So can someone tell me why a Bush ambassadorial nominee who gave $50,000 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (and did so months after they were thoroughly discredited) is even getting a hearing? Can someone tell me why his nomination wasn't blocked outright, the way Bill Clinton's nomination of William Weld to be ambassador to Mexico was blocked by Jesse Helms a decade ago?

I don't care whether the other Democrats in the Senate like or dislike John Kerry. I don't care if they think he ran an inadequate campaign. And I don't care if they think this is an unpleasant moment from the past they'd rather not revisit. They should revisit it. They should revisit it proudly, while reminding the public in detail what disgusting liars these people were.

They should draw this line in the sand and let the Bushies whine all they want. It's called asserting power.

But, of course, they're Democrats, so God forbid they should do anything like that. Instead, John Kerry is left to press the case personally, as if it's nothing more than a personal vendetta by a sore loser. It isn't. It's the last couple of decades of GOP character-assassination politics in a nutshell, and, needless to say, it'll be back with a vengeance -- probably successfully again -- in '08.

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By the way, anyone who thinks this is too trivial an issue to focus on at this time doesn't understand why right-wingers have been successful for so long. Yeah, it's a trivial issue compred to, say, the war -- but right-wingers' interest in sustaining the Bush war policies doesn't prevent them from taking time out to, say, attack Al Gore's energy usage. Going after Democrats and liberals on everything imaginable, however trivial, is what works for them; all they care about is whether the attack has the possibility of working to their advantage. We could stand to think that way a little more often.