As all of us have no doubt seen by now, John Kerry has filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission against the group of Vietnam veterans running ads against him. As CNN writes,

The Kerry presidential campaign on Friday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, alleging ads from an anti-Kerry veterans' group are inaccurate and "illegally coordinated" with Republicans and the Bush-Cheney campaign.

The complaint was filed against Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. It states that "based on recent press reports and SBVT's own statements there is overwhelming evidence that SBVT is coordinating its expenditures on advertising and other activities designed to influence the presidential election with the Bush-Cheney campaign."

This story is just beginning to make its way across the news media, and I'm sure it will continue to develop through the evening newscasts tonight, into the Saturday papers, and gain new life with the Sunday talkshows. Come Monday, this issue could still have legs.

Just reading the articles can leave your head aching as the traditional media tries to equate progressive 527 groups which attack Bush on issues with the Swiftvets who are producing lies about Senator Kerry's war record. As the story continues to grow, however, I think it will begin to morph into a question of respective qualities between the two candidates, rather than a mere focus on their resumes. Here's my thinking.

Joshua Micah Marshall brilliantly wrote yesterday (well before the FEC complaint was filed) that this issue is actually about which candidate would be a stronger leader in defending America. How exactly does this work, you might ask. Simple.

There is a meta-debate going on here, one that I'm not sure even the practitioners fully articulate to themselves and one that I'm painfully aware the victims don't fully understand.

Let's call it the Republicans' Bitch-Slap theory of electoral politics.

It goes something like this.

On one level, of course, the aim behind these attacks is to cast suspicion upon Kerry's military service record and label him a liar. But that's only part of what's going on.

Consider for a moment what the big game is here. This is a battle between two candidates to demonstrate toughness on national security. Toughness is a unitary quality, really -- a personal, characterological quality rather than one rooted in policy or divisible in any real way. So both sides are trying to prove to undecided voters either that they're tougher than the other guy or at least tough enough for the job.

In a post-9/11 environment, obviously, this question of strength, toughness or resolve is particularly salient. That, of course, is why so much of this debate is about war and military service in the first place.

One way -- perhaps the best way -- to demonstrate someone's lack of toughness or strength is to attack them and show they are either unwilling or unable to defend themselves -- thus the rough slang I used above. And that I think is a big part of what is happening here. Someone who can't or won't defend themselves certainly isn't someone you can depend upon to defend you.

Demonstrating Kerry's unwillingness to defend himself (if Bush can do that) is a far more tangible sign of what he's made of than wartime experiences of thirty years ago.

Hitting someone and not having them hit back hurts the morale of that person's supporters, buoys the confidence of your own backers (particularly if many tend toward an authoritarian mindset) and tends to make the person who's receiving the hits into an object of contempt (even if also possibly also one of sympathy) in the eyes of the uncommitted.

Marshall then explains that previous Democratic nominees--namely Michael Dukakis and Al Gore--lost because they lost this "Bitch-Slap" battle, and thus looked too weak to effectively govern the country.

There was a fear among some Beltway Democrats that John Kerry, by not responding to these scurrilous attacks, was falling prey to the same affliction faced by Dukakis and Gore. Kerry, however, came out strongly yesterday by telling Bush to "bring it on" (it being the comparison of their respective Vietnam experiences). On Bush's failure to respond, Marshall writes in another post,

Amazing. President Bush isn't even man enough to answer a straight question about these Swift Boat ads. (You'll have to pardon my antiquated and gendered language. But I'm not sure English has any more presentable way to convey the same meaning.) Not only will Bush not answer them. He won't even let his press secretary do so.

So where does this all leave us?

Kerry's action today--filing an FEC complaint at just the right time to catch the national media's collective attention, perhaps through the weekend--was highly deft, and I think credit must be given to Kerry's media team for devising this new strategy. Perhaps the hiring of Clintonista Joe Lockhart has something to do with this, but I'm not certain. Whatever the cause of this significant shift in political strategy, one thing is for certain: this has been a change for the good.

By laying down the gauntlet on the Swiftvets ads, the Kerry campaign has put the Bush team in an extremely tough situation. In many ways, they've greatly upped the ante in the "Bitch-Slap" battle. Bush now has but two possible responses:

1. Allowing the Vietnam conversation to continue, thus opening up the debate to his lack of service in Vietnam and his possible drug use during that period, or
2. Backing down to Kerry, and thus appearing weak himself.

As you can clearly see, neither of these choices are particularly palatable for the Bush team, and it looks like Kerry has forced them into a no-win situation. Bush may have won the first battle, but Kerry's recent victory may proove more decisive. As a result, this war of words--and thus the election--may soon tip in favor of John F. Kerry.