US presidential race takes nasty tone

The bitter exchange came as a new poll showed Kerry, the veteran senator from Massachusetts, opening an eight-point lead over Bush in the early going of an intensely personal campaign for the November 2 election.

At a fundraiser in his homestate of Texas, Bush dismissed Kerry as weak and irresolute in defending the country and branded the Vietnam war hero a wafffler who follows the prevailing political winds on crucial issues.

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"My opponent clearly has strong beliefs -- they just don't last very long," the Republican president told a rowdy crowd of supporters at a Dallas luncheon that netted some 1.5 million dollars for his reelection campaign.

Bush cited a 1995 bill Kerry proposed that would have cut intelligence funding by 1.5 billion dollars over five years. "His bill was so deeply irresponsible that he didn't have a single co-sponsor," the president said.

"Once again, Senator Kerry is trying to have it both ways. He's for good intelligence, yet he was willing to gut the intelligence services. And that is no way to lead a nation in a time of war," said Bush.

Kerry hit back at what he called Bush's "reckless" foreign policies and unilateral move to invade Iraq.