"Even smear tactics require a certain plausibility. When you damn someone as a big scary mega-troubling racist misogynist homophobe and he seems to any rational observer perfectly non-scary and non-troubling, eventually you make yourself ridiculous. The boy who cried 'Wolf!' at least took the precaution of doing so when there was no alleged predator in view. If he'd stood there crying 'Wolf!' while pointing at a hamster, he'd have been led away for counseling. That's the stage the Senate Democrats are at."

—Mark Steyn