Time magazine, in their newest issue:

How the President laid a trap for Kerry on Iraq after the Democratic Convention:

After the Democratic National Convention, when Kerry was seen as a more plausible Commander in Chief, the Bush team planned to bait Kerry by inserting into every speech Bush’s question, "My opponent hasn’t answered the question of whether, knowing what we know now, he would have supported going into Iraq." Some on the Bush team feared Kerry wouldn’t take the bait, TIME reports. Bush adviser Mary Matalin tells TIME, "We weren’t sure he would do it. We thought we might see the strong closer everyone had talked about." But three days later at the Grand Canyon Kerry responded to a reporter who posed Bush’s question, saying he believed even now it was right to authorize the use of force. "We couldn’t believe that he went for it," says White House communications director Dan Barlett. Barlett answered a message on his Blackberry asking if Kerry had given the campaign a gift. "Yes, and my boss it about to open it," he replied. They crafted a speech in which Bush lampooned Kerry’s "new nuance" concluding with the mocking compliment "I want to thank Senator Kerry for clearing that up."

The Bully Pulpit Boxes Kerry

President Bush has gotten Senator Kerry to publicly state that he'd also have gone into Iraq, even knowing, as do today, that their capacity to produce WMDs was much more limited than we know now.

One of the commenters on the Brothers Judd Blog makes a great point: Kerry is now in a box. This is one opinion that he can't flip-flop on, because if he does, President Bush can call him on it, via the Bully Pulpit--and the press, which has to cover the President of the United States, has to report it, no matter how much they loathe the man. And as Jim Geraghty wrote, "Somewhere, some Republican operative is emailing that statement to every anti-war voter he can find. Or perhaps the Nader campaign is."

The chief reason that so many on the left would vote for Kerry--that he would have avoided Iraq, is now off the table. There's still oodles of Bush hatred and who knows, that may be enough to win in November. But as Steven Den Beste predicted last month, the Republicans are quietly laying the groundwork to take many--perhaps all--of Kerry's issues away from him.

Seriously though--I'm listening to Limbaugh right now, who's critiquing Evan "15 Points" Thomas' appearance on the Today Show this morning, as Thomas discusses what the media knew about Kerry's campaign months ago.

And Katie Couric can't ask the $64,000 question: "Evan--if you knew this stuff...why didn't you report it? Why did you keep giving Kerry a pass this year??"

Because she knows the answer as well as you and I do.