The Al Qaqaa disaster gives Kerry the opening he needs to strike at the last remaining pillar of Bush's electoral appeal to the uninformed: this notion that he's the man to "keep us safe."
The failure to secure 377 tons of explosives--not to mention the revived story about how the administration passed up the opportunity to kill al-Zarqawi--shows just how wide the gulf is between the administration's tough-guy rhetoric and the tragic ineptitude of its performance on the ground. Bush and his clique of ideologues, true believers and armchair warriors aren't just misguided, they're dangerously incompetent.
This isn't even about scaring people. We just need to present them with the facts, using this example of the missing explosives as the almost inevitable result of a mindset focused on making a political sale rather than achieving tangible goals such as keeping a weapon site secure.
I hope the ad guys--not to mention the 527s--are working double-speed in the editing room even as I type this, because this could be what turns any undecided voter leaning toward "not changing horses in midstream"... my one fear about the "incumbent rule" not being operative this year.