Keith Olbermann over at MSNBC.com's Hardblogger has a great piece that gives historical context to the dirty politics that we are seeing today.

The largest lie contained in the charges and counter-charges by the arm’s length anti-Bush and anti-Kerry campaigns (with small c’s) is that this is all somehow new to presidential politics, as if the broad smear and the mining of the candidates' distant past were not part-and-parcel of American history. The commentators who bemoan the corruption and debasement of the process are as disingenuous as some of the ads, and as convincing as Claude Rains announcing he was shocked, shocked, to discover gambling going on in Casablanca.

The Connecticut Courant, then a house newspaper of the Federalist Party, anticipated Dick Cheney by 204 years when it wrote during the election of 1800 that the election of Thomas Jefferson (“the drunkard and enemy of religion”) would doubtlessly foment Civil War. By 1802, the Richmond Recorder had reported the rumor of Jefferson’s liaison with Sally Hemmings (to hell with Monica Lewinsky— that’s a story with staying power).

More to the point of the Killian memos: in 1844, campaigning on behalf of Whig nominee Henry Clay, kingmaker Thurlow Weed composed a newspaper article quoting a third party who’d supposedly seen the slaves of Democratic nominee James K. Polk branded like cattle with his initials. The Whigs later sent letters to Democratic leaders bearing the forged signatures of other Democratic leaders, forecasting horrific defeat and urging them to stay home from the polls. There was a damaging forged letter ascribed to James Garfield in 1880 (he won the election anyway, but was assassinated, and if there’s a lesson in there I don’t know what it is), and another forgery that contributed to Grover Cleveland’s defeat in 1892.

There is no conclusion here about the legitimacy of the Killian letters, although I will conclude by confessing that the Political Science Fiction explanation (these were literally designed to be discredited) appeals to me, if only out of a wish that these hack politicians would actually come up with something new and not merely repeat tactics which constitute the sole living legacy of long-defunct parties like the Federalists and the Whigs, for cryin’ out loud.

The more of Olbermann's stuff I read and see, the more I like him. It's too bad it's Brian Williams and not him taking over for Brokaw after the election.