Even the so-called liberal media…

…gets it right once in a while, and when it happens, it's often as not E.J. Dionne making it happen. I could pick at some of the sub-points in his latest WaPo column, but in the main, he's spot on...

...dissing Kerry is an easy way for Democrats to evade discussion of what the party needs to do to right itself. By focusing on the past, the Kerry alibi allows Democrats to avoid engaging the future. In 2008, the Democrats could nominate a candidate who combines Harry Truman's toughness, JFK's charm and FDR's gifts of leadership -- and still face many of the problems Kerry confronted. Blaming everything on Kerry as a supposedly elitist, stiff and indecisive Massachusetts liberal is the Democrats' version of cheap grace.

We nominated the best candidate available last year, and he was buried in a flood of misinformation from the most crooked, lying bunch of politicians and operatives in the business, abetted by their handmaidens in the national press. None of his primary competitors could have avoided an assault, and I don't think any of them could have weathered it better.

All along, Bushco and their media pals were aided by anti-Kerry carping among certain factions of what passes for a 'progressive' movement who have never stopped. Continuing to tear John Kerry down does nothing to enhance a progressive agenda, or to improve our electoral prospects. In fact, the reverse is true.

It's destructive, it's boring, it's time to knock it off.