I'm not so sure that once ads like those come out that the person they're directed at isn't screwed no matter what they do in response. Just take this hypothetically now (since none of us will ever know for sure in this matter) that Kerry's stories are basically true and to the best of his recollection and knowledge, he's not embellishing them. History has shown that a sizeable percentage of our voters are going to put credence to the attack ads and it will hurt Kerry's electability.

Scenario 1 - Kerry takes the high road and stays on the issues. His detractors will say that in not responding and fighting back (which requires similar dirty tactics against his accusers), that Kerry is giving tacit approval to the ads.

Scenario 2 - Kerry goes on the attack and uses legal challenges, his own attack ads, etc. His detractors now diss the man for freedom of speech violations, dirty politics.

So here we are once again showing that this crappy hateful attack stuff works like a charm. By responding to it as we're doing we're saying to George Bush and John Kerry that if you want to get elected, all you have to do is attack, true or false, because you paint the person you're attacking into a corner that there is no way out of.

Once again this little cross section of America is telling indeed.