The balloons hadn't even settled in Boston's Fleet Center after John Kerry's acceptance speech when George W. Bush's campaign set about popping them. The President's top aides had been BlackBerrying little darts to one another all through the address, and now they were on a conference call, comparing notes across a virtual war room. Bush confidante Karen Hughes in Texas said Kerry had come across as "lecturing," pointing his finger like a schoolmaster. In his Washington living room, Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, said Kerry's position on Iraq was a "puzzlement," a contradiction of his own votes. From suburban Maryland,...
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