Opinion/Mark Steyn: No disrespect to the millions of Europeans desperate to be rid of the swaggering Texas cowboy, but I wonder if John Kerry has perhaps launched his descent into caricature a couple of months too early.
As some readers may recall, ever since last summer I've been mocking Senator Kerry's tortured explanations as to why his vote in favour of such-and-such in fact demonstrates his staunch opposition to it. As I wrote a couple of months back: "His vote against the first Gulf War was, he says, a sign of his support for the first Gulf War. Whereas his vote in favour of the Iraq war was a sign of his opposition to the Iraq war. And his vote against funding America's troops in Iraq is a sign of his support for America's men and women in uniform. On the same principle, I think the best way voters this November can demonstrate their support for John Kerry is by voting against him."
Even I, however, would have balked at so crude and obvious a parody as this line which some Kerry impersonator did on the radio the other day: "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it." Oh, hang on. That's apparently the real senator, explaining to an audience of veterans why he voted against funding the Iraqi reconstruction. Just to add to the fun, a couple of weeks before voting against the $87 billion he went on TV and said it would be "reckless" and "irresponsible" for any senator to vote against it.
Q: How many John Kerrys does it take to change a light bulb?
A: At least four. One to unscrew the old light bulb. One to simultaneously announce his courageous commitment to replacing the old bulb. One to vote against funding the new light bulb. And one to denounce George W. Bush for leaving everyone in the dark.
Then there was the senator's clumsy attempt to declare himself America's "second black president". Bill Clinton was at least canny enough to get himself anointed as the first black president by an actual black person, the novelist Toni Morrison, who declared that Billy boy displayed "every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas".
It's harder to pull that off when you're a Swiss finishing school boy from Massachusetts. Of course, like many African-Americans, he understands what it's like when people are prejudiced against you because of your skin. In Senator Kerry's case, his skin is extremely thin. So it was inevitable that, when a voter named Cedric Brown, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, needled the candidate to name one of the world leaders who were supposedly desperate for him to beat Bush, within moments the senator would be snarling that it's "none of your business". It's never a good idea in vernacular politics to leave the impression you're more comfortable with the global elite than with American citizens. Instead of the second black president, Mr Kerry sounded awfully like America's first French president.
Also none of our business is the senator's go-ahead-punk bluster about foreign policy. For months he's been droning in his stump speech that, if George W. Bush wants to fight this election on national security, Kerry has three words for him: "Bring it on!" So Bush brought it on - with a 30-second ad arguing that the senator's weak on defence. And suddenly the campaign's curled up on the floor in a fetal position whimpering that it's just totally unfair making such a horrible, mean personal attack.
For over a year, there've been jokes about the ponderous way the senator brings Vietnam up at every opportunity. So naturally, when the Humane Society sends him a questionnaire asking: "Do you have any pets that have made an impact on you personally?" - instead of citing any of the gerbils and cockatoos that have passed through the Kerry household, he goes back to those four months in Vietnam and recalls a pooch named VC - as in Viet Cong.
Is it normal to take a yappy mutt on a swift boat patrol through enemy territory? Especially a mutt named after the enemy. Calling out "Over here, VC" in the middle of the jungle seems a good way to get taken out by friendly fire.
Weird. Even weirder, the Kerry campaign was forced to confirm that the candidate did, despite earlier denials, attend a meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against The War at which a plan to assassinate US senators was discussed.
This was back in 1971, but, given that the Kerry campaign has been demanding to know what George W. Bush was doing every weekend during his National Guard service in that year, they're not in a position to claim it was a long time ago.
Mr Kerry is now a US senator himself and presumably feels he's not a legitimate target for assassination. That's why he has Secret Service protection - agents willing to take a bullet for him. On Friday, while snowboarding on Mount Baldy, Idaho, a Secret Service guy got in his path and he took a tumble. Asked by reporters about falling down, he snarled, "I don't fall down. That son-of-a-bitch ran into me." If you were a Secret Service son-of-a-bitch, would you take a bullet for John Kerry? And finally, in a week of oddities, Senator Kerry, accompanied by the press, went into a sporting-goods store and bought a jock strap.
Even for a campaign marked by a strangely insecure macho exhibitionism, this was a little too self-parodic. Next time he shouts "Bring it on!", I want to see that VC puppy trot out with the jock strap between his teeth so Jacques Chirac can ceremonially drape it round the senator's neck.