The Wrong Tactic

The right-wingers and even some centrists almost couldn’t contain their glee yesterday as the Drudge Report made vague allegations about a bimbo eruption at the Kerry campaign. Rush Limbaugh went right on the air with it, even though the supermarket tabloid that yesterday was quoting a “political insider”claiming that “Kerry could compete with Bill Clinton as a womanizer” was none other than the National Enquirer, the same paper that last year spread the news about Mr. Limbaugh’s addiction to painkillers. “This is just juicy,” Mr. Limbaugh declared. Gary Bauer, the social conservative and one-time Republican presidential candidate, began his daily email to supporters yesterday by breathlessly announcing,”The Kerry campaign is facing a gigantic crisis today in the wake of a story filed by the The Drudge Report alleging that a major personal scandal is on the verge of becoming public.” Even the venerable Mickey Kaus, a political centrist, was linking from his column on Slate to the Drudge Report and clucking about “personal piggishness.”