How should the Democratic nominee respond to the attacks the Republican attack machine will launch, whether Hillary or Obama gets the nomination? Allowing our noble press corps to do it's job and contribute its vaunted "objectivity" will clearly never work. The press seems to relish repeating lies ad nauseam rather than exposing who and what is behind the attacks.

We all know how false and successful these attacks have been going back to Dukakis. For my part, I'd like to see the Democratic nominee do the following:

1. Tell everyone from the outset the attacks are coming, reminding people of the job done on John McCain in the SC Republican primary and John Kerry in the 2004 general election;

2. Identify the slimy operatives by name, in advance;

3. Ridicule the attacks, including making up some to look for: Does Obama have a Martian child?

4. Identify the financiers who repeatedly fund these things, including Karl Rove's buddies;

5. Have both the financiers and the slimy operatives investigated in every aspect of their lives, such as tax records, marital history, criminal records, history of civil litigation, credit history, bad debts, child support not paid, war profiteering, and complete history of hit operations on politicians, etc. Investigate anything that can be investigated within the law;

6. Publish portraits of these people;

7. Hit back at each attack within hours, complete with every negative fact about the individuals behind the attacks; if that is not immediately known, announce that the attack is a fabrication and investigators are on the case; strip away the phony organization, like the "Swiftboat Veterans for Truth," and expose the people, including the real businesses of the money people;

8. Name all the connections to the McCain campaign and all Republican politicians and organizations;

9. File law suits and criminal complaints wherever there is any conceivable legal basis against both organizations and individuals; get the slime merchants under oath and trap them in a lie, if nothing else. Make them spend their funds on lawyers instead of sliming political opponents.

In short, make their lives miserable the way they made the Clintons' lives miserable for eight years, and Kerry's life miserable in 2004. Pursue them with the tenacity Judicial Watch originally showed when it dogged the Clintons.

Democrats have to do something. The Republican attack machine will continue ruling this country until the people running the slime industry under a different organizational name each year have to pay the same price as their victims.