The best thing the Kerry campaign can do for themselves is to get all their friends to change the subject. Which means, of course, they'll keep right on talking about this till election day.
Usually, Kerry doesn't change the subject, he changes the Verb. Example: We needed to defeat Saddam. We needed to ignore Saddam. We needed to fight Saddam. We needed to avoid Saddam. We needed to attack Saddam. We needed to make peace with Saddam. We needed to invade Iraq. We needed to negotiate with Iraq. Subject rarely changes. But the very always does!