Man Of Principle

Everything you need to know about John Kerry's relationship with lobbyists:

"There was a certain comfort level there" meeting with the Massachusetts crowd, Kip O'Neill said. Kerry was a hard lawmaker to persuade, lobbyists said, and therefore he was not as beseeched as much as other lawmakers. "If your interests coincided he'd be a great advocate," Kip O'Neill said. "But he wouldn't carry anybody's water because he knew them or had a meeting with them."

In other words, if you're on his side, he's on yours (that's called intelligence, for those of you who might be wondering). But he's not for sale and never has been.

John F. Kerry. The Real Deal.

(/) Roland X
Deal me in.

The Sting

We open to the music of "The Entertainer," by Scott Joplin.

Let's recap.

On Meet the Press, John Kerry promises to release all of his military records -- and that, in fact, they are all available through his office.

Soon after, a reporter has trouble getting said records through said office.

The blogosphere goes bananas. Radicon pundits crow about the terrible things that "must" be in his record, and defy liberal blogs to complain the way they did about Dubya's non-service. Leftie blogs, while not pleased, wonder why Kerry is doing this. There are a few hopeful mutterings about the canny Kerry campaign, but mostly "nah, they couldn't be this clever."

Just as the press starts to pay serious attention to the story, Kerry's campaign staff releases the whole shebang. Results: everyone who's paying attention knows that Kerry received glowing reviews, and was reminded of his three Purple Hearts and his Silver and Bronze Stars. The best conservatives can manage in response is "that first Purple Heart looks kinda iffy."

Gee, maybe they are that clever. Heh.

Thanks, radicons! We couldn't have done better ourselves! *VBG*

Fade out to same music.

(/) Roland X
The greedy are the easiest to con out of their money. I wonder if there's a political corollary for wingnuts...