As we mentioned earlier, John Kerry is on the offensive about Iraq. The rhetoric in his speech at NYU was terrific, but he's sticking to his talking points elsewhere too. This from his press conference yesterday:

"The president cannot deny that they have not achieved what they said they've achieved. They've misled the American people.

Secretary Rumsfeld stands up and says we got 210,000 Iraqi forces. And then he admits that they have 50 percent less than that, 95,000.

But then the truth comes out, and it says they only have 5,000.

I believe I can do a better job of telling the truth to the American people and of providing real choices that protect America and make us safer.

And those troops on the ground in Iraq deserve a president who tells the truth and responds to it appropriately by building the kind of support that helps them out.

You have no idea how many young troops I've met in the rope lines along the way around the country who have come back to me and said to me, "Senator, we need to do this better. We need to do this differently. We need your help."

I'm going to lead those troops successfully. We have to be successful. And I have a better plan to be successful than the president. "

Iraq is the issue. We have to attack the President where he is strongest and turn his strength into a weakness. That's the long and the short of it.