Innnnn the left corner, wearing the blue trunks … John “The Real Deal” Kerry. Onnnnn the right, in red … George “The War President” Bush. The Main Event begins today and the blogosphere is all a-twitter, with rightists fixating on which one of the despised Clintons might join Kerry’s corner and worried lefties wringing their hands over Team Bush’s $146 million-plus war chest.
At FreeRepublic, one Capitalism2003 has a thread titled “Kerry/Clinton 04 Get Ready For It!!” And he’s not talking about “Hellary.” Kathryn Jean Lopez, over at The Corner, is in a snit because “Bill Clinton’s dream [has] come true,” and she points us to the New York Times Op-Ed page floating the Clinton trial balloon with a thumbsucker by Stephen Gillers, a law professor at NYU. Hey, we at Campaign Desk can speculate with the best of them after a drink or three … but there’s a journalistic question here that keeps nagging at us: Isn’t there any scribe out there who has run this idea past Kerry or Billary?
Since “anybody but Bush is now John Kerry,” Mathew Gross urges his readers to throw money at the Kerry campaign and/or Moveon.org. Atrios suggests making a “congratulatory donation” to Kerry, and Billmon at Whiskey Bar hopes that quoting St. Ignatius might help his readers part with their cash.
Some folks are still fixating on the quality of Super Tuesday-related press coverage and — get this — no one thinks it was any good. The Corner’s Tim Graham wants readers to “throw [their] remote[s]” at CBS’s Bob Schieffer who this morning insinuated that calling Kerry a “liberal” is not discussing the issues but rather it is “rough stuff.” Josh Marshall wonders how panelists Larry King, Bob Dole and Bob Woodward ended up “each repeating the mind-numbingly obvious.” And Kaus makes a stink about “Tim Russert’s exit poll garbage.” Which reminds us: wherefore art thou, Wonkette!? We’re worried.
–Liz Cox Barrett
Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.