The AP's Nedra Pickler writes an unintentionally hilarious analysis of the Kerry campaign bi-weekly attempt to recast itself, this time in what Pickler and the campaign says is a new direction ... Bush Lies:

Kerry has less than seven weeks to take over the lead in the presidential race. Democrats hope a major shift will come from the debates, but his strategy in the meantime is based less on building himself up than on tearing down the president.

Bush has enjoyed a lead of about 5 or 6 percentage points in national polls since the Republican National Convention, which portrayed Kerry as a vacillating opportunist. Democrats remained largely positive during their convention five weeks earlier, but now are trying to make the case that Bush has not been honest in his life and his leadership.

"It's time we had a president who tells the American people the truth," Kerry said in Ohio. "It's that simple."

Stop it, Nedra, you're killing me! It's difficult to know where to begin fisking Pickler on this article. Describing the Democratic convention as "largely positive" outside of a sourced quote is as good as anyplace else. Outside of Barack Obama, who focused on himself, the entire convention consisted of attacks on Bush's record while revealing nothing about John Kerry's agenda. Al Sharpton went off-message for ten minutes and attacked Bush's character. Other than that, the fighting remained fair, but hardly positive, largely or otherwise.

Now the Democrats want to roll out the personal attacks on George Bush and his character, amply demonstrated by the CBS hit piece based on forgeries this past week, instead of focusing on their own message. And this is new? Have I not sat through a year of Democrats intoning from the podiums how Bush lied and misled them? That's been Kerry's standard response on Iraq from the time he was in the single digits against Howard Dean up to the Imus show interview yesterday.

Next up, the Democrats will claim that George Bush was a lousy businessman who only made money because of his daddy. No, seriously -- that's what's coming next:

So far, the DNC's effort has been focused on accusing Bush of using family connections to get into the National Guard during the Vietnam War, then skipping his duty. DNC strategist Howard Wolfson said the campaign has helped drive down the president's credibility ratings and next will raise questions about Bush's business career.

"This is someone whose career in business was the product of special favors not available to the average person," Wolfson said.

Did George Bush open a business during his first term in office? This isn't a new direction, this is the same stuff that Al Gore threw at Bush in the last election, and that the Democrats tried in Texas twice. They're 0-3, but maybe they think the law of averages are with them. It's become a sickness, this Bush-hatred, a mental pathology. One proverb defines mental illness as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome at some point.

The hilarity continues when Pickler describes the Democratic disappointment with a lack of reaction from voters on their campaign of irrelevancies:

Some Democrats are growing frustrated that voters don't seem to be turning against Bush in greater numbers.

Here's the key: George Bush has been president for four years. People already know how he handles the office. His past is no longer needed as an indicator of the unknown, because he's already a known quantity -- a point that Democrats still haven't learned. You won't convince straddlers to change horses until you show them that the new horse is demonstrably better than the one they already know. All Kerry's doing is playing to his base; he won't convince anyone with this new effort, only reinforce the Bush-haters who have already lined up behing Kerry.

Does America want to be led by a group of people so clueless that they can't even grasp that simple concept?

But Pickler saves the best for last, quoting Democratic consultant Donna Brazile in a most unintentional Freudian slip regarding her candidate:

"He got body slammed at the convention and it hurt him," said Brazile, who managed Democrat Al Gore's campaign in 2000. "A lot of people are still interested in change in this country. Kerry just has to say, `I'm the change, I'm the change.'"

No kidding -- Kerry provides change on a daily basis! Finally, a campaign theme that actually fits the candidate. Kerry is like Midwest weather ... if you don't like his policies, just wait five minutes. It's nice to see someone from the other side finally acknowledge and embrace it.

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