The American Spectator

Enemy of the Week

Must all the Kerry's lie? With reckless abandon, a woman claiming to be John Kerry's daughter went on record to declare she'd read Drudge's report about her father's alleged mistress -- "and I died laughing." But if she'd died, why was she appearing live at the Columbia University event at which she described her passing?

Howard Dean's a doctor, with greater credibility in life and death matters than the Kerry klan. Once he pronounced his candidacy deader than a door nail, there was nothing left to monitor. Or so we thought. Then we started checking our e-mail again, brimming as our in-box was with earnest missives from Deaniacs who refuse to resign themselves to their man's demise. These precious souls, who this campaign have probably sent us more letters than we've received from African royalty hoping to share our bank accounts, remain constitutionally incapable of surrendering their claim on the only bright light ever to shine down on American politics.

"I'm constantly amazed that many people do not realize that Howard Dean is a medical doctor and was a five-time Governor of Vermont," Judy Bur writes, to our amazement. Maybe like the other Judy she never watches TV. Anyway, we always sensed Howie was a healer. As Debbora Adrian lets it be known, "He appealed to both sides because he had a conservative, yet social platform." We hear she does poetry readings on the side.

Forget rumors about Kerry, Marshall Stern adds. Dean may have stopped "his active campaigning," but he has left in place "an aroused organization that never heard of the word quit." Stern must also moonlight as a Vermont poet in residence. Listen to the lyrical case he makes against a Dean rival: "John Edwards who seems a good guy but whose qualification for the job is a candle next to the blazing sun of Howard Dean's impressive executive record." Louis XIV never had it so good. At other times, Stern appears to be one-upping the Kerry daughter, insisting that "day follows night, light follows dark and death is followed by resurrection."

The Deanies have their own demons, beginning with the screech heard 'round the world. It was all a plot, Lisa Plourde notes apropos "the 'scream' where the sound of the crowd was removed from the tape to make him look like a mad man. "What's worse, looking mad or sounding mad? The press is reviled by such as Patty Adjamine, who wrote to condemn "the savage hatchet job by the major press on Governor Howard Dean." She's got a point. It used to be that hatchet jobs never appeared savage, give or take a few scalps.

At times, the Deanies dish out what they can't take. It's still an open question whom they disrelish more, the illegitimate president or the recently secretly inaugurated one. In a follow-up, Ms. Patty Adjamine, compares America under George W. Bush to the kidnapped Patty Hearst. Her point: just like Hearst, who identified with her captors, half of America still claims to "love" Bush, even though he kidnapped the presidency from the majority of American voters and even though "we have had terrorist attacks under Bush, economic ruin, corporate scandal, rape of the middle class, 'Mad Cow Disease,' bird flu, and finally, an illegal and insane war." Bird flu over whose cuckoo's nest?

But this is nothing compared to the number Marshall Stern does on J.F. Kerry: "His sins are written all over his craggy face (or were before the alleged botox injections)." Or: "You may think I am referring to the pending sex scandal that his campaign has so far effectively squelched, but my objections to Kerry go much deeper than his fling with a 20 year old intern." No, the real reason is that Democrats "are rallying behind a man who ducked for cover during the Bush reign of terror." Kerry's no war hero, in short, but a coward.

Any more such displays of Democrat unity and we can go into extended retirement. Who better than a Deanie to finger a repeat EOW, the first bit of consistency we've seen from John Cool Kerry since the time he had to ask people to help him get over his amnesia.

topics:
Constitution, Africa