Mr. Kerry and others want to make former prosecutors wait a few years before getting into legal bed with criminals with, let us say, common interests.

That's a Vietnam election-year dynamic, no matter how much the president or Mr. Kerry wants to run away from it.

Mr. Kerry wants it to be simple.

In the same survey, 46 percent of those questioned said they believed Mr. Kerry "wants to raise gasoline taxes by 50 cents a gallon."

The president said Mr. Kerry "wants our national security decisions subject to the approval of a foreign government."

But Mr. Kerry also wants to be perceived as a strong potential commander in chief, one who holds the welfare of the country and its troops paramount.

Mr. Kerry, he added, wants Congress to restore budget rules that require lawmakers to offset the cost of any new spending or tax cuts.

That is a fate Mr. Kerry wants to avoid.

Mr. Kerry fired back with an ad asserting that he had never called for such a thing and wanted to cut taxes for the middle class.

To pay for that plan, Mr. Kerry wants to rescind recent tax cuts for the roughly 3 percent of the population with incomes above $200,000.