Is this part of the $5 million Texas moneybags Bob Perry has donated to republican 527s to run negative adds against Democratic candidates? The same Perry who funded the swifties to the tune of $5 million. He seems to like giving $5 million at a crack. See Muckraker on Perry.

The basic idea is to throw a lot of crap against the wall and hope some of it sticks. The retraction of this ad won't get any coverage, it's the first impression with voters that counts.

Santorum has more baggage than a Pullman car. His kids schooling in Va being paid for by PA taxpayers, a charity he created that hired his friends and staff (a new Republican scam taken up by other Republicans in Congress), his pushing Medical malpractice with a cap of $250,000 when his wife sued a chiropractor for $500,000 and settled for $300,000, and it was a case in which he testified. He backs private Social Security accounts and his rating by the League of Conservation voters is always either Zero or close to it. The Sierra Club's latest Environmental scoreboard has judged 5 important votes, all of which Santorum voted the wrong way.

Maybe Casey is holding the above and other ammunition till the election nears. If I were Casey I'd make an ad of the Meet the Press episode where Russert showed how often Santorum voted for
Bush initiatives, they're tied at the hip.

Even if the next attack comes tomorrow, it is worth pondering that we've gone 5 years without the savages being able to mount another terrorist attack in a country virtually designed for terrorist attacks, a country where we search the purses of little old ladies so that recent immigrants from Saudi Arabia named "Mohammed" wearing massive backpacks don't feel singled out.

But instead of news stories about how we must be doing something right in the war on terror, we're being carpet-bombed with news stories about how Bush doesn't have a "plan," the war was based on "lies," we're losing the war, the redcoats are coming!