Atrios is exactly right when he praises the left for owning the cycles of the media lately:

There were a lot of complaints about the people running the Kerry campaign/DNC during the month of August when they appeared to be blindsided by the Swift Boat nonsense. But, I think they should be complimented on how they've been doing things. They've managed to completely own the post-debate spin for both of these debates, highlighting what a nitwit Bush was and highlighting what a liar Dick Cheney was. They've managed to get the information out there, and fast. At least after the first debate (I didn't notice this time), they bought up the banner ads a bunch of major newspapers touting Kerry's performance.

It's rare that our side owns even an entire news cycle. And, of course, given our in the tank media it's never quite perfect. But, we've pretty much owned it since Kerry's debate - the thing which came closest to dislodging us was Drudge's magic pen. Nice try, but no luck.

There must be a real effort to own each and every news cycle from now until November 2nd. There may be times where news from Iraq and elsewhere does the job, unfortunately. When that's not the case, there must be no lessening of effort -- it's too easy to get distracted by memo nonsense, or bullshit about carrying something illegal into the debates, or something. They'll try to find something.