I can't help but think this is a tactical error. Kerry has made a commercial (tacitly) attacking Bush for running the Swift boat ads. The ad is simply video of John McCain saying in 2000:

"Let me tell you what really went over the line. Governor Bush had an event, and he paid for it, and standing, and stood next to the spokesman for a fringe veterans group. That fringe veteran said that John McCain had abandoned the veterans. Now I don’t know how if you can understand this George, but that really hurts."

That really hurts. And so five United State senators, Vietnam veterans, heroes. Some of them really incredible heroes, wrote George a letter and said “apologize.” You should, you should be ashamed.

The point being that Bush is doing this again in 2004. This is a mistake on a number of levels.

1 People can figure out Bush is not running the Swift Boat ads mostly because the ads don't say "I'm George Bush and I approve this message."

2 It keeps the Swift Boat controversy alive.

3 It keeps Kerry on defense and you can't win from there.

4 The centerpiece of Kerry's campaign is that we know he can be tough on National Defense because he went to Vietnam. This ad steps on that message by making Kerry look like a whiner and not a fighter.

5 In a fit of political blindness, they use McCain in an attack commercial. The biggest whiny baby, "Teacher, he said something not nice" Senator of them all is sure to RUN to a video camera and whine about the ad, making Kerry look bad.

6 People will not vote for or against George Bush because he refused to condemn an ad or even how he runs his campaign. People will vote or not vote for Bush on how he runs the country. Kerry is wasting time and money knocking Bush things where even if he is right, people won't change a vote over. He may as well attack Bush's fashion sense. It may be red meat for the Bush haters but do they need to be fed any more?

Maybe one of you lefties can make the case how this helps the campaign. Maybe I'm missing the genius.

Hopeful they'll be poll numbers on this ad. I'd be interested, because right now I think it is a colossal waste of campaign resources. But maybe they have a focus group that says otherwise.

BTW- Read this press release, Kerry is sooo on defense right now.