Explosives attack blows up in Kerry’s face

In the purely reactionary land of Kerryworld, every dark cloud is the work of George Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. So when the Al-Qaqaa tall-tale emerged, the attack dogs leapt. It just never occurred to Team Kerry that a large majority of Americans wouldn’t blame George Bush personally; as a result, the desultory attack seemed like a criticism of U.S. soldiers.

Here’s Hugh Hewitt in the Weekly Standard:

John Kerry now closes his presidential campaign exactly as he opened his political life: Attacking the United States military.

Thirty-three years ago, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he indicted the soldiers of Vietnam as war criminals, the heirs of Genghis Khan.

This week he embraced an already discredited account of missing munitions to attack the reputation of the 3rd Infantry Division and the 101st Airborne. Make no mistake, that is exactly what Kerry is doing when he asserts that deadly weapons went unsecured and unreported as these two divisions rushed to liberate Baghdad. And not just these divisions, but every officer and soldier who had a hand in drawing up the war plan. If the negligence that Kerry charges the military with was real, additional troops would not have made a difference. The initial search would still have been conducted by the 3rd I.D. and the site pronounced clear. The 101st would still have spent 24 hours in the munitions complex before moving on. Kerry cannot avoid owning the latest of many slanders he has launched at the military as a means of wounding the president.

In laying out his case for “The Myth of the Missing Explosives,” Ralph Peters concludes:

Sen. Kerry knows this is a bogus issue. And he doesn't care. He's willing to accuse our troops of negligence and incompetence to further his political career. Of course, he did that once before.

And Crush Kerry lards on the metaphors in this detailed and link-heavy post:

You can tell just how desperate Kerry has become in the last week or two by the sheer audacity of his lies. Recently he's been scaring people into thinking that the draft is coming back, made unsupported allegations that Bush has a "January Surprise" to reduce social security, charged Bush with having a "secret plan" to raise milk prices in Wisconsin, and claimed that Bush paid more attention to tax cuts for the rich than he did Osama Bin Laden. The list goes on and on.

But Kerry should have quit while he was ahead (or to be more accurate, almost tied). He showed his desperation and willingness to say anything by grabbing onto the "NYTrogate" story way too quickly, even putting out a TV ad in less than a day. By locking himself in that the phantom "disappearance" was the result of Bush's incompetence, he sealed his fate.

In less than 48 hours the story is coming apart faster than a virgin's gown on prom night. You can tell just how bad it is when the publisher of the lie, in this case The New York Times is retreating quicker than a French soldier.

As I’ve said before, John Kerry will say anything if he believes it will help his campaign. Now it looks like he’s gone one lie over the line.