A Secret Plan

Russ Smith on the new super, double-secret Kerry plan:

According to a slew of political stories in the Sept. 20 pro-Kerry dailies, the candidate has found his voice, simplified his message and is ready to pounce. Maybe so. After all, last weekend in Albuquerque, Kerry claimed that Bush has a secret plan to send more reservists and National Guard units to Iraq after Nov. 2. This charge might stick if Kerry offered any proof, but what the hell, it whips up a crowd. Kerry said, "Hide it from people through the election, then make the move—that's not the way we do business in the United States of America, my friends."
And John Edwards (remember him?) got into the act last Sunday in Phoenixville, PA, repeating Kerry's "secret plan" charge and promising that the Massachusetts Democrat, once in office, "will find Al Qaeda where they are and crush them before they can do damage to the American people."
Details of this offensive, apparently, are secret.

He also smacks the hell out of Oliphant:

The Boston Globe's Thomas Oliphant, as reliable a Kerry mule as you'll find in Washington, was madder than a swarm of red ants in Lubbock on Sunday when he attacked the former Clinton officials who've signed on to rescue the Kerry campaign. Loyal to the Teddy Kennedy acolytes who'd reigned supreme until recently (Shrum, Mary Beth Cahill), Oliphant ripped into opportunists like James Carville, Paul Begala and Joe Lockhart.
He snorted: "John Kerry gave a more than decent account of himself in Michigan last week in an important oration about the economy ["more than decent" is an indication that even Oliphant sees the prize slipping away]. But several new members of his campaign staff thought it more important to step all over his message and promote themselves as the new bosses of the effort. Later in the week, Kerry was even more forceful and effective in Nevada as he discussed the murderous mess in Iraq. But again, his campaign's Narcissism Caucus got between Kerry and the public by spinning the political press into glowing accounts of their campaign coup."
It goes without saying that Oliphant has never been "spun" by the Boston pols who give Jersey officeholders a good name.

Nice line, Mugger.