President George W. Bush said on The Today Show yesterday that John Kerry was "more heroic", and that he thinks "that we ought to move beyond the past. [...] The real question is who best to lead us forward."

The timing makes it pretty obvious why he's now saying this, when for weeks he was content to let the press focus on the past. In the past couple of weeks, Naval records have surfaced, refuting the Swift Boat Veterans' claim that Kerry was not under fire; Bob Dole's denunciation of Kerry's Purple Hearts as not having been merited was undercut by his own admission about his first Purple Heart; two people from Bush's campaign have had to resign because they worked with the Swift Boat Veterans (Ken Cordier, who appears in one of the ads, was on Bush's veterans' steering committee; and Benjamin Ginsburg, the Bush campaign's chief outside counsel, gave legal advice to the Swift Boat Veterans); and now a poll shows that more and more Americans are believing that the Bush campaign is behind the Swift Boat Veterans.

Now, one might wonder why Bush didn't say these things when the ad first started running, if he really feels that way. But, of course, the answer's obvious: principles have no place in modern American politics. If something is helping you in the polls — or, more importantly, diverting media attention away from something that's hurting you — you don't denounce it. You leave it alone as long as it continues to help you. But once the tide turns the other way, denounce it and try to shift attention to something else.

It's just practical. Not very admirable, but practical.