There's been a little bit of carping on this site, and on other sites, about how Kerry shouldn't have taken a vacation this week after getting pounded by Bush's negative ads.
I disagree.
First, let's take it as a given that the guy's got to take a vacation sometime. He's got eight tough months ahead of him (the proverbial nine miles of bad road), and he needs a little R & R before taking on the immense challenge of unseating Bush in a general election.
Given that Kerry has to take a vacation, he couldn't have picked a better time than now.
Why?
Simple. Two things happen this week: Richard Clarke's new book and the 9/11 Commission hearings where Rumsfeld and Tenet, among others, will testify. (As well as two and half more hours of Clarke testimony!)
During a normal week, Kerry would need to be out on the airwaves attacking Bush in order to remain on the offensive. Not this week. This week, Richard Clarke and the 9/11 hearings will put Bush on the defensive without any help from Kerry whatsoever. In fact, given the press story-line from those two events, all Kerry would do if he were in the arena would be to step on the story.
Thus, kudos to the Kerry campaign for a well-timed vacation. Let's not be too quick to dismiss those guys. They've made some mistakes, but everybody makes mistakes. Overall, my view is that Kerry campaign knows what it's doing.