IT’S NOT MY FAULT! It never is!

Sen. John Kerry is angry at the way his campaign has botched the attacks from the Swift boat veterans and has ordered a staff shakeup that will put former Clinton aides in top positions.

“The candidate is furious,” a longtime senior Kerry adviser told the Daily News. “He knows the campaign was wrong. He wanted to go after the Swift boat attacks, but his top aides said no.”

I see a rerun of the old Saturday Night Live Dukakis/Bush I debate sketch — only this time with Kerry saying “I can’t believe my staff is losing to this guy!”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Mickey Kaus notes another shocker:

Several campaign officials and advisers say they recognize the need to have an “adult” traveling with the candidate — as one put it, “someone who can tell him to shut up …”

Who’ll do that if he’s President? Teresa? And would a well-run campaign be leaking damaging statements like this?

Meanwhile, reader Dick Aubrey emails: “‘My subordinates wouldn’t let me.’ Not the most reassuring picture of someone who wants to be the world’s most powerful executive.”

And Greg Decker observes: “I thought George W. Bush was supposed to be the brainless puppet.”

MORE: Now Kerry is slamming Bush for “failing to share responsibility with NATO or the United Nations.”

Sharing responsibility? Maybe that’s what Kerry’s doing when he blames his staff!