Know Thy Enemy: John Kerry

Since it looks like John Kerry has a lock on the Democrat nomination, being the uber-partisan I am (hell, I'd vote for a retarded mule if it had an 'R' next to its name and said it would cut my taxes) I've set my crack research staff out to find the dirt on the haughty, French-looking Senator who - by the way - served in Vietnam. Here's what they got:

* In his campaign, Kerry is planning on relying on his wife's ketchup money. That's a lot like blood money, but more tomato based.

* Kerry wants people to know that he is a friend of the common man... he just doesn't want to talk to any of them, see any of them, have any in his country club, or even be near any of them unless they have lots of special interest campaign contributions.

* John Kerry's hair is the source of his important lookingness. If you shaved off his hair, he would no longer look important.

* Like George Bush, John Kerry was a member of the secret Skull and Bones society at Yale. They will actually determine who will be president, and this whole election is just for our entertainment.

* The Vietnam war was going great and was extremely popular in the U.S.... until Kerry joined in.

* Sometimes Kerry has simultaneous flashbacks to fighting in Vietnam and being a Vietnam War protestor, causing him to spit on himself.

* Kerry knows for a fact from Vietnam that eating the heart of your defeated enemy will not gain you his non-French-lookingness.

* Some hippies had called Kerry a “baby-killer” when he returned from Vietnam, but, in reality, he wussed out and ran away when caught in a baby knife fight.

* Though he likes to tout his Vietnam record now (he was in Vietnam, you know), he was also involved in the same protest group as Jane "Why in God's Name Wasn't She Hung as a Traitor" Fonda.

* Jane Fonda was married to Ted Turner who is a total jackass. That has nothing to do with John Kerry, but it's worth saying.

* If you are in the military and Kerry drops by your place, hide your medals. Apparently he likes to throw other people's medals.

* Senator John Kerry has a more liberal voting record than Senator Ted Kennedy, which people used to think was scientifically impossible since the way to judge how liberal one's voting record is was to see how close it is to Ted Kennedy's.

* Wait, who was I zinging there? John Kerry or Ted Kennedy? Hell, they both deserve it.

* John Kerry is so liberal...

How liberal is he?

He's so liberal, that he thinks minors should be able to get abortions without even their own consent.

* In a fight between John Kerry and Aquaman, I'm not sure who'd win, but the battle would involve a lot of effeminate slapping.

* Some say Kerry looks like Lurch from the Addams Family, but that's not fair; Lurch is not French.

* Kerry comes from the most evil/liberal state in the union: Massachusetts. Some say Hitler was born there.

* According to sources, Kerry's name rhymes with "fairy". I'm not saying to call him John "Fairy"; I'm just putting that information out there.

* Kucinich rhymes with spinach... but I'm not sure what to do with that.

* Oh, wait:

Vote for Dennis Kucinich 'Cause he eats his spinach. He's Kucinich the crazy man. (toot) (toot)

* Back to John Kerry, according to lots of anecdotal information, he loves to play the "Do you know who I am?" card. If he does that to you, the best response is to say, "Yeah, you're the guy I'm going to punch in the nads," and then punch him in the nads. If he complains, hey, he asked.

* The last guy from Massachusetts who ran against a George Bush for the presidency of the United States lost. That's precedent for you!

THE REAL KERRY

By HOWIE CARR
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February 5, 2004 -- BOSTON

ONE of the surest ways to get the phones ringing on any Massachusetts
talk-radio show is to ask people to call in and tell their John Kerry
stories. The phone lines are soon filled, and most of the stories have a
common theme: our junior senator pulling rank on one of his constituents,
breaking in line, demanding to pay less (or nothing) or ducking out before
the bill arrives.

The tales often have one other common thread. Most end with Sen. Kerry
inquiring of the lesser mortal: "Do you know who I am?"

And now he's running for president as a populist. His first wife came from
a Philadelphia Main Line family worth $300 million. His second wife is a
pickle-and-ketchup heiress.

