Kerry and the Kitchen Sink

John Kerry comes out swinging on George Bush's Iraq policy today by saying he is going to use "the Bush Test" to evaluate the President's own performance in the War in Iraq. Using a rhetorical tongue lashing by turning the President's own words back on him, Kerry continues to use the discredited missing explosives story which many news organizations, including FOX News, showed were already gone from the Al Qaqaa facility back in April 2003 (according to archived news reports). Yet Kerry's brash statements against the Iraq policy continue:

"In speeches in Madison and earlier in Toledo, Ohio, Kerry launched a withering attack on Bush over 380 tons of explosives that disappeared from an Iraqi military facility around the time of the U.S.-led invasion last year.

He also chided his rival for invoking the memory of President John Kennedy and drew a contrast between the way Kennedy dealt with the bungled Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba and how Bush has handled Iraq."

Kerry threw the words back at the president during an appearance in Toledo, where he announced he was going "to apply the Bush standard" and declared: "Mr. President, I agree with you."

"George Bush jumped to conclusions about 9/11 and Saddam Hussein," he said. "George Bush jumped to conclusions about weapons of mass destruction ... George Bush jumped to conclusions about how the Iraqi people would receive our troops. He not only jumped to conclusions, he ignored the facts he was given."

These statements can only be accounted for as an attempt to gin up his base and use the media to reduce the gains President Bush has been making in these last weeks. Though the polls are wavering daily, many internal polls are pointing to problems for Kerry in states like Ohio, Michigan and New Jersey where the President is doing much better than expected. By reminding his base of their already strong belief that the President lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs, Kerry encourages stronger turnout within his faltering base. And the media's coverage of Kerry's speeches have been largely biased toward the Massachusetts Senator by ignoring growing evidence that the military did not allow weapons to slip into the hands of terrorists. And the media as well have yet to give substantial coverage of The Washington Times' investigation showing that Russia may have helped Iraq send banned weapons to Syria in the weeks leading up to the war.

Look for the Kerry attacks and media obfuscation to continue. The last-minute mudslinging has only just begun. Kerry hopes for his sake that both camps look like two children fighting in the sandbox. In so doing, a juvenile Kerry brings President Bush down from his mature perception in the eyes of the voters.

It just may work.

Yahoo! News - Kerry Uses Bush's Own Words to Call Him Unfit