"With Eye On 2008, Kerry Goes After Bush"

Dan Balz in the WaPo:

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) barely said hello to the New Hampshire Democrats who filled a banquet room here Friday night before unloading on President Bush.

"This war in Iraq is a disgrace," he said in the second sentence of his speech at a party fundraising dinner.

Thirty-two minutes and 14 standing ovations later, the man who lost the 2004 presidential campaign left little doubt that if he runs again in 2008, he intends to be the chief prosecutor of the record of the Bush presidency.

"A lie, a lie, a lie and a lie," he said after recounting Republican claims that Iraq is not in a civil war, that North Korea's nuclear advancement is former president Bill Clinton's fault and that Democrats were behind the release of salacious e-mails that Mark Foley sent to former House pages.

It was as if the Kerry of 2006 was channeling the Howard Dean of 2003. "What we have in Washington is a house of lies, and in November, we need to clean house," he said.