Kerry's Latest Pitch.

Will challenging Bush on national security pay off? John Kerry has found himself in this situation before: underestimated and pinned down in terrain he doesn't seem to know well. "His way of dealing with an ambush was to attack," recalls Del Sandusky, who piloted one of Kerry's patrol boats. As it was then, so it apparently is now. In theory, it's foolish to take on a sitting president in his role as the commander in chief. But that's what Kerry has decided to do. Kerry has been ridiculed for numerous position shifts and baloney-slicing emendations of the story of his story. Yet President Bush's own list of wartime vulnerabilities is growing. For now, at least, Kerry's strategy is clear: if the country wants a commander in chief, pick the one who has actually been under fire in war, not the stateside guy who got us into Iraq.