How dumb is NYT's Thomas Friedman?

In a column written by Thomas Friedman for the New York Times, he asks "How dumb are we? It's your typical Bush hit piece, but one of his assertions caused me to up chuck my oatmeal.

George Bush, Dick Chenet and Don Rumsfeld think you're stupid.

They think they can take a mangled quip about President Bush and Iraq by John Kerry - a man who is not even running for office but who, unlike Bush and Cheney never ran away from combat service- and get you to vote against all Democrats in this election.(bolf type is mine)

The person that is really stuck on stupid is Friedman. Despite
"Christmas in Cambodia", a purple heart earned for a scratch which was one of three that helped Kerry escape Vietnam after seving a short three months and the fact that Kerry has never released all his military records, he, Friedman ought to CYA where Kerry is concerned as have many Democrats.

And Friedman conviently loses his journalistic cynicism when he states that Kerry "is not even running for office."

Can I get some odds on whether Kerry runs again?