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Barack Obama looked as if he needed a smoke and he needed it bad. So there he was, trying to meet the deep, inexhaustible needs of both Iowa activists and the global press behemoth on his first swing across the state, while giving up cigarettes. He was a tad testy. “I’ve been chewing Nicorette all day long,” he told reporters at a press conference in Ames on Sunday, where he was getting irritated at suggestions that he lacked substance and at the specter of his vanishing privacy. The Illinois senator didn’t have on an implacable mask of amiability, as Hillary...

WASHINGTON: Enough with The Joke, John Kerry says. The Massachusetts senator and former Democratic presidential nominee said Wednesday night that it is time to move on from his botched attempt at humor before the Nov. 7 congressional elections. Kerry had said people might get "stuck in Iraq" if they do not study hard and do their homework. He said he was trying to poke fun at President George W. Bush, but Bush and others accused him of criticizing the troops. "This is getting silly," Kerry said on CNN's "Larry King Live." "The country needs to think about a policy that...

Robin Williams, the latest Hollywood star whose alcohol problems have come to public attention, has checked himself out of rehab and moved in with a "sober" companion. The star of Dead Poets Society, Mrs Doubtfire and Patch Adams has traded the confines of an Oregon clinic for Los Angeles, where he will spend three months of assimilation into the real world. The hired companion will undertake the surreal task of curbing Williams' urges should he attempt to reach for the bottle. The Daily Mail reports that it could be as long as a year before Williams moves back in with...

Washington June 7, 2006 - "It isn't about medals, it's about honor betrayed," retired Air Force Col. George E. "Bud" Day said today, responding to the New York Times' report that Sen. John Kerry is attempting to resurrect his disputed Vietnam service and decorations as he readies for another Presidential campaign. "The New York Times would be wise to stop dodging the real issue behind the veteran animus towards Mr. Kerry. He is anathema for a vast majority of Vietnam veterans who believe he betrayed them 35 years ago," Col. Day said. A former Vietnam POW (1967-73) and Medal of...

'We have to get angry, and organize around that," he told the audience of about 800 students at Brown University, deviating from his prepared text. ...And while Kerry's speech was part of an annual political lecture series at Brown, it had the air of a major political moment. The senator was surrounded by family members including his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, daughter Vanessa, and brother Cameron -- each a key member of his inner circle and each in a position to advise him on whether to make a 2008 run. They and the senator's aides scrutinized his performance from the...

I don't know if anyone else is watching this, but the Senate hearing on John Bolton has repeatedly referred to a "Mr. Smith" whom Bolton said had behaved unprofessionally. Well, Sen. John Kerry just gave "Mr. Smith's" name in the open hearing. Once a jackass, always a jackass.

The last time that most Americans saw John Kerry, he certainly looked as if he would rather be somewhere else. It was Inauguration Day, and the man who had come within 119,000 Ohio votes of becoming president had gamely taken a prominent spot at the front of the section designated for members of Congress, instead of melting into the mass of Democrats. That gave television cameras a perfect shot of Kerry's face for the pool feed that ran on most broadcasts and showed up on the jumbo screens set up for the crowd. If there was an element of good...

Is anyone else watching Chris Matthews's embarassing attempt to exploit the mistake involving Purple Hearts given to soldiers from the Iraq War who didn't deserve them?

BOSTON— U.S. Sen. John Kerry, in some of his most pointed public comments yet about November's presidential election, invoked Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy on Monday as he criticized President Bush and decried reports of voter disenfranchisement on election day. Kerry, Bush's Democratic challenger, spoke at Boston's annual Martin Luther King Day Breakfast. He reiterated that he decided not to challenge the election results, but went on to say that "thousands of people were suppressed in the effort to vote." "Voting machines were distributed in uneven ways. In Democratic districts, it took people four, five, eleven hours to vote, while...

You're John Kerry, and this is the worst weekend of your life. This is the moment when you should be preparing to take the oath of office, trying to figure out how to say, ``So help me God,'' without choking on that last word the way all good Massachusetts liberals do. You've been globe-trotting for weeks now, bad-mouthing your own country in Third World hellholes, but now you know Joe Louis was right. You can run but you can't hide. As Hosni Mubarak told you in Cairo, ``You don't have to go home, Senator, but you can't stay here.'' You're...

Special Report Touring the Al Gore Presidential Library and Museum By Leonard Albin Published 1/13/2005 12:08:26 AM Almost obscured by the climbing pink orchids and dense sub-tropical foliage in Boca Raton, Florida, a one-story, somber post-modern building of concrete and glass rises from the landscape. Though locals just refer to it affectionately as "that ugly damn place," the newly completed Al Gore Presidential Library and Museum is an important cultural site that should be part of everyone's Florida vacation -- even during the off-season. Just off I-95 in Palm Beach County, and convenient to the Pompano Beach Motel 6, this...

CAIRO (Reuters) - Middle East countries are frustrated by U.S. policy in Iraq and feel too little is being done to end violence there, U.S. Senator John Kerry has said on a visit to the region. Kerry repeatedly criticised the Bush administration's Iraq policy during his failed bid to win the U.S. presidency from George W. Bush, who led the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein. "All of the countries of the region have a significant stake in the outcome and yet they are frustrated," Kerry said in Cairo after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. "They are frustrated because they...

Visiting with U.S. troops in Baghdad on Thursday, failed presidential candidate John Kerry trashed Commander-in-chief George Bush for making "horrendous judgments" and "unbelievable blunders" that have undermined the war effort. In a series of demoralizing comments first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, the defeated Democrat griped, "What is sad about what's happening here now is that so much of it is a process of catching up from the enormous miscalculations and wrong judgments made in the beginning." Kerry said that because of the Bush administration's mistakes, "the job has been made enormously harder." Among the errors cited by the...

" I will never be president, Merry Christmas."

WASHINGTON - Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who championed renewable energy in his presidential bid, yesterday said he won't take a stand on the proposed Cape Cod wind farm until the Army Corps of Engineers completes its environmental impact report next year. ``After this process is complete and the environmental impact statement is final, Sen. Kerry will make a decision based on the best interest of our state and our energy future,'' said Kerry spokesman David Wade.

Only caught part of an Imus interview with Senator Rick Santorum on this morning's show. Santorum was telling Imus Congress had doubled the death benefit from $6,000 to $12,000. Imus told him that was, in effect, a disgraceful joke. Santorum tried to bolster Congress' alleged support for GIs by listing other survivor benefits, each of which Imus appropriately and accurately mocked. Santorum, seemingly defensive, then pledged to "try" to do more in next year's military appropriation bill. Might be helpful, if you agree with Imus, to fire off an email to your Congress people.

Two days ago it was Tom Daschle's birthday; today is the birthday of John Kerry who was born on December 11, 1943. Birthday wishes, comments, and gloating are welcome.

Top Democrat Will Fight by the Rules By Mary Curtius, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON — After the GOP sweep last week, the only place in town Democrats may still be able to slow or stall President Bush's conservative agenda is in the Senate. And to lead the effort, they're backing a backstage master of parliamentary infighting, Nevada Sen. Harry Reid. "Reid is a kind of Dickensian figure. He haunts the floor. He's like the hovering spirit of the Democrats," said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University who specializes in Congress.