According to Factcheck, A Progress for America Voter Fund ad claims Kerry has "a 30-year record of supporting cuts in defense and intelligence," misleading charges that we've de-bunked before. It also accuses Kerry of "endlessly changing positions on Iraq," a claim that is without factual basis.

Kerry responded with his own ad, quoting a New York Times editorial calling the Bush campaign's recent statements about Kerry and terrorism "despicable."

“The ad is more remarkable for its fearsome imagery, somber background music and the voice-of-doom manner of its announcer than for the words it presents. It suggests that voters can't trust Kerry to defend against terrorism and take their lives in their hands if they vote for him.”

The “despicable ad begins by showing 9/11 plot leader Mohammed Atta, Osama bin Laden and other terrorists while the announcer slowly intones: "These people want to kill us."

It presents more images of the attack on Russian school children, the attack on a Spanish commuter train, and firemen in the smoking rubble of the World Trade Center after September 11, 2001.

The announcer claims that Kerry "has a 30-year record of supporting cuts in defense and intelligence."

Fact: “in his nearly 20 years in the Senate Kerry has voted for Pentagon budgets far more often than he's opposed them, and hasn't voted against one for the past eight years.”

As for intelligence cutting — “The 1995 cut was small and would have amounted to a reduction of roughly 1%. This time cuts had bipartisan support, after it was discovered that intelligence officials had secretly hoarded more than $1 billion in unspent funds. A Republican-sponsored cut of $1 billion eventually became law as part of a House-Senate package endorsed by the Republican leadership.

One fact is clear: politics in down and dirty.