Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

30 to 40 percent of Kerry voters disagree with his latest position on Iraq

Dick Morris:

Kerry: New Iraq shift invites devastating attack.

STUNG by criticism that his campaign lacks direction and focus, Sen. John Kerry has chosen to base his candidacy on an all-out assault on President Bush's record in Iraq — indeed, opted to move to the left decisively and attack the war head-on.

Liberals will cheer Kerry's new-found decisiveness, but it opens the way for Bush to deal him a counterstroke that can all but end this election and finish off Kerry for good.

Kerry's right flank is now gapingly vulnerable to a Bush attack. According to Scott Rasmussen's tracking polls, 30 to 40 percent of Kerry's voters disagree with his new leftward tilt on Iraq.

That is, even as the Democrat condemned the war in Iraq as a "diversion" from the central mission of the war on terror, a large minority of his own voters disagrees and sees it as "integral" to the battle to respond to 9/11.

Kerry has moved to the left, leaving about one-third of his vote behind. Bush can now move in and peel off Kerry's moderate supporters.

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Part of Kerry's vulnerability on the Iraq issue is because he is really not proposing anything new to deal with the war. His four-part "plan" — which centers on urging our allies and the U.N. to do more and calls for strong efforts to provide jobs to Iraqis (the John Edwards message, sent abroad) and to train Iraqi police and troops — just mirrors what Bush is already doing.

That is, it is only in retrospect — in criticizing past actions — that Kerry really differs from Bush. He is proposing no real alternative for action in the future.