NYT Columnist Apologizes To John Kerry While Slamming "Not That Bright" Lieberman

[stopbush]

Sorry, Senator Kerry

By GAIL COLLINS
Published: December 16, 2009

The theories about Why Joe Is Doing It abound. We cannot get enough of them! I have decided to start a rumor that it all goes back to the 2004 presidential race, when Lieberman not only failed to win any primaries, but was also bitten by either a rabid muskrat or a vampire disguised as a moose. Other than that, my favorite explanation comes from Jonathan Chait of The New Republic, who theorized that Lieberman was able to go from Guy Who Wants to Expand Medicare to Guy Who Would Rather Kill Health Care Than Expand Medicare because he “isn’t actually all that smart.”

It’s certainly easier to leap from one position to its total opposite if you never understood your original stance in the first place, and I am thinking Chait’s theory could get some traction. “When I sat next to him in the State Senate, he always surprised me by how little he’d learned about the bill at the time of the vote,” said Bill Curry, a former Connecticut comptroller and Democratic gubernatorial nominee. I really like the not-that-bright theory, in part because it’s as good an explanation as any, and in part because it will definitely drive Lieberman nuts. But I have a different mission today, and that is to apologize to John Kerry.

I frequently made fun of Kerry for being a terrible presidential candidate. Which he was. But there comes a point when we the people have to move on. And Kerry has been a really good former failed presidential candidate. He’s been working hard in the Senate on climate control and trying to help the White House on foreign relations, despite the fact that Barack Obama stiffed him out of the secretary of state job in favor of a person who had been somewhat less supportive than Kerry of Obama’s early presidential aspirations. He actually seems more interested in doing stuff than being admired.

More here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/opinion/17collins.html

[BeyondGeography]

1. Times columnists often wind up apologizing for being assholes to Gore and Kerry

Not that it will stop them from being fools in the future.