Wednesday, November 01, 2006

THE HACK WITH THE KNIFE

Ezra Klein on Kerry and McCain:
It's hard to look at this situation and not pity John Kerry. JK is, by all accounts, a good man, a thoughtful man, a decent man, but one who is singularly incapable of thriving in the soundbite era. His mistake is easy enough to understand, if only because no candidate with an eye towards 2008 would dare suggest our troops are anything but ubermenschen with Mensa memberships. And it's easy enough to understand why the right jumped on it -- they are desperate, bloodthirsty, and base. But McCain, who knows both the intent of his ambitious friend's comment and the agony its misinterpretation is surely causing him, would have once intervened to ensure a good man is not brought low by this sort of meaningless bullshit. Today, he will be the the hack with the knife. I hope it's worth it for him. I can't imagine it will be.

Even though yesterday's tsunami of canned Republican sanctimony over this obvious non-scandal caused me to gag more than once, for me the most disturbing thing about this is that, after more than sixty years on this planet, John Kerry still has not realized that he is not one of the people who can tell jokes well.

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