Liberal or Painted-as-Liberal?

There is lots of this in the pre-debate hype, as Katie Couric exemplifies: “Both candidates are set to go on the offensive, with President Bush planning to tar Senator Kerry as an old-fashioned tax-and-spend liberal…” Others say Bush will “attempt to paint” Kerry as liberal. Hmm. To me, this sounds like “Tonight, Bush will attempt to paint night time as dark.”