The defeated Democratic candidate continues to lash out at the man who beat him last November, with attacks on the Bush budget and two of the president's appointments to top foreign policy posts.

The budget Bush submitted to Congress, Kerry told the Center on National Policy, a liberal Democratic think tank, failed to uphold basic values of "honesty, opportunity and responsibility."

Calling the budget dishonest, irresponsible and a violation of the core values of average Americans, Kerry said, "This budget is like an Enron budget: Smoke the numbers, cook the books, hide the truth and hope no one finds out."

According to The Associated Press, Kerry criticized the plan Republicans say preserves tax cuts, has wide support across the country and works to curtail spending that exceeds budget limits.

Kerry attacked priorities in a budget he said includes proposed cuts in health care and education and up to $106 billion in tax cuts over the next five years.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Kerry blasted the president's nomination of Under Secretary of State John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz as president of the World Bank, saying they would undermine the administration's efforts to rebuild ties with allies frayed by strains over the war in Iraq.

"Here are two people who come to the jobs quite dismissive of the very fundamental purposes and engagements that those entities have been involved in, and it will be felt in the rest of the diplomacy of this administration," Kerry said, ignoring the continued failures of both international organizations.

Of Bolton, Kerry said, "It is very hard to commence a new initiative in foreign policy and then [appoint] somebody to the United Nations who has been so destructive and so clearly dismissive of the U.N. process itself."

Kerry said Wolfowitz, whose nomination must be approved by the World Bank board, was "as guilty as [Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld" of major miscalculations about the war in Iraq.

Kerry also waded in on the Democrats' losing fight against Bush's efforts to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, the Times reported, noting that the Senate handed Bush a victory on that issue by voting to allow the drilling as part of a budget measure that under Senate rules could not be blocked by a Democrat filibuster.

The White House declined to comment on the speech Kerry made Thursday, but took a swipe at his political aspirations in the process. "The president's not on the ballot in 2008," spokesman Trent Duffy told the Times.

Responding to the latest attacks, the Republican National Committee's spokesman Brian Jones told the Times, "It's disappointing that John Kerry would employ such overtly partisan and obstructionist rhetoric at a time when most Americans want to see Congress engaged in solving problems, not over-the-top attacks."

According to the Times, Kerry has no plans to let up on his criticism of the Bush policies and is now taking aim at the 2006 congressional election campaign.

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