That is not to say that Dean would have won. It does show that he stood little chance of winning after his comments on Hardball.

As the Democratic field winnowed and John Kerry was selected to run against George Bush, cable catapulted the Swift Boat Veterans onto the world stage.

It should be kept in mind that immediately after the Democratic convention Kerry had a comfortable 3-5 point lead. So comfortable, in fact, that he signaled that he might take another look at media regulation and the effects of consolidation.

At the beginning of August, the infamous "slow news" period, "liberal" TIME (August 3-5) and "conservative" FOX News (August 3-4) conducted polls asking which issues were most important in the 2004 presidential election.

The public chose the economy, Iraq, terrorism, health care or Medicare, moral value issues, education, and taxes.

Cable news offered viewers, "Kerry and Vietnam- Liar, Traitor, or Both?" Network news, in an apparent effort to hang on to some sense of decorum and perspective, stepped aside preferring to let cable news carry the smear burden.

A sampling of programs from August 5th - 26th revealed that CNN, MSNBC, and FOX provided more than 283,593 words and over 34 showings of an otherwise sparsely seen attack ad(s) on the smear for free within the body of "news" stories.

Again, these numbers are but a sampling and are not the complete count (in other words the total numbers would be even higher). Furthermore, the FOX word count was limited to 1/3 of the total so that no claim could be made that FOX skewed the results. The results showed very little difference in intensity and type of coverage regardless of outlet.

Publishing industry standards place 283,593 words beyond a regular novel and into the realm of a 1,134 page "epic" novel or a trilogy.

Anticipating criticism, cable used the "provocatively dressed" defense. Cable pundits stated that by referencing his service in Vietnam, Kerry "opened the door" and "asked for it". "It" being a torrent of - "Kerry has not been honest. He's- lying, lied, no war hero, betrayed, dishonored, lacks the capacity to lead, can't be trusted".

9 repetitions of all 18 prime time Republican Convention speeches skewering Kerry on character, trustworthiness, and strength would be required to approach cable's effort.

As for coverage, among many other absurdities, viewers were treated to:

A "purple star" discussion (as introduced by Heidi Collins- apparently a 'Barney' fan);