Kerry Lowers the Boom

John Kerry, unleashed:

"If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they're crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I'm sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did. I'm not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq . It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have. The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it. These Republicans are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor. Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they're afraid to debate real men. And this time it won't work because we're going to stay in their face with the truth and deny them even a sliver of light for their distortions. No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq ."

If Republicans want to spend the last week before the election talking about Iraq, that's fine with me:

"Raging violence in Baghdad in recent weeks has further darkened Americans' mood about Iraq -- the issue voters call most important to their election decision-making. The result: voters want Democrats rather than Republicans to control Congress by a 15-point margin, 52% to 37%. That gap matches the record for the question in Journal/NBC polls, set earlier in October.

"Iraq sits in the middle of this election," says Bill McInturff, the Republican pollster who helps conduct the Journal/NBC survey. While Republicans may welcome voters' improving attitudes toward the economy, adds Democratic counterpart Peter Hart, "they're getting swamped on the issue of Iraq."

In fact, the poll demonstrates how attitudes on Iraq in effect translate into voters' ballot choices. A 54% majority of the electorate now says removing Saddam Hussein from power wasn't worth the human and financial costs -- the highest percentage in the Journal/NBC poll since the war began in March 2003. Among those voters, fully eight in 10 want Democrats to control Congress after the elections."