One of Ours

Ron Brownstein makes a reasonably compelling case for why Kerry isn't likely to get quite as much mileage out of the revelations disclosed in Richard Clarke's book and this week's 9/11 commission hearings as you might expect:

...most Republicans remain cautiously optimistic that this week's events won't significantly erode public approval of Bush's handling of the terrorist threat. They base their view largely on the belief that that confidence is rooted in real-world events--the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan and of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and, above all, the absence of additional attacks inside the United States since that searing day in 2001...

...People aren't going to judge Bush on the basis of what the commission says; they are going to judge him on the basis of performance," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, an independent polling organization...

...doesn't this logic go out the window if there's a terrorist attack in the United States between now and the election?...Whereas the conventional wisdom up to this point more or less held that another attack would aide Bush's reelection (though that CW took a bit of a hit after the attacks in Spain), wouldn't the practical effect of the Clarke book and the 9/11 commission hearings be to make Bush extremely vulnerable politically in that scenario? It would very quickly connect the current abstract criticism to first-hand experience ...