WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE:

The Democrats' real problem (Michael Barone, 9/20/04, US News)

The problem for Kerry is that when he tries to change the subject, he seems to change his position. This is partly out of the typical politician's temperament: "Some of my friends are for the bill, and some of my friends are against the bill, and I'm always with my friends." But it also arises because the Democratic constituency that Kerry must rally to vote on Election Day and before (voting starts in Iowa September 23) is deeply split on issues like Iraq. Many think we should leave now. Others think we should persevere. Kerry is with his friends.

In an August back-and-forth, Bush got Kerry to say that, knowing what he does today, he still would have voted for the Iraq war resolution. Then last week he said it was "the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time" --though he had condemned a similar statement made by Howard Dean last December. On August 1, he said he would consider redeploying troops from Germany and South Korea. When Bush announced such deployments on August 16, Kerry denounced them. His latest line is to say that the $200 billion spent or to be spent on the Iraq war should have been spent on domestic needs. As a Democratic consultant once told me when I asked about an opponent's moves, "I'm puzzled by his strategy."

Puzzling as well is the Democrats' notion that attacking Bush's National Guard service is going to break the campaign wide open. Haven't they been watching the $60 million worth of anti-Bush ads the Democratic 527s have been running since March? Bush withstood that onslaught and stands, apparently, a little ahead. There's no guarantee he'll still be there after the debates or on Election Day. But, for the first time since January, it wouldn't require a sharp shift in opinion.

That continues to be the great mystery of the docudrama, why someone thought that even the forged documents mattered.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 12, 2004 1:41 PM