Kerry lives in a mansion on Beacon Hill on which he has borrowed $6 million
to finance his campaign. A fire hydrant that prevented him and his wife
from parking their SUV in front of their tony digs was removed by the city
of Boston at his behest.

The Kerrys ski at a spa the widow Heinz owns in Aspen, and they summer on
Nantucket in a sprawling seaside "cottage" on Hurlbert Avenue, which is so
well-appointed that at a recent fund-raiser, they imported porta-toilets
onto the front lawn so the donors wouldn't use the inside bathrooms. (They
later claimed the decision was made on septic, not social, considerations).

It's a wonderful life these days for John Kerry. He sails Nantucket Sound
in "the Scaramouche," a 42-foot Hinckley powerboat. Martha Stewart has a
similar boat; the no-frills model reportedly starts at $695,000. Sen. Kerry
bought it new, for cash.

Every Tuesday night, the local politicians here that Kerry elbowed out of
his way on his march to the top watch, fascinated, as he claims victory in
more primaries and denounces the special interests, the "millionaires" and
"the overprivileged."

"His initials are JFK," longtime state Senate President William M. Bulger
used to muse on St. Patrick's Day, "Just for Kerry. He's only Irish every
sixth year." And now it turns out that he's not Irish at all.

But in the parochial world of Bay State politics, he was never really seen
as Irish, even when he was claiming to be (although now, of course, he says
that any references to his alleged Hibernian heritage were mistakenly put
into the Congressional Record by an aide who apparently didn't know that on
his paternal side he is, in fact, part-Jewish).

Kerry is, in fact, a Brahmin - his mother was a Forbes, from one of
Massachusetts' oldest WASP families. The ancestor who wed Ralph Waldo
Emerson's daughter was marrying down.

At the risk of engaging in ethnic stereotyping, Yankees have a reputation
for, shall we say, frugality. And Kerry tosses around quarters like they
were manhole covers. In 1993, for instance, living on a senator's salary of
about $100,000, he managed to give a total of $135 to charity.

Yet that same year, he was somehow able to scrape together $8,600 for a
brand-new, imported Italian motorcycle, a Ducati Paso 907 IE. He kept it
for years, until he decided to run for president, at which time he traded
it in for a Harley-Davidson like the one he rode onto "The Tonight Show"
set a couple of months ago as Jay Leno applauded his fellow Bay Stater.

Of course, in 1993 he was between his first and second heiresses - a time
he now calls "the wandering years," although an equally apt description
might be "the freeloading years."

For some of the time, he was, for all practical purposes, homeless. His
friends allowed him into a real-estate deal in which he flipped a condo for
quick resale, netting a $21,000 profit on a cash investment of exactly
nothing. For months he rode around in a new car supplied by a shady local
Buick dealer. When the dealer's ties to a congressman who was later
indicted for racketeering were exposed, Kerry quickly explained that the
non-payment was a mere oversight, and wrote out a check.

In the Senate, his record of his constituent services has been lackluster,
and most of his colleagues, despite their public support, are hard-pressed
to list an accomplishment. Just last fall, a Boston TV reporter ambushed
three congressmen with the question, name something John Kerry has
accomplished in Congress. After a few nervous giggles, two could think of
nothing, and a third mentioned a baseball field, and then misidentified
Kerry as "Sen. Kennedy."

Many of his constituents see him in person only when he is cutting them in
line - at an airport, a clam shack or the Registry of Motor Vehicles. One
talk-show caller a few weeks back recalled standing behind a police
barricade in 2002 as the Rolling Stones played the Orpheum Theater, a short
limousine ride from Kerry's Louisburg Square mansion.

The caller, Jay, said he began heckling Kerry and his wife as they
attempted to enter the theater. Finally, he said, the senator turned to him
and asked him the eternal question.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Yeah," said Jay. "You're a gold-digger."

John Kerry. First he looks at the purse.

Howie Carr, a Boston Herald columnist and syndicated talk-radio host, has
been covering John Kerry for 25 years.

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