George's Toy Boats

If your president's administration really had nothing to do with the creation of the Swift Boat smear ads, which is suspect given the ties that have been exposed, he should have condemned the ads when McCain called on him to do so. Actually, he should have done it before McCain called him out. It wouldn't have been hard, and it probably wouldn't have lessened the stomp of the ads very much.

But he didn't. And now he has to face this.

Stomp!

UPDATE: Josh adds some context to the Old Tricks ad:

There's another element to this ad that we'd be remiss not to note too. It puts McCain on the spot and pulls him right back to the center of this battle. Given the fervor of his words, he can hardly disavow them or complain of their use. But there's something else too. If you listen to the ad you'll see McCain hangs his demand for an apology on a letter signed by five senators, each Vietnam vets, calling on Bush to apologize for his smears against McCain.
The five, as reported by the Times on February 5th, 2000: Senators Max Cleland of
Georgia, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Charles S. Robb
of Virginia, and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.