Liberals Unleash Negative Campaign

It took less than 12 hours after Martin's mediocre performance in last night's debate for the Liberal spin-machine to go into full-on negative mode. There are no less than 10 attack ads, many of which rely upon ages-old quotes from Harper, the usual blend of fear and smear, and a "liberal" approach to the truth. I've said many times that I've got nothing at all against "going neg," but for the Big Red Machine to do so immediately following a debate in which Harper kept his cool and looked Prime Ministerial while Martin was often agitated and making incomprehensible pledges to re-open constitutional discussions to revoke the federal government's ability to use the notwithstanding clause (something that it has actually utilized a whopping ZERO times) reeks of desperation. The s.33 "brainstorm" runs counter to anything that every Liberal prime minister, from Trudeau to Chretien, to strengthen the authority of the federal government over the provinces in its policy of central federalism. It will also simply not work, for if you open the constitutional can of worms, you will see demands from Alberta, British Columbia, the Atlantic and Maritime provinces, and maybe, just maybe, Quebec, to settle their own issues and grievances with the Constitution and the Charter of Rights.
As for the ads themselves . . . yawn. The Mike Harris reference means nothing to anybody who doesn't follow Ontario's provincial politics, including yours truly. The Liberals' record on child-care is an abomination. The Conservatives' full tax plan hasn't yet been released, so it's inappropriate to state that Harper is already running deficits (unlike Martin, who is himself a living democratic deficit). The Washington Times bit runs counter to everything Martin has said about a "more sophisticated" relationship with the United States; hardly surprising, since he's been doing that for many months now.
Let the winds of change keep blowing . . .

MAJOR UPDATE!
I guess this is what happens when I read about the first batch of ads, post a response, go do my school readings, and then not do the regular sweeps of the blogroll until after the debate is over. If you haven't heard the news by now, and to do that and be here is quite amazing, the Liberals have committed the most egregious sin in advertising since the Campbell Conservatives' "face" ad against Jean Chretien. They actually ran an ad based loosely on Cherniak's implication that Stephen