"I would have told those kids the president has something that he needs to attend to"

John Kerry is learning that he's going to face a disgusting, dishonest right-wing smear campaign. And it also seems he's concluding - rightly, I think - that the best way to meet this challenge, in a political world in which negative ads are proven to be highly effective, is with aggressive, harsh, but honest and delicately worded criticism:

At a morning appearance before minority journalists in Washington, Kerry faulted Bush for spending seven minutes reading to Florida schoolchildren after learning the World Trade Center had been attacked. "Had I been reading to children and had my top aide whispered in my ear that America is under attack, I would have told those kids very nicely and politely that the president of the United States has something that he needs to attend to," Kerry said.