At least we can't say they're ignoring him.

[whometense]

This is old news for everyone else, but I just finished reading today's Boston Globe, in which there were many Kerry mentions. Some were ok, some were insulting. But at least he's on their minds.

I thought people who don't read the paper every day might be interested in the way the home town newspaper is treating our guy.

I think I'll start with the worst. A LTE blaming Kerry, Kennedy, and Menino (Boston mayor) for crime. Stupidest thing I've read in a long time, especially since Kerry was the person who initiated the COPS program. 'Nuff said.

Then there was the href="http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2005/05/03/kerry_needs_to_lighten_up"]LTE accusing Kerry of humorlessness. Not the first time we've heard that one. TayTay discussed it in here.

Then there's the purely evil Joan Vennochi who gets a thrill from insulting Kerry. She writes ostensibly about the MA governor's race, but manages to gratuitously (and, if you ask me, idiotically) kick Kerry on the way:

Reilly supposedly supports the death penalty. However, in this instance, he said, he could not support Romney's proposal because the state's crime lab, medical examiner's office, and local police departments are underfunded, making them incapable of providing the airtight conditions the governor's bill promises.

This was, on Reilly's part, an equally overt political effort to curry favor with liberal Democratic primary voters, who would be inclined to support Patrick's anti-death penalty stand. The state Republican Party quickly put out a press statement detailing Reilly's record of conflicting statements regarding the death penalty, and Romney called him on it. The criticism rang true, especially because Reilly recently attempted a similar adjustment on gay marriage, which he is now in favor of, not opposing.

Reilly can't run successfully for governor this way, any more than John Kerry could run successfully for president. Meanwhile, as Reilly is painted as a flip-flopper on gay marriage and the death penalty, he has yet to find a way to get credit for stands he took as attorney general.

[whometense]

1. Part two.

Peter Canellos works in some fun Kerry references in a column about Bill Weld's potential run for NY governor.

Economically, he helped the state out of a deep fiscal crisis by chopping away big hunks of social programs without showing much visible concern for those losing their benefits. When he happened to run into a homeless activist who had once camped on his lawn to dramatize the effect of budget cuts, Weld cheerfully joshed, ''The '94 budget -- you're not going to like it. I bet you'll be back at my home again."

Meanwhile, he appointed two of the Supreme Judicial Court justices who were the architects of the court's decision to grant gay marriages, a ruling that ended up bedeviling Weld's old rival, Senator John F. Kerry, and one often ascribed to the excesses of Massachusetts' liberal Democrats.

Weld, now living and working in New York City, probably appreciated the irony of the injury to Kerry, whose penetrating debating style in his 1996 Senate race against Weld seemed to expose a callowness in Weld's lighthearted approach. But if and when Weld is on the ballot, Kerry's old charges may pop up like buried land mines.

- snip -

If Weld ends up running for governor, New Yorkers may well warm to the man who can joke about having four homes in the state to prove he is not a carpetbagger. But Spitzer, a prosecutor-politician like Kerry, would probably force uncomfortable questions to the forefront of any debate, such as whether Bill Weld has enough soul to go along with his wit.

[whometense]

2. Part three

Jim Carroll's oped is my favorite piece from today's paper. Titled America's mortal secret, it looks at what americans can't face about our wars.

It's a very thoughtful piece, and I'm sure it will be greeted with a large number of scurrilous accusations of a lack of patriotism, but I loved it.

Sept. 11, 2001, left the United States in the grip of an unarticulated need for payback. No one takes a blow like that without wanting to strike out. Stated justifications aside, that need fueled the subsequent American attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, which is why it meant so little when those justifications (bin Laden dead-or-alive, WMD, etc.) evaporated. And why it meant so little when the brutalities of American methods were made plain, from torture to hair-trigger checkpoints to ruined cities.

The misbegotten character of the war in Iraq was crystal clear last fall, yet John Kerry was unable to challenge it. Why? The answer has as much to do with the American unconscious as with his. The nation's war establishment, and those who support it, are driven by a motive they cannot admit, even to themselves. Their critics have mostly fallen mute because they have yet to find the language for what is really at work in this war.

Pretty impressive, isn't it? John Kerry, no matter what they are saying about him, is clearly still front and center in locals' minds 6 months after the election.