Kerry should counter-punch

[cal04]

Mr. Breslin, I think he's just begun

In the melee of television interviews, George Bush got a little philosophical and a whole lot careless when he said that he didn't think we ever could win this war on terrorism. They were playing John Kerry's song. Get in there and chase this guy. Bush doesn't know what he's doing and he doesn't know how to talk about it. He is getting a lot of poor young people killed. I don't believe one bit in this business of attacking in every news cycle or answering the attacks before the cycle is over, or whatever it is they do. It is a James Carville, small boy-playing-games approach to news. But the "no win" statement was different. John Kerry should have crashed onto Bush's campaign bus to challenge him and tell Bush that if he didn't think he could win, then let's get somebody in there who can.

If you can't win, George Bush, then I, John Kerry, will, starting in January.Instead, the first thing Kerry did was sit still. Maddeningly still. Day one, Bush uses the ring. He goes backward and to the sides and skims along the ropes and then it is another day and he says that he really didn't mean it the way it sounded and then on the next day, I don't know which one that is, but I do know the subject was covered with thick smoke and forgotten by everybody.

And now John Kerry goes in front of the American Legion in Nashville on Wednesday night and I don't know exactly what he said. Did he say that Bush said that he couldn't win and that he, Kerry, could? Is that what he said?And by now, what was he talking about? Buried in smoke was Bush's original statement. It is gone.

During the convention speeches, Staff Sgt. Aaron N. Holleyman, 26, of Glasgow, Mont., died when his military vehicle hit an improvised explosive device in Khutayiah. Holleyman was in the Army's lst Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group, Fort Campbell, Ky. He was one of four names of dead released by the Pentagon yesterday. In his speech Wednesday, Cheney quietly said that American dead are well over 1,000. The audience and the news industry failed to notice.

And in his speech last night, Bush did not mention Osama bin Laden. No Republican speaker was allowed to mention bin Laden through the convention. Pataki slipped and then made up for it with a vicious attack on Saddam Hussein. Bin Laden means failure and death in a war without end.Bush could get away with a speech like his last night because, so far, Kerry won't put up his hands.This is precisely how you lose a very big election. And as Teddy Atlas said, you will cry in the morning.

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/politics/rnc/ny-bres0903,0,4158651.column?coll=nyc-homepage-headlines