This is why there is a problem with the 'establishment'

From Chris Suellentrop at Slate:

...Democrats now have an unlikely ally in their quest to prove that Bush has a history of these kinds of dirty tricks: Bob Dole. No one has done more to lend establishment respectability to the falsehoods being peddled against Kerry than Dole. The former Senate majority leader and 1996 presidential nominee of the Republican Party made several demonstrably false statements about John Kerry's war record this past Sunday on CNN's Late Edition before saying that "not every one of these people can be Republican liars. There's got to be some truth to the charges."

But Dole also made another statement that day, one that hasn't been aired until now. Of McCain's charge to President Bush during a 2000 debate—"You should be ashamed"—Dole told Wolf Blitzer, "He was right." Dole made the remark off-air...

There is a serious question here. How is it that someone who so casually abandons any moral high ground by claiming that if the amount of crap hurled at Kerry reaches at certain level then some of it must be true could have been considered a respected establishment figure (regardless of whether he was a presidential candidate)?

Dole peddles Bush's falsehoods (yes, they are Bush's) on air, but admits off air that this style of attack is wrong. What a coward.