Byrd In Power Dive?

Yes, yes, yes, it's fifteen months out from the next congressional elections, and neither likely candidate for the West Virginia senate seat up for grabs next year has even formally declared their respective intentions to run. But does this response to GOP attack ads running in Pavement Central USA make incumbent Kleaglecrat Robert Byrd look like he's tapped a newfound stash of political Viagra?

Eight-term Democratic Senator Robert C. Byrd has responded to a Republican ad criticizing his record by putting out his own spot that says the GOP commercial is false and misleading.

A cardinal rule of politics is that you never whine about the other side's tactics. National politics is hardball, the big leagues, and "negative advertising" is universal, and for one overarching reason: it works. Complaining about your opponent's ads is weak, weak, weak.

All the more so when your opponent's ads are spot-on accurate:

[T]he National Republican Senatorial Committee already has begun showing an ad that assails Byrd for his votes against President Bush on national security and taxes.

That's "votes." As in "on the record." Isn't even bringing up (yet) Byrd's verbal atrocities of recent vintage, like comparing the GOP unfavorably to Nazis a few months ago. Or his age, which would raise the question of whether he could even serve out a ninth senate term (at the end of which he'd be 93). All of these areas would be fair game as well and will (hopefully) be included in the campaign to unseat this elderly night rider.

And he's crying foul over one small issue-oriented ad in the Charleston/Huntington media market criticizing his voting record?

To borrow an expression from the noted philosopher Rancid Crabtree, politically speaking, King Concrete may not be "long for this whirl."

UPDATE: Patrick Ruffini of the soon-to-be-renamed Capito Central agrees....

UPDATE II: Greetings and salutations, Opinion Times readers!