Weekend Question 3: Is John Kerry Really Sorry? (and What’s He Up To?)

ANSWER: You’re kidding, right? Go to his web site and see what others who have been monitoring it are reporting (here, here, and here, for starters). He’s not one bit sorry.

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In fact, I think John Kerry has stumbled onto a strategy to get the upper hand in the early primaries (oh, how I loathe talking about the next election, but Lurch has made it unavoidable, and you’ll see why).

First, the evidence that he doesn’t regret what he said — not, one, bit:

• The video of the 10-minute “I will apologize to no one” statement/press conference is right there (link is to vid that will pop up) at the bottom right of his home page.

• The top of the home page has three editorials (there was a fourth one removed, but that is still archived, that apparently went further than the other three that remain, which are from — where else? — The New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe) that are all bitterly critical of the president and that to various degrees defend Kerry.

• The terse, three-paragraph apology that Kerry did not have the courage to deliver in person is hiding back on his blog and is not directly referenced from his home page. You almost need a search warrant to find it.

• All bad enough, but this is the topper — Immediately above the 10-minute Kerry vid at the bottom right of the home page is the unbelievably tasteless and spiteful 11-minute screed of Keith Olbermann (link is to vid that will pop up); if you haven’t seen this, get ready to be really angry. The deluded MSNBC commentator compares Bush to South Carolina’s Preston Brooks, who, in 1856, nearly beat Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner to death with his cane because of disagreements over slavery. He says that George Bush’s presidency is not imperial, it is “unilateral.” Olbermann says that John Kerry “called him (Bush) out on Monday. He did it two years too late.” He says that Al Gore, Kerry, and “all of us” have “been too cordial” towards Mr. Bush.He says Kerry was “obviously” criticizing Bush — “no interpretation required,” and that Bush’s response was “to appear to be too stupid to realize that they had been called stupid.” I saw the rest of the vid; I can’t bear to type any more quotes; view at your own, and your own computer’s, risk. Actually, please, please, view the whole thing as a motivator.Then imagine Keith Olbermann, starting Wednesday, as a celebrated commentator who will take partial credit for having engineered a change in congressional control, then in 2008 as a “mainstream commentator” in a future Kerry presidency. Watch him rip into Laura Bush, John McCain, and call the administration’s conduct “domestic terrorism.” Then imagine that, if it is successful, Olbermann’s “style” becomes generally acceptable “civic discourse” beginning three short days from now.

Now, back to Kerry himself.

I believe that in the past 5 days, he has stumbled onto a strategy. It is a strategy that actually depends on his party NOT achieving the majority, or at least the degree of majority, that it so fervently desires. It is why he remains childlishly defiant, perhaps, no probably, hopeful that he will continue to get negative attention that hurts his party.

I believe that the John Kerry you see in the 10-minute “I won’t apologize” video is the John Kerry you will see throughout all of 2007 and early 2008, up to and including the early caucuses and primaries. John Kerry has seen the political landscape, and has calculated that the secret to getting the 2008 Democratic nomination, and defeating Hillary Clinton and Al Gore, perhaps even convincing one or both of them not to run, is to be relentlessly loud, proud, radical, defiant, and coarse.

I believe that John Kerry thinks he can win by being the Democrat presidential primaries’ Ned Lamont and, by exemplifying radicalism, cast Clinton and Gore as Joe Liebermans. It could work. Ned Lamont won the Connecticut Senate Democrat primary because Democrat primary turnouts are mostly of true believers, the famed “nutroots,” the “activists,” the BDSers. Democrat presidential primaries and caucuses may turn out to be not much different. Four more years of nutroots’ ascension may have changed the Democrat primary landscape everywhere, even in Iowa. With his defiance in the wake of his transparent insult to our troops, Kerry is attempting to endear himself to these “primary Democrats.” I believe it’s working, and I believe, incredible as it may seem, that it may carry him to a second nomination.

The possibility that a radicalized effort such as the one Kerry is beginning will be successful increases if the Democrats fall short of their goals on Tuesday. In the “activist” world, Kerry won’t be blamed; the rest of the party will be blamed because it is not radical enough, and because not enough of them are “speaking truth to power.”

The general election? John Kerry will worry about that after he gets the nomination. The idea that he can’t beat a weak or mediocre GOP nominee in a general election cannot, and should not, be ruled out.