WHAT a difference four years makes. When he was being considered as Al Gore's running mate back in 2000, John Kerry was lauded as "handsome" and "telegenic" by plenty of pundits. But many commentators don't find him so hunky anymore. Kerry has been compared this election season to "The Addams Family" zombie servant Lurch (by both former New York Times executive Howell Raines and by CNBC talk show host Dennis Miller). The Weekly Standard's Matt Labash has likened Kerry's visage to a "long-faced Easter Island mask," while the New Yorker's Philip Gourevitch sees "a long, angular face [that] has something of the abstraction of a tribal mask." Kerry reminds Knight Ridder's Dick Polman of "those long-faced walking trees in 'Lord of the Rings,' " while the Chicago Tribune sees a "droopy, hound-dog look." And the Columbia Journalism Review observes: "Kerry, it seems, was repeatedly whacked by an Ugly Stick sometime between 2000 and 2004."
The feds or their contractors at TSA confiscated my 79-year-old white Christian Anglo-Saxon arthritis-limited, CLL-afflicted mother's nail scissors at the airport, as they perceived her as extremely likely to hijack the plane, apparently (thank goodness no one was racially profiled!!!). I was peeved, but managed to avoid getting arrested (barely). Boy, did I want to give someone an earful.