Willie Horton, Swift Boat veteran

Vodkapundit already anticipating the media response to a Kerry loss. [bolding mine]

I can tell you straight up what Chapter 3 of the Media History will be. That chapter will be titled, 'The Ghost Of Willie Horton.' In the eyes of the press, their candidate-of-the-moment will not be brought down by his own statements, actions, history and policies, but rather will be stabbed in the back by low-down, dirty, nasty, meaner-than-we-are Republican media stunts.

That was the mantra after Michael Dukakis was buried in 1988. Never mind the fact that Dukakis had a by-the-numbers Massachusetts liberal record, was personally cold, arrogant, and condescending, and espoused policies much farther to the left than most of the country was willing to accept. Like Kerry, Dukakis was the media's candidate, and when he lost, there had to be some reason other than outright rejection based on his history and policies--after all, if the electorate rejected them, why, that's the same thing as rejecting the press. That could never happen.

Thus was born the legend of Willie Horton, and the dark avatar Lee Atwater, who stole away that which was meant to be Dukakis' by divine right of media acclamation. So shall it be with the Swift Vets, destined to be forever lambasted as having unfairly prevented JFK2 from ascending to presidential power.

Exactly. Read it all.

James Taranto, writing in the Wall St. Journal, in "The Democrats' Patriotism Problem" cites patriotism both as an excuse for losses (Dukakis and Cleland) and just plain Democrat party history.

The Democrats' problem goes deeper than their flawed nominee. Just as in 1968, they are a party divided on questions of war and peace. This didn't matter during the seemingly placid 1990s, but today it puts them at a severe disadvantage. It's difficult to see how they can overcome it.

Which is why I have said from the first that if the Democrats wanted to reform their party, their first act would be to finally purge themselves of the looney Left and apologize for their past. The obvious solution is to gather all their nutcase Left in a termite tent, give them the nomination, let them be thoroughly defeated and make em go away. A humiliating loss for Kerry would appear to do all that, as long as he took the remainder of their nutcase Lefties with him.