Category: default || By jt3y

From the Tube City Almanac's national affairs desk, there's great news for Senator Yawn Kerry. Just off of a triumphant tour of Iraq, where soldiers and Marines greeted him with loud applause, Kerry is getting good notices from Democrats for his grilling of Condoleezza Rice during her Senate confirmation hearings.

Meanwhile, there's new trouble for President Bush. Fifty-six percent of Americans say the country has "gone off the track"; 60 percent say they wouldn't put their own Social Security money into the stock market; and about two-thirds think that the United States is going to have a larger budget deficit in four years. And only 39 percent of the country agrees the war in Iraq was a good idea.

Yes, it seems like Kerry's presidential campaign is finally hitting its peak.

OK, so there's also some bad news for Kerry.

What exactly is Kerry trying to accomplish? Does he think he's setting up a government in exile? Or maybe he thinks he's the minority leader of the loyal opposition, and he's going to appoint a "shadow cabinet," like they do in Britain.

Well, I've got a shocking update for him: He may be a Tory, but this isn't the House of Commons. And if he wants to set up a government in exile, he needs to leave the country.

Preferably for an island.

With no phones, TV studios or Internet access.

Maybe Kerry is gearing up for a run in 2008. If so, this could be the longest presidential primary in history --- and he'd best remember that there's a lot that can happen in three years. Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew were re-elected in a landslide in 1972; less than two years later, Agnew was a convicted felon* and Nixon had resigned in disgrace.

... not that I'm saying that such a thing is likely for George W. Bush (though I do get all tingly just thinking it).

In any event, Kerry should not assume that he's the presumptive nominee in 2008. In fact, having flown his campaign into the side of a mountain in 2004, I'd hope, for the Democratic Party's sake, that he doesn't get the nomination in 2008. (Of course, they did nominate him in the first place, so how smart are they?)

I had another thought. Namely, that it's possible that Kerry thinks Inauguration Day is something like the Academy Awards.

I can see it now: Chief Justice William Rehnquist steps up to the podium today and reads from his card. "And the nominees for President of the United States are: George W. Bush, 'Texas.' John F. Kerry, 'Massachusetts.' Michael Bednarik, 'Texas.' Ralph Nader, 'District of Columbia.'"

Rehnquist tears open an envelope: "And the winner is ... John F. Kerry, 'Massachusetts'!"

The Marine Band strikes up "All Hail To Massachusetts" as Kerry walks to the reviewing stand, wearing a tuxedo. The cameras catch George and Laura Bush, smiling through tight lips and applauding. Rehnquist shakes Kerry's hand as a beautiful woman in a gown presents him with a gold-plated gavel.

And then 21 pigs fly over the U.S. Capitol in formation.

This is not to say that Kerry should necessarily drop off of the face of the Earth, like Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale did. Barry Goldwater was shellacked in 1964, but had a long and distinguished career in the Senate. Nixon narrowly lost in 1960 and was humiliated in the California gubernatorial race in 1962, only to stage a triumphant comeback.

But at least both Nixon and Goldwater allowed their opponents to have their moments in the spotlight before they re-emerged onto the national scene. Kerry keeps acting as if Nov. 2 never happened. As Jonathan Potts puts it, "he is quickly growing tiresome in defeat."

More to the point, the time to show your leadership, Senator Kerry, was in August, September and October. There's no point rushing to the pier after the boat has left the harbor.

In the words of the old song: How can we miss you, if you won't go away?

...

Tim Rowland's column in the Hagerstown, Md., Herald-Mail about a streaker at Wal-Mart is one of the funniest things I've read in a newspaper in a long time. Unfortunately, you need to pay to read it on the H-M's website, but thanks to Google's cache, it's still available for a little while:

The call came across the police scanner on Tuesday, and the astonishment in the dispatcher's voice wasn't dry yet, when people were coming up right and left saying, "Hey, you'll want to hear this, there's a streaker at Wal-Mart."

Then came the cell phone calls. There must have been people in the parking lot agonizing over which number to punch in first, 911 or 5131.

Let me ask you something, why do you think I would care? What is there about some textile-challenged dude outside of a discount store that makes you think of me?

Is that all I am to you? Some doofus who traffics in lowbrow circumstance, who swims among the lowest common denominator of human existence feeding off the scraps of humanity's bottomless chum bucket?

Well, let me tell yoouuu something. I have feelings, too. I have an intellect. I have more to offer than rube commentary on a surplus of skin. All my life I have struggled to succeed. I have toiled at the wheel of journalistic ethos, logic and wisdom. And do I get any credit for this? Oh, no. All I get is, "Hey, better call Tim because there's a streaker at Wal-Mart."

I don't want to reprint the whole thing --- not the least of all because it's a copyright violation --- but it gets funnier and funnier:

By the way, too bad the guy --- who calmly dropped his pants at one end of the shopping center and strolled to the other --- didn't make it as far as the greeters, don't you think? That would have been cool. "Good morning and welcome to Wa..." and about that time the bifocals come into focus and, "...EEEEEK!" Best they could do was let him in and steer him to the aisle where they keep the underpants.

I loved the police quote, that the man appeared "lucid, at points." Which points? When he was naked in front of Pier 1 or when he was naked in front of Circuit City? Hopefully, he didn't do any window shopping; that's the last image you want to see pressed up against the plate glass.

...

Closer to home, the Daily News' Pat Cloonan had an interview this week with that "little nurse from Elizabeth," as she was famously dismissed by all-but-forgotten Allegheny County commissioner Dr. William Hunt of White Oak. Barbara Hafer is out of public office for the first time since 1984, but according to Cloonan, she hasn't yet ruled out a bid for the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate in 2006.

* --- Correction, Not Perfection: I originally wrote that Spiro Agnew went to jail; of course, he pleaded "nolo contendere" to charges of income tax evasion, thus avoiding jail time. He was placed on probation instead. (Go back.)