The three cable news networks resounded this week with the rat-a-tat-tat of the 2006 campaign’s latest mini-flap, as President Bush and his Republican allies sought to take advantage of an inopportune comment by his 2004 presidential rival, John Kerry.

For two days, it has dominated the news, as did last week’s controversies over Rush Limbaugh’s denunciation of Michael J. Fox’s campaign for stem-cell research and a racially tinged GOP ad against black Democratic Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr. in Tennessee.

This time, however, there is a significant difference: The dispute centers on the top issue in the midterm election campaign – the war in Iraq.

For the White House, Kerry’s comment to students that if you’re not smart, “you get stuck in Iraq” provided an opening to get off the defensive and focus on the man whose faltering 2004 efforts made him the epitome of uncertainty over how to deal with Iraq.

For Democrats, it provided a reminder of Kerry’s shortcomings as a candidate as well as a needless distraction just as everything seemed to be coming up roses prior to the Tuesday election.

At least one Democratic House candidate uninvited Kerry to a campaign appearance, and two Democratic Senate hopefuls in close races joined the GOP outcry. In Montana, Jon Tester called Kerry’s comments “stupid,” and Ford said Kerry should apologize to U.S. troops.

But the GOP’s eagerness to jump on the matter represents a substantial gamble; polls show the public clearly believes the decision to attack Iraq was a mistake and opposes how Bush is handling the war.

Democrats are so sure Iraq is a winning issue that they plan television commercials in many states, both red and blue, seeking to tie GOP rivals to the president’s policy.

Besides, demands that Kerry apologize for a somewhat ambiguous comment that seems – in context – as likely to be directed at the president as at the troops came amid increasingly desperate rhetoric that a GOP defeat would be a victory for the Democrats and the terrorists.

“However they put it,” Bush said Monday in Georgia, “the Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses.”

Most of the comments spicing the cable coverage of the flap followed predictable partisan lines.

Calling it a “botched joke,” Kerry issued the vigorous denunciation of White House tactics that many of his backers felt he often failed to make in 2004. Perhaps with an eye to his own future, he made several broadcast appearances to reiterate his criticism before deciding to cancel all appearances.

Most Republicans lined up to denounce the Massachusetts senator, including his erstwhile friend and 2008 GOP presidential hopeful, Sen. John McCain.

But a few GOP voices put the matter in perspective.

“I think it’s really something the American people don’t care very much about,” longtime Bush pollster Matthew Dowd said on MSNBC. “They want us to focus on the substance of the problem.”

Another Republican, onetime Reagan White House political chief Frank Donatelli, passed up an opportunity on MSNBC to join the chorus slamming Kerry, noting only that “it’s good for Republicans anytime you can get John Kerry into the conversation.”

It’s clear why the GOP establishment was so quick to jump on the senator’s comments. Polls show that Kerry, who makes no effort to hide his interest in another White House bid, is unpopular with the public.

But next week’s election isn’t between George Bush and John Kerry, and Iraq doesn’t seem like a winner for the GOP anymore. Its use to fire up Republicans may remind Democratic and independent critics of the war why they want to vote against the Bush policy next week.

Besides, the way campaigns go these days, this flap may well be superseded by one or two more before this nasty season ends.