“Talking Points Memo”:http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/ has an excellent article on “why W and Kerry are still neck-and-neck in the polls”:http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_12.php#003465 despite W’s disastrous policies in Iraq becoming more obviously disastrous each day.

_Bush has sought — with real success — to edge Iraq out of the campaign dialogue by putting the issue back on to Kerry, asking what he would do differently…_

_…in this way, [he] has managed to derive political advantage from the magnitude of his own failure._

_Politically, Kerry needs to ignore the commentators who will press him to come up with a twenty point plan … though the way forward may be murky, the last person you want to lead the country down that foggy path is the guy who screwed everything up so badly in the first place._