"Thirty-five years on, having no appealing campaign themes, the senator
decides to run for president on his biography. But for the last 20 years he's
been a legislative non-entity. Before that, he was accusing his brave band of
brothers of mutilation, rape and torture. He spent his early life at Swiss
finishing school and his later life living off his wife's inheritance from her
first husband. So, biography-wise, that leaves four months in Vietnam, which he
talks about non-stop. That 1986 Senate speech is typical: It was supposed to be
about Reagan policy in Central America, but like so many Kerry speeches and
interviews somehow it winds up with yet another self-aggrandizing trip down
memory lane.

A handful of Kerry's ''band of brothers'' are traveling
around with his campaign. Most of the rest, including a majority of his fellow
swift boat commanders and 254 swiftees from Kerry's Coastal Squadron One, are
opposed to his candidacy. That is an amazing ratio and, if snot-nosed American
media grandees don't think there's a story there, maybe they ought to consider
another line of work. To put it in terms they can understand, imagine if Dick
Cheney campaigned for the presidency on the basis of his time at Halliburton,
and a majority of the Halliburton board and 80 percent of the stockholders
declared he was unfit for office. More to the point, on the swift vets' first
major allegation — Christmas in Cambodia — the Kerry campaign has
caved."