The John Kerry Post of the Day

My latest discovery about my favorite cheese-eating surrendermonkey-looking Ketchup King cum Presidential candidate:

Oh, boy. The candidate heads to Nantucket to lie low, and in the words of Al Hunt at the Wall Street Journal, "Sen. Kerry privately is said to be "bouncing off the walls" in frustration" over his campaign's sudden impersonation of Mike Dukakis' finest work. Luckily for us, we have Kerry's GQ interview from July to entertain us, especially this passage...

GQ: You beat prostate cancer. Was that your first thought of mortality?

JK: Oh God! No. You kidding, man? I mean, Jesus, I saw my own death any number of times in Vietnam. There was this period where I was convinced I'd be killed. But I made it back with a sense that every day is extra. You know, we used to have a saying over there when we were screwing around and getting in trouble, breaking the rules. We'd look at each other and we'd say, "We're fuckin' idiots, and this is Vietnam." I mean, that attitude is liberating. It's sort of been there, done that. And they can't—I'm gonna get in trouble for saying the F-word there—but people who come back from that are very lucky and know that, and it is very liberating. You know, there's not much that scares me. So I'm not worried about things—certainly not dying, because too many of my friends did. And so I think it empowers you to go out and tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may. Bush and Cheney don't understand that. That's one of the things I think is most lacking in their stewardship of our country.

GQ: Did you come back from Nam with any psychic damage?

JK: I was very lucky, Mike. I think I was able to take that pain and put it out there in my efforts to end the war. And so I very publicly laid out my depth of opposition to what was happening and my feelings about what had happened over there in a way that, you know, a lot of guys didn't have that opportunity, or couldn't or didn't, and they kind of held it in. And I think that's the harder thing; that's the problem for a lot of guys. So I never did have any of those issues. It doesn't slow me down; it motivates me.

GQ: You've never seen a therapist?

JK: No. I had some nightmares when I came home, which is not unusual.

GQ: Like what?

JK: I can't say. To me Vietnam is an old place, an old memory. It is old history, it's gone, it's past. The less I have to talk about it, frankly, the happier I am.

You know, I'm starting to believe that last line, especially with the Swift Boat Vets suddenly turning Kerry's Vietnam heroism into mincemeat. But Kerry's decision to discuss how Vietnam defines and motivates him before saying he doesn't like talking about it seems to perfectly define his campaign -- he can't make up his mind on what he wants to talk about.

One other thing, since Kerry takes the time to answer the Max Cleland question...

GQ: What do you think about what the Republicans did to Max Cleland?

JK: It's one of the reasons I'm running. I was so angry. It's one of the reasons Teresa switched her party. I think politics reached a new low, an unbelievable, irresponsible, I mean just horrendous level when it goes after a guy like Max Cleland. It's the lack of decency, a lack of common decency when you can attack someone like Max Cleland for not being patriotic. You may not like his vote. But then go ahead and argue about his vote. But don't say he's weak on defense and he's not a patriot and won't stand up for America. Which is what they said. I think it's one of the most disgraceful moments in American politics. And it motivated me within two weeks of that election to go on Meet the Press and say, "I'm going to run for President." Because we got tot change what's happening in this country. Absolutely. You better believe it.

Enough about the idiotic argument that the GOP questioned Cleland's patriotism, which Rich Lowry and others have debunked in the past. But to assert that this was the reason Kerry decided to announce a run for the Presidency makes his campaign seem even more shallow than before.

Hey, maybe we were wrong. Dukakis ran a much better campaign than this.