John Kerry: Fake

There is a great danger, The Corsair believes, in picking Senator John Kerry to be the Democratic nominee for President. First, he is a hairstyle with some armed services experience, but other than that -- what?

There is a real danger that Al Gore II, also known as Kerry, will spark the disenfranchised Deaniacs, who registered for "regime change," might flock to a Ralph Nader candidacy and, once again, hand a victory to Republicans, to teach the stubborn Democrat Establishment a lesson. A very real danger.

You see, Kerry speaks on special interests, but he is, in fact, a Master at using them. A veritable Rembrandt of special interest dollars.

Then there is the question of his fakeness. Kerry is impossibly phony. Yes, I know, only Holden Caulfield could get away with using that word, but I always like to imaging that if Caulfield spent some years in Africa and got out of the "instution" to study philosophy in the Green Mountains of Vermont, he might have turned out like The Corsair.

Anyhoo: Kerry's phoniness is vast. To wit: The Harley on Leno, Kerry tears up -- at just the right political moment -- in his interview with Ed Bradley, the haircut at just the right time, the initials (JFK), the sketchy Irish Catholic background, the Vietnam "Republican" buddy, James Rassmann who "just happened" (wink wink) to be in Iowa to boost Kerry's poll numbers, the coincidence that his first heiress-wife, Julia Thorne, was worth $300 million and his second wife, Theresa, worth close to $1 billion. Just a coinki-dinky.

Look, as John Kerry collects his victories in Michigan and Washington I think that the democrat readers of this site -- and there are a few -- should take a second look at John Edwards, a man who is not Skull and Bones, and can therefore make a credible case against Bush's corporate cronyism a la Haliburton.

If John Kerry gets the dem nod, Nader will all but certainly run, bringing along enraged Deaniacs and, quite possibly, getting the party right back in the same mess it was in before. The Party must find confluence between the idealistic progressive wing and the Chardonnay sipping, Brie munching, liberal establishment Upper West Side-Hollywood-Joe Klein-Sally Quinn wing, otherwise Bush wins again.

But this time with a strong rightist mandate.