Krugman says what a few -other than Bill Clinton- have been saying:

To win, the Kerry campaign has to convince a significant number of voters that the self-proclaimed "war president" isn't an effective war leader - he only plays one on TV.

He makes the parallel between the US and Argentina in 1982:

Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri, the leader of the country's military junta, cynically launched that war to distract the public from the failure of his economic policies. It worked: "The junta, which had been on the verge of collapse" just before the war, "instantly became the saviors of the country."

He could have referred to Putin's behavior this week as well:

George W. Bush isn't General Galtieri: America really was attacked on 9/11.

Russia was attacked again last week, and Putin's response has been simply, resoundingly, Fascist.