Prince opens by calling these attacks by their true name - reactionary hit pieces from a terrified status quo:

What happens when the candidate who will shake up Washington the most also has the best chance of getting elected?

Everyone who likes things just the way they are gets scared and goes on the attack. If they can't attack the substance, they'll create "scandals" any way they can. [link added by me]

And after that, it just picks up steam, naming names and dismantling smears piece by piece. I especially like how Prince calls bullshit on the MSM's "hypocrite" meme - I've been waiting to hear that from the campaign for a while now.

The whole Washington establishment wants our campaign to go away, because they know that John Edwards means the end to business as usual. The Washington lobbyists and PACs don't want us to win because John is the only candidate who has never taken money from them. [this is true, by the way - Barack Obama used to take money from PACs, and Hillary's never stopped] The political mercenaries and the chattering class don't want us to win because they can't imagine a president who doesn't play by their rules. And you can bet that the big corporate interests -- from the insurance companies to the drug companies to the oil companies -- don't want us to win because John has been taking on special interests his entire life. So they attack him -- personally.

It's classic -- they don't want the American people to hear the message, so they attack the messenger. They call him a hypocrite because he came from nothing, built a fortune while standing up for regular people during some of their toughest times, and -- heaven forbid! -- he has the nerve to remember where he came from and still care passionately about guaranteeing every family the opportunities he had to get ahead. [emphasis in original]

On the theme of naming names and dismantling attacks, Prince gives special attention to the steaming pile of crap the NYT recently dropped on their front page:

Last week The New York Times ran a story suggesting that it was wrong for John to have spent the last three years raising awareness of poverty and advocating for solutions. As if there's any way to draw attention to poverty without publicity! And to make matters worse, the reporter just refused to even talk with any of the people who benefited -- like any of the 200 young people who got scholarships through the College for Everyone program, or the 700 students who went to New Orleans with John to help rebuild. So we really need your help to get our message out; please, give what you can today.

Prince then wraps up by pointing out that these smears are nothing new...

Like many of you, I've been with John since 2004. The same folks who are attacking him now went after him then. You know why? Because the Bush inner circle sensed what the polls tell us today -- that John Edwards is the best general election candidate we've got. Last time they attacked his hair; this time it's his haircut. But it's the same sad game. And this time, we can beat it.

...and asking for help in beating them back this time around:

For all the reasons we got into this -- to bring our troops back from Iraq, to solve global warming, to guarantee universal health care and to eliminate poverty -- and because we believe the politics of substance and purpose must trump cynicism and personal destruction -- this is a fight we must win. And together, we can.

Please give whatever you can afford to help us hit our $9 million goal by June 30th.

In other words, if you care about any or all of those issues - Iraq, global warming, UHC, poverty - John Edwards has your back. Do you have his?

Cross-posted at Daily Kos