Smashmouth

It appears that Dana Milbank has been "a dick" for quite some time.

As for Mr. Milbank's overarching thesis, it's shallow and dubious at best. "The purpose of this book is to celebrate the virtues of good, solid, in-the-gutter campaigning," he writes. "Such nasty, smashmouth politics are said by the goody-goodies to be destroying our democracy, alienating the electorate and suppressing voter participation. I believe the opposite is true: that nasty is nice on the campaign trail, that it's cool to be cruel."

He contends that "tough and negative campaigns allow candidates to demonstrate and build leadership qualities," and that "in the smashmouth world of politics, if you don't differentiate yourself and say what's wrong with the other guy, you aren't going to win," adding, "nor should you."

It's no secret of course that negative campaigning can often be effective, but for Mr. Milbank to revel in attacks and invective seems downright perverse. Of the mud-slinging in South Carolina and push-polling conducted on behalf of Mr. Bush, he writes: "This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we've been waiting for. Bush, backed into a corner, has gone on the attack, and it's working. He's dumped the Mr. Nice Guy routine, and he's attacking McCain directly." In another chapter he credits Mr. Gore's "heightened and near hysterical rhetoric about Bradley" with enabling him "to take the upper hand in the Democratic race."

Perhaps Mr. Milbank is such an ardent proponent of negative campaigning because it gives him something juicy to write about without having to go to the bother of doing a lot of legwork, or seriously analyze his subjects. Perhaps he merely thought that taking a stand opposed to conventional wisdom would make for a provocative book. Given his sophomoric and simplistic thesis that we should "stop equating the negative with the bad," it's clear that he completely missed the boat with this book. If he had waited until Nov. 7 to begin his reporting, he could have had a field day with the torrent of partisan demagoguery and toxic anger that erupted after Election Day.

Via Brad DeL