Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, today launched a political line of attack against President Bush and Vice President Cheney, assailing what he suggests are their interests in Big Oil. In a note to supporters, his campaign says:

There's one thing you can say for President Bush: He sticks to what he knows.

Take his new Energy Plan, for example. The whole plan, the entire strategy for reversing our dependence on foreign fuel, for preserving our way of life, for saving our wilderness, and for promoting clean energy for the future of our planet can be sumed up in one word:

Oil.

And he didn't just say "oil." In his campaign's note, he says "oil" in big, blotchy scare letters.

One thing the note failed to say: the Kerry family has as much as a couple of extra million dollars in its portfolio today because of its wheeling and dealing - during the Bush Administration - in oil stock.

According to Kerry's financial disclosure forms on file at OpenSecrets.Org:

- Kerry's family pocketed as much as $1 million in dividends and capital gains from its holdings of ExxonMobil stock in 2002, according to disclosures filed last year;

- Kerry's family pocketed as much as $1 million in dividends and capital gains from its holdings in Imperial Oil in 2002, according to the same disclosures;

- Kerry's family pocketed as much as $50,000 in capital gains from its holdings in BP Amoco stock in 2002, according to those disclosures.

For a candidate who seeks to use big, blotchy scare letters to accuse his political rival of favoring Big Oil interests, he seems to have forgotten that his family has been part of those interests.

That's OK. It seems from studying his financial disclosures that his family - after making a cool couple of mil - no longer has such a strong interest in Big Oil. What better timing, then, to call for more conservation and regulation?