http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/28/dnc/index.html

"The GOP's attacks on Kerry in 2004 were mocking, scornful, derisive, demonizing and deeply personal -- in speech after speech -- and they were also highly effective. They weren't the slightest bit deterred by the fact that Kerry was a war hero who was wounded multiple times in Vietnam while George Bush and Dick Cheney. . . . weren't. Has there been anything remotely approaching those attacks on McCain by any of the prime-time Democratic speakers?

"The GOP assaults on Barack Obama will be -- have already been -- even more vicious and personalized, which means by the end of their Convention next week, John McCain will be, by all accounts, an honor-bound, principled and courageous patriot (who, at worst, is wrong on some issues), while Barack Obama will be some vaguely foreign, weak, appeasing, super-ambitious, exotic, empty-headed, borderline un-American liberal extremist."

Yes, taking the high road is harder and more dangerous than taking the low one. And war is easier (though far more expensive) than peace.

But who would WE be if we played tit for tat with the GOP? What would WE stand for? I'm not for sweetening the picture. The Dems should be expressing OUTRAGE!!! OUTRAGE!!!! on the assault by this administration on the rule of law; cronyism; torture; duplicity; the privatization (and diminution) of public services for the least fortunate among us; a preemptive and bungled war which we're now supposed to celebrate because the chaos we permitted to ensue is -- after more than a trillion American dollars and too many American AND Iraqui lives at last being put into some semblance of order, at least in Baghdad. As the Rene Zellwigger character in that civil war movie (????? darn brain ?????) said, "men create the rain and then complain that they're getting wet." Present company excluded. We don't have the luxury this election to be well mannered but we still need to separate the people from the problem and drive a stake through the problem's heart. Too many Americans voted Bush into office twice to have their noses rubbed in the man's patent ineptitude. So we need to continue to be soft on the people and hard on the problem.