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Such distinctions don't exactly ring as campaign themes. On Wednesday, Vice President Cheney did his best to worsen Mr. Kerry's troubles. He issued a statement noting that Mr. Kerry "voted for the war" but turned against it "when it was politically expedient" and now has his aides "saying that his vote to authorize force wasn't really a vote to go to war."
"We need a commander in chief who is steady and steadfast," he said.
Rand Beers, a former National Security Council official in the Clinton and Bush administrations before he left to help Mr. Kerry formulate his foreign policy positions, said in an interview on Wednesday: "We have said we think there are four elements" in Mr. Bush's approach to the war that are clearly different from how Mr. Kerry would have handled the confrontation with Mr. Hussein.
"Rushing to war is one, doing it without enough allies is two, doing it without equipping our troops adequately is three, and doing it without an adequate plan to win the peace is a fourth," Mr. Beers said. "If you want to add a fifth, it's going to war without examining the quality of your intelligence."
In fact, in interviews since the start of the year, Mr. Kerry has been relatively consistent in explaining his position.
Mr. Bush may be seeking his moment now because polls show that Mr. Kerry's approach to Iraq is resonating with voters as strongly as Mr. Bush's - in some cases more strongly. That may explain why Mr. Kerry is willing to suggest some dates for the start of troop withdrawals, something he would not do a month ago.
Mr. Bush still has an edge, polls show, in the handling of terrorism. On Wednesday his campaign released a new television ad in which the president discusses the need for pre-emptive action then says "I can't imagine the great agony of a mom or a dad having to make the decision about which child to pick up first on September the 11th.''
It is the third spot the campaign has released in the last two weeks that refers to terrorism, the first in which Mr. Bush speaks of it himself.
Democrats said that the Bush campaign's decision to have the president refer so much to the Sept. 11 attackswas a sign of desperation. But Mr. Kerry's team is still trying to figure out how their man can crystallize a message on Iraq. "You have to hand it to Bush and Cheney,'' Mr. Biden said. "When it comes to using the big megaphone of the presidency, they are the masters.'' |
