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JOHN KERRY GETS STUCK IN A QUAGMIRE VS. SWIFT FOES

BY DEBORAH ORIN
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August 26, 2004 -- AS THE Swift vets furor rages, even some fellow Democrats are lamenting that Sen. John Kerry's campaign war room looks pretty inept for escalating and prolonging it.

"If they think this is a winner right now, they're smoking something. It's time to take your lumps and move on. They've got to get back on their game and talk about jobs and health care," says a longtime Democratic strategist.

The Democrats let "Fahrenheit 9/11" filmmaker Michael Moore have a seat in the presidential box at their convention, but they ignored a basic marketing lesson from his anti-Bush film — controversy sells.

Every time Kerry blasts the Swift vets, donations for more anti-Kerry ads go ka-ching on their Web site — $2 million so far — cable news goes all-out, and the anti-Kerry book "Unfit for Command" now tops best-seller lists.

But like a senator scoring points in a debate, Kerry seems determined to try to have the last word, and right now, his team is crowing that it has successfully spun the story to blame the anti-Kerry ads as a sneaky Bush tactic.

Republicans say they couldn't care less — the media may be focused on that, but what real people see is that a shockingly large number of men who served with Kerry in Vietnam think he's unfit to be president. After all, 264 oppose him and just a few dozen back him.

The flap may be taking a toll — a Los Angeles Times national poll last night had Bush ahead of Kerry, 49 to 46 percent, a switch from last month, when Kerry led by 2 points.

Kerry's rating dropped on his Vietnam service, leadership, honesty and fitness to be commander-in-chief.

More ominously, by prolonging the Swift Vets issue, Kerry has let it turn to the anti-war past that he's been trying to airbrush out of his bio.

Now the focus is moving to how he smeared fellow Vietnam vets as war criminals.

That's the focus of the second Swift vet ad, showing Kerry — in his own words and laconic patrician accent — claiming it was routine for U.S. soldiers to rape, pillage like "Genghis Khan" and cut off ears.

That ad sure isn't likely to win Kerry a very warm reception next week when he speaks to the American Legion.

Worse yet, Kerry speaks on Wednesday, the day after President Bush speaks to the Legionnaires with popular Vietnam hero Sen. John McCain by his side.