Here was what I thought was the most telling moment of last night’s presidential debate:

KERRY: Jim, the president just said something extraordinarily revealing and frankly very important in this debate. In answer to your question about Iraq and sending people into Iraq, he just said, “The enemy attacked us.”

Saddam Hussein didn’t attack us. Osama bin Laden attacked us. Al Qaida attacked us. And when we had Osama bin Laden cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, 1,000 of his cohorts with him in those mountains. With the American military forces nearby and in the field, we didn’t use the best trained troops in the world to go kill the world’s number one criminal and terrorist.

They outsourced the job to Afghan warlords, who only a week earlier had been on the other side fighting against us, neither of whom trusted each other.

That’s the enemy that attacked us. That’s the enemy that was allowed to walk out of those mountains. That’s the enemy that is now in 60 countries, with stronger recruits.

[SNIP]

LEHRER: Thirty seconds.

BUSH: First of all, of course I know Osama bin Laden attacked us. I know that.

Let’s go to the tape. Take a look at Dubya’s desperate attempt to clarify that he understands that Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are unrelated and that the former was the true culprit behind 9/11, while he has spent the last three years insinuating that they’re one and the same — bosom buddies on par with Laverne and Shirley.

On point after point, Kerry directly attacked Dubya’s horribly failed foreign policy. Kerry has no real solutions to the problems Dubya created, but he finally put the onus on the president to defend his terrible record. No wonder Dubya was so annoyed.