They only do this because you let them

Glenn Greenwald nails the coming shit-storm that Obama (or Hillary) will have to endure at the hands of the right-wing smear merchants and their captive media:

What our political establishment relies on more than anything else is keeping Americans distracted away from what they are really doing and focused instead on how Mike Dukakis looks in a helmet and whether he'd want to murder his wife's rapist; on blue dresses and penile spots; on the inspiration for Love Story and who invented the Internet; on how John Kerry looks in windsurfing tights, on how manly George Bush's brush-clearing is, and whether Nancy Pelosi's scarf-wearing means she loves the Terrorists. That's how our Beltway culture remains indescribably broken and corrupt without much protest or backlash.

Update: Yes, I was trying to recall an Everclear line with my title. Only later did the line echo true in my head, "They cannot hurt you unless you let them."