The Kerry campaign finally gets it: "'You cannot ignore the 800-pound gorilla sitting in the middle of the room--we are involved in a quagmire in Iraq,' said Joe Lockhart, senior adviser to Kerry." Really? You don't say.

Kerry missed a golden opportunity this spring and summer. After wrapping up the Democratic nomination, he could have run to the right of Bush on Iraq and the war on terror, putting the president in a difficult position. Instead, he fiddled away his time and tried, desperately, to ignore the "800-pound gorilla." There are only two reasons for Kerry not to have out-flanked Bush on the war when he had the chance: (1) He was worried about the Deaniac base leaving him; or (2) He really does have some immutable principles, and a disbelief in American exceptionalism is one of them.