It seems that the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive assaults applies to campaigning as well. It's better than that, though. They attack their opponents strengths where they have weakness. Bush-the-deserter attacks decorated-serviceman Kerry's criticism after the war. Bush the inexperienced criticizes Edwards-the-more-experienced-and-successful. Cheney the revisionist attacks Democrats for "rewriting history", claiming that absolutely everyone thought Iraq had WMD, we weren't really trying to get Osama, etc. Next thing you know, they'll be saying "Kerry was a cokehead", "Edwards is really the brains of the outfit", "Kerry has sex with dead goats". Well, it's possible the last one's not true about W, either.