"When Dotty Lynch, CBS's senior political editor, wrote a column criticizing Howard Dean on foreign policy, she was deluged with e-mails defending the Democratic presidential candidate, often in similar language.

'They were all rather insulting: 'Why don't you do your research?' ' Lynch says. 'When anything's orchestrated, you sort of smell a rat.'

The letters were indeed generated by Dean Defense Forces, a volunteer outfit affiliated with the doctor's campaign. Day after day, the DDF Web log, which is linked to Dean's official site, hammers reporters deemed critical of Dean and urges its followers to flood the in-boxes of offending journalists.

'When negative press gets written, we'll ensure that letters to the editor get printed in response. . . . The last couple of months have proven the effectiveness of our efforts at media response,' the DDF says.

Sometimes this is rough stuff. When New York Daily News columnist Zev Chafets slammed Dean's appearance on Tim Russert's 'Meet the Press,' the DDF denounced the piece as 'crap,' declaring:

'So here's what we're gonna do. First, we're gonna write Zev (zchafets@yahoo.com) and let him know what we think of his vitriol.'

Suggested themes: 'Russert used Republican lies for his policy research. . . . Anyone who saw Dean's performance knows it wasn't his best, but it was a hell of a lot better than Chafets's columns.'

Says Chafets: 'They were polite, but they took issue with the idea that Dean hadn't done well. They were not unintelligent, but it was pretty clear to me they were writing from talking points.'

Campaigns have always tried to gin up letters to news outlets, but the Internet's hyperspeed, which has helped Dean raise truckloads of money, has also made it easier to organize such campaigns.

And in an age when online commentators blast their critics around the clock, the Dean Defense Forces site uses comparable artillery, unloading on selected targets with a clever, cynical, sometimes sneering tone.

'The NY Post Proves Its Worthlessness Again,' says a typical headline. 'Associated Press Spinning for Kerry,' says another.

'Perhaps we should write Slate.com and tell them we want political coverage, not psychobabble musings from their writers?'

Dean spokeswoman Kate O'Connor referred questions to DDF chief Matthew Gross, who works out of the campaign's Vermont headquarters. Gross did not respond to three requests for comment. He appears to run a shoestring operation, with a dozen or so volunteers posting items and six donors, who have contributed a grand total of $585.

DDF has achieved some success with its letter-writing appeals, such as getting supporters' words read on CNN's 'Crossfire.' This followed an 'action alert' that said: 'Tucker Carlson called Howard Dean a far left and fringe candidate on 'Crossfire' the other day. Please send short snappy comments into the show in hopes that they'll be read in response. One or two sentences max.'

Under the headline 'We Get More Letters In,' the group congratulated three supporters for getting letters to the editor published in The Washington Post on July 10. But one of the writers, Charles Hanke of Bethesda, says he was not responding to the Web site. 'I was inspired by Dr. Dean's appearances on the talk shows,' the retired government worker says.

The DDF also touted two letters objecting to a New York Post column by Dick Morris, including this one from Robert Ellis, a DDF donor from Columbus, Ohio: 'Contrary to Morris's distorted characterizations, Dean is a centrist.'

And the Web site boasted that 'Dean supporters gave John Judis and Salon.com a mouthful following their story on Dean-as-the-next-McGovern,' with one letter calling Judis's piece 'pathetic.'

Judis says he heard from Dean backers after writing a New Republic piece applauding comments by candidate Joe Lieberman on Iraq. 'I got a bunch of e-mails saying I should have praised Dean, too,' Judis says. 'It was kind of gratuitous and irritating.'

A Dean aide told CBS's Lynch that she had been targeted, so she wrote back to some of the 30 Dean loyalists who contacted her. 'Dotty Lynch Is On To Us,' a subsequent posting said.

'I don't think it's intimidating,' Lynch says, 'but it gave me the sense they were paying attention and maybe, like their candidate, were a little bit prickly.'

One Dean supporter who wrote back, Tim Withers of Arlington, told Lynch, 'We just want to make sure he gets better treatment by the press than Al Gore did in 2000.'" (Howard Kurtz, Washington Post, July 26, 2003)