John Kerry In 2008? No?

With less than a week to go before George W. Bush's second inaugural (cheer up, his second inaugural means his departure from office is no farther in the future than his arrival into it is in the past), it looks less and less likely that John Kerry will become an unofficial leader of the opposition. I was talking to a veteran leftist in my writer's group yesterday, and she absolutely detests John Kerry; she sees him as just another Washington hack with a thin liberal veneer, and she only voted for him because she wanted him to defeat Bush. Kerry couldn't even do that, and he continues to believe that he commands respect as a serious statesman. But Kerry's supporters mostly didn't really vote for him as much as they were voting against Bush. On his own merits, Kerry proved to be uninspiring and, to some liberals, somewhat unpalatable - mainly because of his stand against gay marriage (though he supports civil unions) and because of his temporization on Iraq ("I actually voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it"). As Congress gets to work, it looks like Democrats will forget Kerry (at least they'll try to), and invest their faith in Washington's most powerful Democrat. . . Harry Reid.

We're in trouble - real trouble! :-O