Probably most readers of this site are also Atrios readers. So this message is mainly for those who aren't or who haven't stopped by recently.

I haven't written on this. But there's a congressional candidate named Paul Hackett, a Marine corps vet of this Iraq war, who's is in a harsh, down and dirty race in Ohio's 2nd District and in the midst of getting the worst slime treatment you can imagine from the Republican machine.

By the end of it, his volunteering to serve in the war zone will probably be cast as a sign of some deep character flaw or softness on terrorism.

Like I said, I haven't been on top of this. And there's no point in my trying to reproduce everything that's already been written and linked. But if you don't know about this race, go over to Atrios' site and just scroll down looking for posts with the name 'Hackett'. And find out what's going on.