Apparently he is now actually channeling Richard Nixon, who also claimed to have a "secret plan" to end the Vietnam war when he was campaigning for prez in '68.

When asked about the "secret plan" thing (and reminded of what Nixon also did when desperately campaigning for election in '68) Kerry's modest response was:

""I don't care what it sounds like. The fact is that I'm not going to negotiate in public today without the presidency, without the power."

OK there Johnny B...take a chill pill, will you?

Even though he has been saying some days he would send MORE troops to Iraq, and other days he says we don't need them, he did say on the Sunday talk show circuit today that he'll have our troops home by....mmmmm....maybe 2008, maybe not, and declined to provide any timetable for withdrawal.

Actually, according to the Washington Post:

"I will have significant, enormous reduction in the level of troops," he said on ABC's "This Week."

The post-convention polling news wasn't much for the Kerry/Edwards camp to cheer about either. Though the Newsweek poll released the day after Kerry's acceptance speech said Kerry had gotten a "baby bump" off the convention, the news from CNN-USA Today-Gallup polling is a bit less optimistic. While Kerry had been leading Bush by a whopping one point going into the convention (47-46), the post-convention poll now shows that Bush is leading Kerry 50 to 46, and all he had to do was vacation on the ranch in Crawford.

Of course, the Washington Post does point out that "It is unusual for a candidate not to gain ground from his convention." However, since the entire nation seemed glued to Simple Life 2 and Amish in the City, the candidate's precipitous drop in the polls when expected to gain at least a baby bump, came as no real surprise, considering that everyone who watches late night for their news, already knows what a dog Kerry is since a photograph of him was run alongside McGruff the Crime Dog late last year in the run up to the Democratic primaries.