BIZARRELY, John Kerry is now clutching onto the document-challenged Dan Rather like a drowning man grabbing onto a sinking ship. Ask outside Democratic strategists, and they all say it makes zero sense for Kerry allies to piggyback on the Rather attacks against Bush's National Guard service now that the anchor's credibility is melting like the Wicked Witch of the West.

Worried Dems say it shows lack of discipline, lack of strategy, lack of message and freelancing — just what a slipping campaign can't afford. "It's stupid, it's stupid, it's stupid. Get off the National Guard and all that bull. Every day we talk about the National Guard and Vietnam is another day that George Bush wins. No one cares about 30 years ago," a top Dem says.

Another tells of a focus group of swing voters this week where no one even mentioned Rather's Guard flap but an unnerving number "parroted back" attacks on Kerry as a flip-flopper who lied about his Vietnam service. "The Kerry people think they didn't attack Bush hard enough. They're dead wrong. More attacks on Bush aren't a reason to vote for Kerry," this strategist says.

Others suspect the driving force in going after Bush on the Guard is a deep rage inside Kerry and wife Teresa — remember how she tried to paint Bush as a shirker at the Democratic convention? — over how the Vietnam issue has backfired on the Democrat candidate.

By this theory, Kerry simply can't accept the fact that the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans for Truth seriously damaged him with TV ads challenging his war and anti-war record.

Kerry, they say, is fixated on getting someone to do similar damage to Bush. But the Catch-22 is that Bush's Guard record is nothing new, while Kerry's attacks on fellow vets as rapists, pillagers and war criminals were news to most.

Republicans are bemused that Team Kerry now wants to piggyback on Rather. "All it does is gin up the Republican conservative base for Bush. They hate Dan Rather as much as they hate John Kerry," said GOP pollster Jim McLaughlin.

This article was published by The New York Post