From my blog:
Whatever happiness remained from Harold and Kumar is gone now after reading a couple articles about the impact the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is having. Fucking ridiculous. On Hardball, Michelle Malkin, some columnist, earnestly suggested that the Kerry's wounds might be self-inflicted. Surely, that's the only explanation for winning it thrice. It befits an election like this one to stoop to that level. I'm so bitter right now.

What prompted my anger was the NYT's article "Kerry Might Pay Price for Failing to Strike Back Quickly"
I was wondering why Kerry wasn't responding to the allegations, and though I understood at a certain level that such accusations were far below the level of acknowledgement, such judgement doesn't apply in a presidential election, and the words that should have been in Kerry's ears were "Remember Dukakis...".

Here's what the article had to say:

"Mr. Kerry decided to respond this week by blaming Mr. Bush for what he described as a scurrilous attack, and by filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Friday. His actions came after confronting considerable evidence that two weeks of largely unanswered attacks were taking their toll."

Here's the toll -

"A CBS News poll found that support for Mr. Kerry among veterans has declined markedly since the convention, and some Democrats said they believed that the attacks had at the least slowed whatever momentum Mr. Kerry enjoyed after his convention."

You can understand my anger..
While I'm a fan of Stephanie Cutter, her remark:

"If George Bush continues to smear [Kerry's] service, voters have a right to look at Bush's failure to serve out his time in the National Guard," she said. Bush maintains that he fulfilled his duties."

This election is no longer, though it now seems it never was, about the issues. While Kerry has outlined a plan for health care, what news channel is covering it? Not exactly a hot story when a rumor pops up that the wounds John Kerry sustained were self-inflicted.

It's not about the fate of Iraq - both candidates pretty much have the same plan for it, take what comes. Any difference Kerry has tried to show in his stance on Iraq has led to either press nightmares (e.g his "I voted against it before voting for it") or vagueries, (like at the convention when he said in effect "I'll tell you right now my plan for Iraq. I'm going to handle Iraq right"...well done.

This election is not even very focused on Bush's presidency! We have not really heard anything about pre-emptive attacks, the lack of WMDs, the influence of Cheney and Wolfowitz on Bush, or, to the domestic side, Bush's treatment of the environment, his failure to produce jobs on his watch for four years.