Blunder?

John Kerry has promised to make the last week of the camapign about domestic issues. Yet, his main line if attack continues to be Iraq and the War on Terror, particularly the ridiculous assertions about al-Qaqaa. John Podhoretz thinks that this is a tactical mistake that will sound the death knell of the Kerry campaign.

Ignore for a moment the conflicting details of the incredibly confusing story about the 380 tons of high explosives that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility south of Baghdad. Accept, for now, John Kerry's contention that the explosives went missing after the fall of Baghdad and that President Bush's negligence in the planning and execution of the war and its aftermath are responsible.

The other day, Kerry said: "After being warned about the danger of major stockpiles of explosives in Iraq, this administration failed to guard those stockpiles — where nearly 380 tons of highly explosive weapons were kept. Today we learned that these explosives are missing, unaccounted for and could be in the hands of terrorists."

Kerry has just bollixed up his own storyline about the war in Iraq. He is concluding his campaign by drawing an explicit association between Saddam Hussein, dangerous weaponry and international terrorists.

That's Bush's argument. Not Kerry's.