The American Spectator

Washington Prowler

p> FIGHTING MEAN br> Sen. John Kerry has apparently let attack dog political consultant Bob Shrum off his leash. Over the weekend, former Sen. Max Cleland , who lost his Georgia Senate seat in 2002, put out a statement through the Kerry campaign that essentially called President Bush a coward for serving in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam war and attacked former Vermont Gov. Howie Dean as a weasel for taking medical deferments instead of serving. /p>

Cleland, who lost both his legs in the war, was responding to recent reports about Dean, who got a medical deferment for a bad back, then proudly detailed spending weeks on end skiing in Colorado. (At least he wasn't skiing in Canada.)

The tough talk from surrogates is being tied to Shrum, the bare-knuckled senior adviser to Kerry and the author of Kerry's latest batch of stump speeches in which he portrays himself as "The Real Deal."

Never mind that this has been the slogan of MSNBC's "Joe Scarborough Show" for months, or that Kerry's "Real Deal" is the third try at a creative packaging of the Massachusetts junior senator.

topics:
Bill Clinton, NATO