The Wall Street Journal editorial board tore into Mitt Romney this morning, hammering his campaign for muddling its message on whether or not the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate is a tax.

The scathing op-ed painted Romney as the 2012 version of John Kerry, who failed in his 2004 presidential run from the Democratic ticket. And it questioned whether the "tax confusion" will be a "turning point" in Romney's campaign. Here's the opening paragraph:

If Mitt Romney loses his run for the White House, a turning point will have been his decision Monday to absolve President Obama of raising taxes on the middle class. He is managing to turn the only possible silver lining in Chief Justice John Roberts's ObamaCare salvage operation—that the mandate to buy insurance or pay a penalty is really a tax—into a second political defeat.

On Monday, top Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom told MSNBC that the mandate was not a tax. Then on Wednesday, Romney changed positions himself and aligned more with the Republican Party stance, telling CBS that the mandate is, in fact, a tax.

Much of the Romney campaign's muddling of its message comes from walking a fine line over the health care reform that Romney passed as the governor of Massachusetts. That bill included the individual mandate, and it imposed an even higher "tax" or "penalty" than the one in Obama's healthcare law.

But the conservative op-ed section of the Wall Street Journal wrote that Romney is only adding to the confusion and wasting a potentially "historic opportunity."

The Romney campaign thinks it can play it safe and coast to the White House by saying the economy stinks and it's Mr. Obama's fault. We're on its email list and the main daily message from the campaign is that "Obama isn't working." Thanks, guys, but Americans already know that. What they want to hear from the challenger is some understanding of why the President's policies aren't working and how Mr. Romney's policies will do better.

The editorial closes with a jab at the Romney campaign's overall message, comparing it to that of Kerry's losing effort in 2004.

Candidates who live by biography typically lose by it. See President John Kerry.The biography that voters care about is their own, and they want to know how a candidate is going to improve their future.

The Wall Street Journal is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who has been increasingly critical of Romney of late on Twitter.