On lying down with dogs and the fleas who love them

This is just depressing.

Bob Dole always struck me as one of the class acts of Washington, but apparently he too must serve as attack dog for the Bush campaign, jumping into the fray mouthing the scurrilous lies he's been given in the script. It shouldn't surprise me, though. Everything and everyone that comes into contact with GW Bush turns to shit.

Meanwhile, Maureen Dowd is shrill. Maybe her best column of the year.

It makes sense for W. to use surrogates to do his fighting, just as he did when he slid out of Vietnam and just as he did when he sent our troops to fight his administration's misbegotten vanity war in Iraq.