EDITORIAL - The ?mixed signals? Kerry has been sending out for going on a year now have increased the number of the casualties we are suffering in Iraq. However, if you are paying close enough attention to him you will see that some equally alarming signals he sends out are not mixed.

On 14 March 2004 Kerry was snowboarding in Idaho and fell down after running into a secret service agent. Kerry thereupon called the man, who was assigned to step between him and a bullet, a ?son of a bitch.? A few moments later, when asked about the incident by a reporter, Kerry responded: ?I don't fall down, the son of a bitch knocked me over.?

This was the quintessential Kerry speaking - arrogant, oblivious of the needs of lesser human beings, mendacious about his normal human frailty.

Thursday evening during the first debate with Bush he treated us to another perfect Kerry moment:

BUSH: And one of the things I've learned in the White House is that there's enormous pressure on the president, and he cannot wilt under that pressure. Otherwise, the world won't be better off.

KERRY: I have no intention of wilting. I've never wilted in my life. And I've never wavered in my life.

Anyone who would not only make that statement in public, but also reinforce it, is the kind of sick politician who would make one cheap shot after another in a nationally televised debate about our national security. Here are just some of them:

- North Korea did not develop its nuclear bombs on Bush's watch, as Kerry charged, but on Clinton's watch.

- Our effort in Iraq is not a distraction from the war on terror, as Kerry said, but rather preparation for dealing in one way or another with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.

- The enemy who attacked us on 9/11 was not Osama Bin Laden, as Kerry said, but a world wide jihadist movement in which Saddam Hussein participated.

- We have borne 90% of the casualties, as Kerry charged, only if we leave out the 700 or so Iraqi soldiers and policemen who have died since April a year ago. I guess Kerry doesn?t think they count.

- Kerry knows that a large part of Saddam?s forbidden weapons and their production facilities were shipped out to Syria in the winter of 1992 while we tried to bring the U.N., France, Germany, and Russia on board.

- Nobody could have brought France, Germany, Russia, and the U.N. on board, as Kerry claims he would have, because they were up to their necks and beyond in corrupt financial deals with Saddam.

- We didn?t irresponsibly let Osama Bin Laden get away, as Kerry charged, but dared not go into Pakistan to capture him for fear that our supply line to our troops in Afghanistan would have been cut off by the Pakistani government.

- Kerry knows that 200 billion dollars are nothing compared to what the cost of another major terrorist attack on our soil will be.

- Kerry knows that we didn?t have enough soldiers and still don?t have enough soldiers to comfortably do the job in Iraq because Bill Clinton cut our armed forces in half on his watch.

Finally, Bush did not say ?Mission accomplished? on that aircraft carrier, as Kerry charged. The sailors put that sign up, and Kerry knows that Bush knew that the mission was not yet accomplished.

There is a mystery here, because the answers to these and other charges occurred to me instantly as Kerry made them, and Bush let most of them slide. True, he did occasionally show his frustration at having to pretend to take a huckster seriously. Perhaps he feels we aren't able to deal with the awful truth, perhaps he doesn't want to show our cards to the enemy. Or perhaps he was going easy on Kerry.

I am reminded of the restraint Bush showed during Al Gore?s 6-week reign of terror in November and December 2000. In retrospect, it became apparent that Bush was right to take the higher road and put his faith in the better natures of most of the American people.

We will soon see if he is right to again trust our collective judgement. I hope so, because Kerry is playing with our lives in his attempt to gain office and power.

Or whatever it is he is trying to gain.