This whole Swift Boat Veterans for Truth flap serves to illustrate how broken the current electoral system is in America. Here we have two candidates that have each raised ridiculous amounts of money for this campaign season. They are each running nationwide campaigns, creating ads, and buying time. I’m amazed that the center of this debate is focusing on the involvement of these so-called 527 groups.

If Bush really doesn’t believe in the involvement of these kind of groups in the political process, then he should have come out sooner to condemn them. I think his position right now is more out of convenience than conviction. But Kerry is a complete hypocrite if on one hand he uses his Vietnam service as the cornerstone of his campaign, but then refuses to answer allegations about his military record. If he’s going to make up stories about being in Cambodia, or about war-time atrocities as part of his military service, then he needs to stand and answer these charges.

Kerry is still linking to this page that tears apart Bush’s service record, even though Bush has never used his military experience as a campaign issue. I thought Kerry wanted to run a clean campaign. Isn’t that what he promised back at the DNC?

The bottom line is that 527s are a part of doing business on the campaign trail these days. They exist on both sides (Club for Growth, meet MoveOn.org), so rather than calling on each other to condemn these ads, the candidates need to suck it up and play ball. If someone runs an ad challenging you, then you have two options — ignore it or respond to it. Calling foul isn’t one of those options.