ALLEGATIONS ABOUT KERRY AND INTERN CREATE MEDIA FRENZY

Calabrese was scanning the crowd of 20 or so media members that had gathered on Madeline Drive outside the home of her neighbors.

Local print and television media, a CNN camera crew, an NBC crew, a New York Times reporter and two reporters that are employed by an agency that works for The (London) Sun had staked out the house.

Calabrese seemed more fascinated with the media attention than with the possibility that the family's daughter reportedly had a relationship with Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

"The story here is the story behind the story," said Calabrese, who has lived in the neighborhood outside of Malvern for 11 years.

She said she had received telephone calls from reporters at the Los Angeles Times and a Washington, D.C. paper - she could not recall the name - the night before.

East Whiteland Police Sgt. James Smith sat in a police vehicle, along with a line of cars and vans, across the street from the pale green and stone ranch house. Later in the afternoon, two East Whiteland patrol cars also circled the neighborhood.

Smith said he was there to make sure the media behaved. "We're just monitoring the situation," he said. A story broke Thursday on an Internet site that the Massachusetts senator may have had a two-year relationship with a 24-year-old East Whiteland woman. The Democratic front-runner made his campaign rounds Friday while repeatedly denying having had an extramarital affair.

"I just deny it categorically. It's rumor. It's untrue. And that's the last time I intend to (respond to questions about it)," he told reporters who asked about reports on an Internet site, reported the Associated Press.

Several Internet sites of mainstream American newspapers posted stories about the allegations.

However, The Sun reported, the woman's parents said Kerry invited their daughter to Washington and asked her to work for his re-election campaign two or three years ago. She declined, they said.

According to The Sun, the young woman is a journalist who is currently in Kenya.

A young man driving a burgundy Nissan Sentra pulled into the driveway of the home mid-afternoon.

"Would you please get off my property?" he asked reporters, who continued to stand on the street, as he unlocked the front door of the home. "Thank you."

He later came out to retrieve the mail from the roadside mailbox, and the crowd of reporters surged forward.

"I'm not saying anything," he said, looking over his shoulder. "Have a good day, guys."

Missy Keehn Ritti of Pottstown, a former intern for Kerry, was skeptical of the allegations.

"Obviously, it is impossible for me to say," she said in a telephone interview. She is a former Daily Local News reporter.

However, she said, during her tenure in Kerry's office, he acted professionally and gave no indication that he would become involved in an extra-marital affair.

Kerry has been married to Teresa Heinz, widow of Pennsylvania GOP Sen. John Heinz, since 1995. He divorced his first wife in 1988.

Jessica M. McRorie, a reporter for the Daily Local News in West Chester, interned with the East Whiteland woman at ABC News in Manhattan in 2001.

"When I heard the news . . . I kind of laughed to myself because I know this person," she said. "And it just doesn't seem logical.

"But then my immediate reaction after that was how hard it must be for her now . . . to just try to keep sane because there's going to be a media circus in this because John Kerry's big in the news."

In the more than two years since she has known her, McRorie said she never heard her friend mention Kerry. "As a member of the media, I know we jump on certain topics," she said. "And this really hits home." McRorie, who still keeps in touch with her friend, heard from her about six months ago.

"The last time I talked to her she'd sent me an e-mail from Israel where she was honeymooning," she said. McRorie said her friend is a hard worker. She is a former Associated Press reporter who put in long hours as a reporter, McRorie said.

"She's one of the brightest and strongest people I know," said McRorie. "And I'd hate to see this happen to someone if it turned out not to be true." Adam Cirucci contributed to this story.

I'm sorry you feel the way you do about Bush and the repub. administration. We endured eight years of Clinton's sociopathic behavior, (never mind the White House shenanigans: missing FBI files, the travel office debacle, Billy Dale ruined and an act of congress for him to get his legal bills paid), starting with Somalia and Les Aspin's disingenuous remark that we couldn't send in support for the rangers (tanks and heavy armor), because that was earmarked for Bosnia. This was the first America heard that US ground troops, tanks, etc., were earmarked for Bosnia. The lies about 'the worst economy in the twentieth century', all the bimbo eruptions that never went away, the women who were threatened, raped, threatened again. Nobody in the democratic party cared, and from the look of things now, they haven't learned a single thing. Clinton's bombing Sudan to keep the Lewinski scandal off the front pages...and who cared if a few camel drivers were killed? Special interests! Kerry's lived off special interests and rich women for years. Saddam had WMD. He used them against the Kurds, the Iranians, his own people. He also kept meticulous records and nowhere is there info about their destruction. Ipso facto: they existed, he used them, either sent them to Syria or some other friendly country, or hid them. Bush didn't mislead congress or the country. He acted upon intelligence, the best we had; and please remember that Clinton gutted the CIA, saying "intel on the ground was 'dirty'. All we needed was satellite intel". Clinton sold nuclear capabilities to the Chinese for campaign contributions. He was offered bin Laden on a plate and refused, therefore, along came 9/11. Where is your outrage over all this? We have a long, hard road to hoe through this terrorist war, and we'd better be smart about it or we won't survive. Kerry is already bragging that he intends to give the UN the keys to our national security, and guess what? A large percentage of the UN wants to see us decimated. Kerry's personal behavior, whether he cheated on his wife or not, is not what bothers me. It's the lies and probable payoffs. Clinton was impeached for lying. I don't think we can survive Clinton redux.

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