Clearly upset over the impact that the negative ads from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are having on his campaign, Sen. John Kerry sent fellow Vietnam vet and triple amputee former Sen. Max Cleland to Texas for what amounted to a lame political photo op this week. The stunt was easily seen for what it was - and probably did not help the Kerry campaign much either.

While partisan debate rages over allegations by some Swift Boat veterans that Kerry has wrongly embellished his war record, the Kerry campaign has been trying to have the ads stopped. Campaign officials have demanded that President George W. Bush condemn the Swift Boat ads and press to have them pulled from the airwaves. Bush has condemned all negative ads run by so-called 527 groups, which can collect unlimited campaign funds and are unregulated by campaign finance laws. Ads from various 527 groups have attacked both Bush and Kerry.

The Kerry campaign apparently decided to fly Cleland to the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas where the wheelchair-bound former senator from Georgia was scripted to try to hand-deliver a letter of protest to Bush - or be photographed being turned away.

It's unlikely Cleland just happened to be passing through West Texas that day or that he did realize he could simply mail the letter to the White House. Instead, the idea was to have the press stationed near the security gate to the Bush ranch photograph the amputee and his wheelchair cruelly denied access.

Secret service agents and a state police officer refused to accept the letter. Bush campaign officials said they did authorized a different Texas official and Vietnam veteran to receive the letter from Cleland for delivery to Bush, but Cleland refused to give him the letter. Returning to his car after his failed attempt to enter the ranch, Cleland suggested he would make sure the letter "gets in the mail."

Not a bad idea, and something the Kerry campaign might have tried earlier - even if it didn't produce the contrived photo op.