The Horror. The Horror.

Paul Krugman has a terrific column--reinforcing Karen's Swamp outrage the past few days--about the Republican propaganda campaign to discredit a child. Krugman's larger point is that this is business as usual for the latter-day Republican Party and also for much of the mainstream media. (Did CNN really buy the GOP disinformation? If so, shame on them.) My hope is that the stakes are high enough, and public interest will be intense enough in 2008 to undermine the effectiveness of slime campaigns. In the past--Willie Horton, impeachment, Bush's anti-McCain slime in 2000, the Swift Boats in 2004--I've tried to respond rapidly to this sort of stuff. I've got to say, though, the Graeme Frost campaign is about the lowest and skuzziest I've seen so far.

Meanwhile, David Brooks has a good column on the same page about the failure of the Republican party to address the needs of families like the Frosts. One problem, though: he touts John McCain's health care plan--but, as with all the other Republican plans, McCain's doesn't require the insurance companies to cover all applicants, regardless of pre-existing conditions, which means the Frosts would be continue to be left out.