Dear Senator Kerry,
You've won this one. I know it feels otherwise... I know it feels like even some Democrats turned on you (and really, Ford and Tester had no choice, considering their constituencies), but you accomplished what you intended to accomplish: To stand up, Clinton-like, and use the force of Republicans' rage against them, to say the things that needed to be said about administration stupidity and incompetence and failures but which no candidate, going into the home stretch, can afford to say. Your original calculus was correct: Anytime Republicans have to talk about Iraq, they lose, even if they take some nasty shots at you while they're doing it. After all, you're not running for anything.
Now here's the thing: You should keep apologizing. You did it on Imus - now do it on Air America. And Larry King. And Keith Olberman. And Leno. And You Tube. Anywhere. The media will give this another two or three days of attention if you (or the right-wingers) are keeping it alive - so go out there and apologize to everyone who will listen. Tell them how sorry you are that people misunderstood your attempt to point out what a feckless, incompetent, uneducated, dishonest crook this President is. Go out and remind them, again, that none of these warmongers ever put on a uniform, that the President himself went AWOL (in Alabama, no less!) but still feels no remorse about sending 3,000 Americans to their death in a war that he lied to get us into. Go out and tell anyone who will listen that you made a mistake, a mistake that may have hurt some feelings, but that unlike the mistakes of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al. it hasn't killed any Americans or made our country less safe or destroyed another country or dramatically increased terrorism in the Middle East. Tell them sure, you wish you hadn't said it, and then ask whether Bush wishes he hadn't gone into Iraq, wishes he hadn't declared "Mission Accomplished," wishes he'd kept enough troops in Tora Bora, wishes he hadn't taken his eye off Bin Laden, wishes he hadn't been asleep at the wheel for the past five years, wishes he'd fired Rumsfeld before so many American lives were lost. Make it a challenge: I can admit when I'm wrong, Mr. President - can you?
Believe it or not, you've got the upper hand, Senator. There are six days to go, and every moment the focus is on Iraq the Republicans lose another seat in Congress. So don't stop. Keep apologizing. Keep talking about it. Use the media attention to keep saying the things that need to be said. If Republicans want to keep bashing you for a couple more days and giving you a platform from which to remind the country of this administration's mistakes, crimes, and betrayals, and how the Republican Congress has rubber-stamped it every step of the way, you know what your answer should be: Bring It On.