I don’t want to go all Spinsanity on you, but I’m a bit irritated by something John Kerry’s web staff have done. I pointed out last week that they’ve launched a weblog dedicated to refuting dishonest attacks on the candidate called, not so cleverly, the DBunker. It’s a good idea — false accusations are a big part of the world of political campaigns, and the campaign is smart to have one clearinghouse for addressing and refuting them. Unfortunately, this effort is undermined when the campaign uses this outlet to broadcast disinformation of its own. For example, John Kerry recently got nailed for saying that he voted for the Helms Burton law in 1996 when, in fact, he voted against the final version of the bill. The DBunker responds by saying that Kerry may have voted against the final version of the bill but that he did vote for draft versions of it. Unsurprisingly, that bit of spin earned Kerry a Timothy Noah Whopper of the Week. The Kerry campaign would have been better served by saying that Kerry simply made a mistake when he claimed to have voted for the bill. Pretending never to make mistakes is one of the huge problems I have with the Bush administration, and I’m not pleased to see that sort of behavior from the Kerry camp.