Good points - the Demagogues love to bleat and whine about the supposed “Republican playbook” but what we are witnessing here is very similar to what the Demagogues did in the “MD4Bush” matter — they are trying to pre-empt a whole line of criticism (and then by association many other sorts of criticism) of their candidate by smearing the critics. For all the whining about ‘smears’ these vicious depraved Demagogues do an awful lot of smearing themselves.
It is really hair-curlingly scary to see how many scenarios that have worked for Md dems are then used nationally. We are such a one party state that it is a safe lab for schemers to try out nasty tricks.