WHAT IS DICK MORRIS SMOKING?

He knows how to beat Kerry:

First, his paid media must attack Kerry’s voting record to define him as an ultraliberal. There are likely those in the White House who are urging Bush to run positive ads. That won’t work. Even if positive ads produce a small, short-term bounce for Bush, events soon will come to dominate, and the impact of those ads likely will evaporate.

But if Bush uses the next eight months to educate voters on Kerry’s opposition to the death penalty, his vote against the 1991 Iraq war, his poor attendance record in the past year and his opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act, he could put this election away by defining Kerry right now.

Two things. First of all, from the first round of ads, it looks like the Bushies aren't listening to Morris, and are trying the Reaganite "morning in America" template.

But second of all, does Dick Morris really think Bush should emphasize Kerry's "poor attendance record in the past year"? Gee, remind me, isn't there something regarding Bush and his "attendance record" that Kerry could talk about if the issue came up?

Furthermore, my sense is that the public is pretty forgiving about the long campaign process.

Kerry has not been tested. He was nominated by running in the shadow of Howard Dean. Throughout the fall, all eyes were on the former Vermont governor. When he crashed and burned in late January, Kerry, as the liberal heir apparent, inherited his disappointed voters.

Kerry's been the frontrunner for a month and a half. Everybody was gunning for him. He supposedly had both botox and an intern affair, if you were reading Murdoch publications. And Kerry's initial boost of support came from Gep, Lieberman and Clark voters, as much as it came from Dean voters.

Second, while his anti-Kerry ads are running, the president himself needs to make Americans understand that the war on terror is still atop our national agenda. He needs to elevate the sense of threat so that his advantage as a war president begins to count.

Kerry has also made a big mistake in backing the criminal-justice approach to terrorism, seeking to transform the war on terror into a series of DEA-style busts. Voters recognize that Bush is right when he says that this is a war against nation-states that sponsor terror, not a hunt for criminal bands in the mountains.

Morris fails to mention that it is John Kerry who is proposing adding 40,000 troops to the military, and seeing Iraq through. But who needs facts like those?

Pundits say that Kerry’s admirable war record makes national security irrelevant as a campaign issue. They couldn’t be more wrong. His efforts to defund the CIA and his opposition to the funding of the Iraq war are all key targets for Bush.

Well, his opposition to an accountability-free blank check.

The rest of the column is the usual blather. Unfortunately for Morris and Bush, they're operating under the assumption that Kerry going to run the Gore 2000 campaign all over again. Good luck, guys...