Leaping Lizards!! -- Either Sen. Kerry has a twin brother or the Democrats might finally have a Presidential Candidate.

If you had read the following two weeks ago you would have accused me of getting it out of Ripley's Believe It or Not, but I have happy to report that it came from today's New York Times.

To fully appreciate this, you must realize that it came last night, after Kerry's speech Monday when he began getting his ox out of the ditch. Notice, no nuances; no long answers.

In a sense it was a test. Would he show us that he has learned from his past that sometimes less is better. That with him it is better to keep it simple Simon. That he needs to stay on message. That he must stay on the attack and not get defensive when Bush accuses of flip flopping, something Kerry cannot win in that he has flip flopped so much that we have lost count (you wonder why Bush hasn't called him Sen. John Flipflop Kerry). That he has finally put Bush on the defensive, and that this is good, very good.

Unless the Senator has a twin brother who stood in for him last night with David Letterman, we think he passed the test, and we're proud of you Senator. Please keep it up.

The 9-21 New York Times reports the following in the same story with the headline "In Harshest Critique Yet, Kerry Attacks Bush Over War in Iraq :

In an interview with David Letterman broadcast Monday night on the "Late Show," Mr. Kerry was asked directly whether, had he been elected president in 2000, he would have taken the country to war in Iraq. Mr. Kerry said simply, "No."

Pressed about whether American troops would be in Iraq now if a Kerry administration had received the same intelligence the Bush administration had, Mr. Kerry said: "We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction. We know now there was no connection to Al Qaeda. We know there was no imminent threat and under those circumstances. I would not have taken America to war."
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Now for some cleanup work. In my post yesterday entitled "Get your motor running; fasten your seat belt -- Rip Van Better Kick Ass Kerry has awakened from his long slumber," we reviewed yesterday's progress in noting that "Finally, finally, we might be seeing the first signs of life in the Kerry camp!"

In reviewing my dismal mood of the morning before Kerry decided to begin acting like a Presidential candidate rather than a wimp, I noted:

This morning I read something that I don't even want to go back and look for. Something about the Kerry campaign has come up with a theme involving "wrong" and "direction" I recall.

The above-referenced N.Y. Times article has refreshed my recollection:

Mr. Kerry is also trying to tie the issues together in an attack on the Bush administration's credibility, part of his new campaign theme about the president's "wrong choices" and the need for a "new direction."