--In 2000, Bush argued against new military entanglements and nation building. He's done both in Iraq.

--He opposed a Homeland Security Department, then embraced it.

--He opposed creation of an independent Sept. 11 commission, then supported it. He first refused to speak to its members, then agreed only if Vice President Dick Cheney came with him.

--Bush argued for free trade, then imposed three-year tariffs on steel imports in 2002, only to withdraw them after 21 months.

--Last month, he said he doubted the war on terror could be won, then reversed himself to say it could and would.

--A week after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Bush said he wanted Osama bin Laden ``dead or alive.'' But he told reporters six months later, ``I truly am not that concerned about him.'' He did not mention bin Laden in his hour-long convention acceptance speech.

``I'm a war president,'' Bush told NBC's ``Meet the Press'' on Feb. 8. But in a July 20 speech in Iowa, he said: ``Nobody wants to be the war president. I want to be the peace president.''

"While it's true that Kerry hasn't provided a detailed plan, neither has the president," said Heritage Foundation budget analyst Brian Riedl.

William Niskanen, chairman of the Cato Institute, said Bush's warnings about Kerry's spending plans were "inconsistent" with his own proposals. "There's no way to accomplish (Bush's) major new measures, including tax reform, without substantial increases in spending," Niskanen said.

Stephen Moore of the Club for Growth, a group that raises money for conservative political candidates, said Bush was not being "very forthright" about his plans. He called Bush's fiscal record "abysmal," adding that under both Bush and Kerry "fiscal responsibility takes the back seat."

The post-convention polls suggest that message boosted Bush. But it leaves Kerry one obvious opening by signaling that Bush is determined to stick with an approach at home and abroad that about half of the country believes has led the nation in the wrong direction.

Makers of diet pills, for example, can claim their products boost energy and promote weight loss even if the pills are little more than a few obscure herbs and caffeine.

....Against a backdrop of great events, even a mediocrity can seem great for a while. After Sept. 11, there was certainly a great flurry of activity. War on terrorism was declared. An actual war was started in Iraq and still goes on. A Department of Homeland Security was founded. Various American freedoms have been suspended. More than $100 billion has been spent. At the rate things are going, the toll of American lives lost responding to 9/11 may exceed the toll of 9/11 itself. The toll of innocent foreigners is higher already....

....You may approve or disapprove of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, but it is clear beyond dispute that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. By turning the world in general and the young people of the Muslim world in particular against us, the decision to respond to al-Qaeda by toppling Saddam Hussein could have made future terrorism more likely, not less....

....Bush's obvious lack of interest in policy issues makes him more dogmatic, not less so. Intellectual laziness stiffens the backbone as much as ideological fervor does. Hand him his position on an issue, and he can cross it off his list....

A Bush campaign statement said it did not know that retired Air Force Col. Ken Cordier had appeared in an ad by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The Kerry campaign has accused the group of illegally working with the Bush campaign.

In another feat of legislative trickery, the committee cut another $1.67 billion throughout the bill in anticipation of lower inflation in 2005 -- a pretense at a savings that OMB said in written comments to the committee "do[es] not exist." OMB concluded that "the practical effect of these reductions would be cuts to critical readiness accounts." In response, the Armed Services Committee did nothing and urged the Senate to endorse its bill, which it did by a vote of 97-0 on June 23.

Thereafter, the Senate Appropriations Committee used other gimmicks to reduce essential defense accounts in its bill. By the time Congress had finished with the appropriations measure on July 22, I counted $4.534 billion in reductions, mostly buried in the General Provisions section in the back of the bill. Ostensibly labeled as "unobligated balances," "general reductions," "excessive growth," "adjustments" and savings due to "management improvements," these were simply offsets to accommodate the $8.9 billion pork invoice the appropriators wrote. That more than $2.8 billion of these cuts came in military pay and the Operations and Maintenance budgets that support soldiers' salaries, training, spare parts, weapons maintenance and military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan shows where the committee's real priorities lay.

Kerry's commanding officer in Vietnam, George Elliott, said in an attack ad: "John Kerry has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam."

But during the Vietnam War, Elliott recommended Kerry for the Silver and Bronze Star medals for valor in combat and gave him the highest possible praise in his officer efficiency reports.

"In a combat environment often requiring independent, decisive action, LTjg Kerry was unsurpassed," Elliott wrote in 1969. He went on to rate Kerry as "calm, professional and highly courageous in the face of enemy fire."