A reader at TPM just made possibly the best comment I've read all week:

I agree with the points of your "Please, please, reporters with brains" entry, but I think you might need to be included in the group of reporters/bloggers/etc. that is following the McCain script. As usual, there will basically be two responses to this story - both favorable to McCain. The first will be the hoards of dutiful reporters parroting whatever interpretation McCain feeds them. The second will be the righteously indignant Obama defenders with all their nuanced facts decrying his innocence. So, what we get is a strong and offensive position versus a correct, but overly cerebral and defensive argument. Strategy versus tactics? Come on - the wingnuts must laugh their asses off every time they see this script play out.

Why cede the offensive position? The offensive rebuttal is to first completely ignore the way McCain framed the position and then just flip it around - "why does McCain so desperately want to convince the public that his Iraq policy is just like Obama's?" Because the public long ago figured out that he was stuck carrying Bush's turd and McCain damn well knows his campaign is swirling the drain along with it. What's more to be said than "John McCain would LOVE to convince the public that he and Obama don't differ in their Iraq policy - why is that? Because McCain and Bush got us into this Iraq nightmare and the public knows that Obama will get us out." Repeat after me - McCain and Bush got us into this Iraq nightmare and Obama will get us out. Repeat. Repeat.

Completely accurate. What we tend to think of as playing defense is all too often simply conceding the touchdown and trying to block the extra point. What we think of as playing offense is simply trying to hold them at the 20 yard line. What we are NOT doing often enough is trying to score.

This means that simply counterattacking is not enough. We need MORE stuff like the Wesley Clark remarks, not less. Perhaps not on quite as personal a level, but we successfully defined the narrative for the campaign the first half of the week, and the GOP didn't get it back until McCain announced a campaign shakeup that actually had been going on for a few weeks. If we continue to shove McCain back, it won't be pretty, but we will completely knock the legs out from under the Republicans, who appear ready once again to campaign entirely on the premise of Republicans being much stronger than the Democrats.