Kerry Spot    [ jim geraghty reporting ]
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Former NYC Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, a supporter of the Patriot Act -- and Bush.

The Bush campaign released its latest ad against John Kerry on Tuesday, focusing on Kerry's sudden 180-degree turn in his position on the Patriot Act.

"Once again, John Kerry is on both sides of a very important issue. After voting to support the Patriot Act in the U.S. Senate, he's now attacking the common-sense law on the campaign trail," Bush-Cheney '04 Campaign Manager Ken Mehlman told reporters.

The ad's voice-over announcer grimly summarizes, "President Bush signed the Patriot Act giving law enforcement vital tools to fight terrorism. John Kerry? He voted for the Patriot Act, but pressured by fellow liberals, he's changed his position. While wire taps, subpoena powers, and surveillances are routinely used against drug dealers and organized crime, Kerry would now repeal the Patriot Act's use of these tools against terrorists. John Kerry. Playing politics with national security."

"This new Bush campaign ad is completely false, and they know it," said Chad Clanton, a Kerry spokesperson, in an issued statement. "John Kerry has not only supported wiretaps, subpoena powers and surveillances used against drug dealers and organized crime, he used them as a prosecutor to put criminals behind bars. The fact is, John Kerry wants to use the same tools against terrorists and strengthen the Patriot Act with an approach backed by Republican Senators Crapo, Sununu, Murkowski, Craig and Specter."

To defend the Democratic candidate, the Kerry campaign rolled out two men who it hoped would be perceived as "big-gun" legal experts: former Clinton appointees Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder and Admiral William Crowe.

"We are in a national emergency, but the Bush campaign is more focused on playing politics than making sure the Patriot Act is being used in an effective manner," Holder said in his statement. "The President's political ad campaign obscures the fact that there are a lot of thoughtful people in both parties who have a problem with the way in which this Justice Department is implementing the law. Instead of playing politics, the President should be sitting down with both Republicans and Democrats to address their concerns about the law in a bipartisan manner and use more effectively the tools that the Patriot Act provides."

"It would be laughable if it were not so serious," Crowe said. "The administration has made a series of blunders in Iraq that I as a military man am well aware of. Their spin doctors either refuse to admit mistakes or misrepresent the situation in Baghdad, and this is done for political gain at home. It is both dishonest and ludicrous of the administration to accuse others of playing politics with the war. The most blatant example of playing fast and loose with issues has been the discrediting of John Kerry's Vietnam experience. As a career military officer and Vietnam veteran, I strongly resent this political ploy. John Kerry went to Vietnam voluntarily when many others were deliberately avoiding service. He performed bravely and commendably. It is absurd and wrong to lightly dismiss his sacrifice and patriotism."

Notice Crowe's complete statement, as released by the Kerry campaign, completely avoids the issue of the Patriot Act and recycles the usual vague, unsubstantiated charges of "attacking patriotism," along with the chicken-hawk argument.

No doubt the Clinton vets are being pushed into the spotlight because Bush launched his ad campaign with a big name of his own, former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik.

"We don't have to replace the Patriot Act, we have to make sure we have it," Kerik said in a conference call to reporters Tuesday. "Nobody knows and understands this more importantly than I do. I was here on September 11 in New York City. I fought the war against the Cali Cartel.... If you take the Patriot Act away, if you replace it, if you attempt to change it, it's going to remove a lot of the necessary tools that we need to do our job in law enforcement, and I just think it's absurd, particularly if you go back and you look at John Kerry's statements, back in October of '01, when he said he was pleased with the Patriot Act, when he said we needed the ability to fight crime with the Patriot Act."

Kerik said that since the creation of the Patriot Act, about 170 people have been arrested or captured in the United States. Back in April, Kerik said that another 9/11 attack is more likely under President Kerry, telling the New York Daily News, "If you put Sen. Kerry in the White House, I think you are going to see that happen...and I don't want to see another Sept. 11."

"There's never been any specifics to the criticism, just red meat," said Barbara Comstock, a former Department of Justice spokeswoman. "It's ill-informed rhetoric for their Left-wing extremists." Comstock adds that Kerry jumped on the anti-Patriot bandwagon after it proved a successful Dean applause line. "Really," Comstock says, "he was one of the last to come to the table in terms of criticizing the Patriot Act."

Comstock points out that most Americans support the law and opposition is mostly limited to the ACLU, the left wing of the Democratic party, and what she calls the "black-helicopter crowd" on the fringes of the Right. Comstock also observes that neither Bill nor Hillary Clinton have spent much political ammunition denouncing the mythical excesses of the law.

The problem for Kerry is not that the Patriot Act is perfect. It's that his words of praise in 2001 and his criticism from 2003 and 2004 appear completely contradictory.

Kerry, 2001: "Passage of this legislation is going to make it a lot more difficult for new terrorist organizations to develop." "I am for tougher surveillance.... For instance, it's absolutely outdated to have a wiretap linked only to a telephone number in a modern age where you throw one away and use another 10 minutes later. So I think it's absolutely legitimate to track the wiretap to a specific individual. There are other kinds of things that we absolutely must do in order to modernize."

Kerry, 2003: "George Bush and John Ashcroft abused the spirit of national action after the terrorist attacks. They have used the PATRIOT Act in ways that were never intended and for reasons that have nothing to do with terrorism. That's why, as President, I will propose new anti-terrorism laws that advance the War on Terror while ending the assault on our basic rights."

Besides painting the Democratic candidate as a waffler, the Bush ad also exposes one of Kerry's more irritating flaws: His irrepressible instinct for rhetorical excess. When he votes for a proposal, he has a tendency to praise it as 110-percent good, the best ever, a vitally needed step. When that same idea becomes unpopular in, say, a Democratic primary, he doesn't just say, "I've changed my mind, it has unintended consequences and flaws I didn't see at the time" — he jumps in headfirst, denouncing it as draconian, Orwellian, creating an out-of-control police state, an idea no one would be foolish enough to ever vote for.

Too bad he sees the world in black and white. He and his surrogates could use some nuance.