Certainly sounds like it so far.
Before you hit that alert button because I used the word "bitchslap", you might want to read this:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/003295.php
There is a meta-debate going on here, one that I'm not sure even the practitioners fully articulate to themselves and one that I'm painfully aware the victims don't fully understand.
Let's call it the Republicans' Bitch-Slap theory of electoral politics.
It goes something like this.
On one level, of course, the aim behind these attacks is to cast suspicion upon Kerry's military service record and label him a liar. But that's only part of what's going on.
Consider for a moment what the big game is here. This is a battle between two candidates to demonstrate toughness on national security. Toughness is a unitary quality, really -- a personal, characterological quality rather than one rooted in policy or divisible in any real way. So both sides are trying to prove to undecided voters either that they're tougher than the other guy or at least tough enough for the job.
In a post-9/11 environment, obviously, this question of strength, toughness or resolve is particularly salient. That, of course, is why so much of this debate is about war and military service in the first place.
One way -- perhaps the best way -- to demonstrate someone's lack of toughness or strength is to attack them and show they are either unwilling or unable to defend themselves -- thus the rough slang I used above. And that I think is a big part of what is happening here. Someone who can't or won't defend themselves certainly isn't someone you can depend upon to defend you.
Demonstrating Kerry's unwillingness to defend himself (if Bush can do that) is a far more tangible sign of what he's made of than wartime experiences of thirty years ago.
Hitting someone and not having them hit back hurts the morale of that person's supporters, buoys the confidence of your own backers (particularly if many tend toward an authoritarian mindset) and tends to make the person who's receiving the hits into an object of contempt (even if also possibly also one of sympathy) in the eyes of the uncommitted.
You'd think that after we got this treatment, repeatedly, Pelosi would have learned.
Oh, that assumes she's on our side. She only pretends to be on our side. She makes a few good speeches, pretends to push back for a little bit (weakly, of course - she'll armtwist anyone in the House who ramps up the rhetoric enough to actually be effective,) then armtwists everyone she can get to do a 1...2...3...CAVE!!! We've been bitchslapped! We saw it on FISA. We saw it on Kyl-Lieberman. We saw it on Iraq war budget wrangling. It's all carefully choreographed.
The only proper response to a bitchslap is an immediate retaliatory right hook, but that part's never forthcoming. Once the cave happens, we become the party of Alan Colmes. Obama knows how to deal with the bitchslapping from the McCain campaign - he counterattacked with a flurry of attack ads, a series of high-profile events where he attacked and ridiculed McCain mercilessly, and he pressed the attack, and now we're rocketing ahead in the polls. I'll bet Nancy's just waiting for the right moment to undermine all this work.
I'll bet she's timing this so the 1...2...3...CAVE!!! happens right before the election. She, and the Bushies know exactly what will happen - Democratic polls across the board, especially Obama's will drop like a rock because everyone will perceive us to be a bunch of wimps.
That's the perception they're trying to create - the party that is endlessly bitchslapped.
Pelosi is more richly rewarded by the lobbyists and corporatists by pretending to be the loyal, but ineffectual opposition, than by actually working to bring us to real power.
She's as bad as fucking Lieberman.
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