I might be wrong here, but I don’t see how Ben Barnes entering the picture is anything but terrible for Kerry.

First of all, one would think that Kerry should prefer that the American people not learn of his existence. I mean, given his history, it just don’t look good that he has access to Kerry and is raising all this money for him. This type is useful and common in politics, but you sure don’t trot them out.

Next, if this is the person you have to use to do a hatchet job on the Prez, he damn sure better have something close to an airtight case. But here you have a partisan hack contradicting his earlier version of a story, with his credibility the only thing propping the new version up.

This would would be fine for Kerry if the American people were never going to learn of Barnes’ background. After the SBVFT story broke they should know that this isn’t going to happen. Normally, I’d assume that there would have to be more to the story, but I think Kerry’s campaign/surrogates are so incompetent/desperate that I doubt it. They’re just throwing stuff at the walls hoping it’ll stick.

If the charges are as unsubstantiated as they seem, I can see the main thrust of this going from a GWB/National Guard story into a John Kerry/shady political donor/dirty tricks story very quickly. The MSM might be slow to register this, but they were forced to play catch-up with the Swift Vets story and there’s no reason it’s not going to happen again.