theme. "There are gnawing concerns within the [Democratic] party that it may have rushed too quickly to the altar with the Massachusetts senator," Shepard writes in a story picked up by The Palm Beach Post.
On what does Shepard base this startling conclusion? Apparently on reading Nagourney's piece in Sunday's New York Times.
The fact that "Kerry did not overtake President Bush in the polls after what may be the worst eight weeks of the Bush presidency," Shepard writes, "prompted numerous complaints from prominent Democrats in Sunday's New York Times, sparking several days of hand-wringing in the party."
Shepard does move the story forward (by a millimeter or two). He says Kerry is responding to the hand-wringers by "muscling up his campaign this week," running ads in swing states and delivering the keynote speech to the "centrist" Democratic Leadership Council.
There are gnawing concerns within Campaign Desk that Shepard may have rushed too quickly to the altar with the Times' Nagourney.
Not to mention a nagging suspicion that we have not seen the end of those mysterious "fearful unnamed Democrats" bouncing perpetually off the walls of what now appears to be the echo chamber of the moment.