No Joy In Kerryville

Some are saying that if it does turn out that the Kerry campaign either forged these documents themselves or passed them on from somebody like Bill Burkett, a former TANG officer and discredited Dem hack with a burr up his ass about Bush, that they’ll be “finished.” The thing is, at this point that would almost be redundant.

Reportedly morale in Kerryland is at an all-time low. So how did Lurch rally the troops the other day? By holding a conference call. But not just any conference call. Kerry told his staffers that “things are going well on the road. The crowds are enthusiastic, and I can feel the campaign moving in the right direction,” particularly with his new senior (i.e. Clintonoid) staff additions. Gosh, that must have inspired the Kennedyites and old Bahhhhston hands to rush out to the nearest bar en masse and drink themselves unconscious. Or at least the ones who were still awake after the conference call.

"He actually said that he felt the campaign had turned the corner," says a Washington-based staffer to the American Spectator. "Some of us couldn't help but laugh given that he's made fun of Bush for saying the same thing. You hear stuff like that and you just feel sick. You look over at people like Lockhart and Cahill and they seem to understand it too.

"He then promptly hung up before his staffers could ask him any questions. I guess now they know how it’s like to be a campaign reporter on their boss’ beat these
days.

In a classic case of trying to fix a problem by exacerbating it even further, Mary Beth Cahill invited none other than the Massachusetts Manatee, Teddy Kennedy, to come and give Kerry’s people the pep talk Kerry himself was unable to come up with from the comforting folds of his insular self-delusion. “Tyrannosaurus Sex’s” idea of a pep talk was to mention Kerry’s name once and then verbally tear President Bush limb from limb. Which I suppose was highly symbolic of the entire Democrat side of this campaign.

It hasn’t been reported whether the troops were re-energized or not.

But one has to think that if they were, it was only superficial. Reportedly Kerry advisers have been focus grouping frantically to try and find some issue of national concern that might cut their way in the coming weeks. But they keep coming up empty.

That is even more symbolic of the Kerry campaign. And it’s another short-sheeted bed of Big, Bad John’s own making. He bought into the hype about Bush being “toast” and his only having to appear as a “reasonable” alternative to unseat him. That left him in his comfort zone, which is precisely the state of mind in which he is the shiftiest, laziest, and most “cautious”. Indeed, if, as has been observed on many an occasion recently, President Bush is running like a challenger, Senator Kerry has acted like he was the incumbent, making huge assumptions about how little he had to do to get elected and then doing no more than that. And now it, and a great deal else, has come back to bite him in the ass, and it’s long past time for to ratchet up to a higher gear, and he gives every appearance of being both unwilling and unable to do so. Because, you know, the old cherished hype is so warm and soft and cuddly, even as reality renders more and more of it obsolete.

Kind of like political hypothermia.

And when in the throes of hypothermia, people often ramble like Kerry did in North Carolina last Thursday:

“I will always tell the public the truth, and if you don't believe me, you can go to a web site. It can be johnkerry.com or go some other place. Go to truth.com, if there is one, and find out what's really happening.”

Let’s get this straight: he says he will always tell the truth, but assumes the possibility that his audience won’t believe him anyway. He then directs them to his website, which his audience would be unlikely to do if they already didn’t believe him. But, “or go some other place”? He can’t even take a firm stand on the name of his own website? Then he says, “go to truth.com,” as if realizing that he had to cover that last reflexive hedge, and thinking that using “truth” would be clever.

Problem is, truth.com is the URL of a hardware company specializing in windows, patio doors, and skylights.

And what John Kerry may need is a rubber room.