It is all coming home to roost for John F. Kerry. He now has so many different positions on record that any time he makes a forceful declaration or proposes a policy initiative, a contradictory quotation or, worse, a video clip, can be found, reinforcing his image as a feckless flip—flopping fraud. (A man whose middle name is Forbes would be well—advised to avoid the verbal gimmick of playing on his opponent's middle initial.)

Yesterday saw Kerry, under the influence of new advisors drawn from the Clinton Machine, attempt to re—position himself. But his much—heralded declaration in Cincinnati that the 'two hundred billion dollars' spent on Iraq could have funded a cornucopia of welfare state benefits was immediately checkmated by his Meet the Press appearance in August of last year, in which he announced he wanted even more billions for Iraq than were currently allocated. His comments on the 1000th American death in Iraq included words which seemed to indicate he saw the sacrifice of lives there as part of the War on Terror, contradicting his previous contention that the operations there were a distraction from the serious business of fighting terror.

His infamous sound—byte that 'I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it' only gains in lethality each time his record is successfully searched for the refutation of his latest pronouncements. Kerry is well into Al Gore territory, where his reputation as an exaggerator, or worse, subjects his every forceful declaration to skepticism, refutation, or derision.

Even his 'independent' allies in the world of 527 organizations are caught in the same quicksand. Last month, the American public was sternly lectured that it was unthinkably heinous to dredge—up critics of a candidate's military service over thirty years in the past. We were told that a web of connections between a 527 group's donors and members of a campaign organization constituted evasion of the law or worse. And we were told that only people who worked within a few feet of the military officer in question as his direct subordinates were qualified to comment on his service. But now, an organization mockingly incorporating the word 'truth' in its title (to remind us of all the parallels) mocks all the pieties so recently invoked to discredit the Swiftees.

The world is currently seeing another upsurge in Islamicist terror attacks. Russia's agony was today supplemented by a car bomb attack on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. Each additional slaughter of innocents further focuses the American voting public on the gravity of the threat to our survival. In the face of an implacable enemy, weather vane leadership has appeal only to those driven by their own implacable hatred of the current President.

Implacable hatred, never a broadly appealing posture, is getting an even worse reputation in today's world.

John F. Kerry's campaign is now at the point where it has no good options left. The wheels may still be on his campaign bus, but they are not able to achieve any degree of traction. Slick political positioning has serious consequences for the road to victory. It is hard to imagine what kind of tow truck could pull Kerry out of the mess he has created for himself.