"I have a feeling it's going to be a long couple of months for John Kerry."

New York Post Online Edition: "Bush's jabs at Kerry were delicate and good-humored. 'There are some things my opponent is for,' he said. 'He's proposed more than $2 trillion in new federal spending so far, and that's a lot, even for a senator from Massachusetts. To pay for that spending, he is running on a platform of increasing taxes -- and that's the kind of promise a politician usually keeps.'

But there was one scalpel thrust, when he quoted Kerry calling our allies in Iraq 'a coalition of the coerced and bribed.' Such allies, said Bush, naming some, 'deserve the respect of all Americans, not the scorn of a politician.'

Still, the president didn't go for Kerry's jugular by any means. Yet, only an hour after Bush finished, there was John Kerry live at a midnight rally in Ohio, going for the throats of Bush and Cheney himself.

In a speech angrier than Zell Miller's, Kerry raged: 'The vice president even called me unfit for office last night. I guess I'll leave it up to the voters whether five deferments makes someone more qualified to defend this nation than two tours of combat duty.'

Several problems here. First, Cheney said no such thing. Second, Kerry sounds rattled, and that's just not a very attractive quality in a presidential candidate or a president.

I have a feeling it's going to be a long couple of months for John Kerry. "