...Liberal Oasis
puts it in perspective. Here's the Cliff Note version:
Because we're heading into the final days before the first Dem contests, and attacks will be flying faster than ever.
It will be near-impossible to check the accuracy of all of them.
Diehard supporters of one candidate will complain about the unfair attacks from the others, while insisting all their candidate is doing is mere responding or crystallizing differences on issues.
When the truth is no one is a saint, no one is the devil, and most everyone is open to being called a hypocrite.
Welcome to politics.
In any event, few Dems are looking for the nicest candidate.
They're looking for a candidate who is tough enough, engaging enough and savvy enough to have the best chance of beating Bush.
And a good scrum will be helpful in figuring out who can stand the heat -- because no one will survive running a strictly positive campaign come November.
Having said that, no one wants to back a guy who plays dirty. We still have principles, even when faced with the prospect of four more years of Dubya.
But with the state of the media what it is, objective referees are hard to come by.
Trying to determine what's a fair, factual attack and what's unfair distortion is hard, and it will get even harder as the campaign becomes a frenzied blur.
[snip]
So it's practically futile to try to base your decision on who is the cleanest campaigner.
And arguably, it's more important to determine who can best survive and thrive in a hostile campaign environment.
[snip]
In many ways, this stage of the primary season isn't fun.
The attacks are unseemly.
It isn't pleasant seeing people, most of whom you'd be willing to support in November, being nasty to one another.
And it's natural to worry about what the long-term impact of all these attacks will be.
But it's necessary. It's inevitable. And we'll have a strong candidate at the end because of it.
One of the strengths about frontloading the Democratic primaries is for the partisan heat to cool and for bitter memories of negative campaigning to fade. By the time our nominee rolls into the general election, he should be minty fresh, at least within the party. Which will be neccessary, since we'll need everyone working together to rebuff the onslaguht by the GOP smear machine.