Mugger slams Kerry (and Alterman):

Maybe that’s why he now resembles an aging politician trapped in a haunted house where all the doors are locked. Kerry’s interview with Democrat-friendly Rolling Stone, posted on the irrelevant pop culture magazine’s website last week, was another example of his attempt to act like a regular guy. He says "gonna" a lot. Asked by puffball inquisitor Will Dana if Howard Dean’s success surprised him, Kerry unloaded, saying, "I mean, when I voted for the war, I voted for what I thought was best for the country. Did I expect Howard Dean to go off to the left and say ‘I’m against everything’? Sure. Did I expect George Bush to fuck it up as badly as he did? I don’t think anybody did."

Kerry’s use of what major newspapers still refer to as a "barnyard epithet," is not unprecedented. Back in ’99, Tucker Carlson’s profile of GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush in the debut issue of Talk included the Texas governor lapsing into profanity, much to his staff’s horror. Arguably, there’s a difference. Bush, even at that early point in the campaign, was the prohibitive favorite, with his enormous wad of cash and endorsements, not to mention the perception that he was a simpleton with a sailor’s mouth.

Also, Bush wasn’t talking about a sitting president, which doesn’t bother me, but did cause Stephen Hess, a scholar at the liberal Brookings Institution, a case of heartburn. Hess told the New York Post’s Deborah Orin "[i]t’s so unnecessary… I think John Kerry is going to regret saying this." Kerry, in contrast to Bush, is supposed to be Mr. Breeding, even as he increasingly shoots pheasants, rides motorcycles and talks about "average Americans," as if he’s encountered one of those animals in the past 25 years.

Coming next: Kerry boasts about his wife’s "gorgeous tits" in Playboy.

Read the Alterman also.