OTHER THAN HIS ENTIRE VOTING RECORD (via Mike Daley):

Kerry not weak on defense, McCain says (Nancy Benac, 3/19/2004, Associated Press)

Asked on two morning television shows yesterday whether he thought Kerry was weak on defense, the Arizona senator was quick to bat down the suggestion. Furthermore, he chided both parties for waging such a "bitter and partisan" campaign.

"This kind of rhetoric, I think, is not helpful in educating and helping the American people make a choice," he said on "The Early Show" on CBS.

McCain said Kerry would have to explain his voting record, but also told NBC's "Today" show: "No, I do not believe that he is necessarily weak on defense. I don't agree with him on some issues clearly. But I decry this negativism that's going on on both sides."

There's your next ad--a vote by vote comparison of Kerry vs. McCain on issues from the Contras to the Iraq Supplemental, about which Mr. McCain had the following to say:

Mr. President, we have begun a debate that may ultimately be more consequential than the war debate we had in this chamber last October, which culminated in the votes of 77 Senators authorizing the President of the United States to go to war against Saddam Hussein s Iraq. A negative Senate vote last fall, before our country was committed to liberating and reconstructing Iraq, would have weakened the President s leadership and made America less secure. But a vote against reconstructing Iraq now, with 130,000 American forces on the ground, American credibility before friends and enemies at stake, and the enormous responsibility of helping the Iraqi people rebuild their country now on our shoulders, would doom Iraq's transformation to failure, with grave consequences for the entire Middle East, and devastate American leadership in a dangerous world.

In other words, Mr. McCain believes that John Kerry voted to doom Iraq's democratic transformation to failure and devastate U.S. leadership in the world.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 19, 2004 2:04 PM