Kerry trails by 11 pts., Washington Post gets into gear.

In a series of articles this morning, The Washington Post enters the fight with all guns blazing in a desperate attempt to salvage John Kerry's presidential campaign, last seen listing heavily to port.

In this article, someone named Jeffrey H. Smith, identified by The Post as a former general counsel for the CIA (boy, now that fills one with confidence, doesn't it?) has the following to say regarding the Swift Boat Veterans;

But the central charges have largely been discredited by the Navy's records and by serious reporting in the mainstream media. (me: Beldar is going to be pissed to realize he has been wasting all this time.)

I did not serve in Vietnam, but...
We have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein, which is a great achievement, but...

In 1971 Kerry recognized that we needed to change our policy. In 2004 he recognizes the need to change our policy. That is the issue. Who is better equipped to lead us: Bush, who rigidly insists that he is right, or Kerry, who has charted a new direction? (me: towards Paris, right? Oh, and what should Bush be doing, rigidly insisting that he is wrong?)

Then there is this;

President Bush opened the Labor Day weekend with a bus cavalcade through Ohio for the second Saturday in a row, and said that peace and prosperity -- which largely eluded him in the first term -- would be his mission in a second.

But this one is the topper. In It's Still Nixon's Party, a weepy, sputtering Harold Myerson offers these tired old spitballs;

...public mugging of John Kerry.
and
...Zell Miller's ferocious and largely fictitious diatribe...
and
...after whom he modeled himself was Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
and
...Dick Cheney's more low-key falsifications of Kerry's record...
and
...Miller's crazed sermon...
and
...would be hard to construe as decency...
and
...the hallmarks of their campaigns against Michael Dukakis, John McCain and now John Kerry have been slander and lies.
and ...Bob Dole, old hatchet-man...
and ...

well, you get the idea, right? (All emphases mine, because...well..it's my blog.)