Getting To Know John Kerry
by Kevin McCullough

The most recent polls produced by CNN/Gallup and ABC/Wash Post had the pundits scratching their heads. How could President Bush be opening his biggest lead on Senator John Kerry when his prime time press conference had been in their eyes "a dismal failure", and the issues in Iraq had raged on?

We the voters were told that Bush had "bumbled his way across our tv screens". We were told that Iraq had become "a bogged down disaster". Michael Moore even wrote on his web-site that the contractors doing the rebuilding in Iraq were "mercenaries", and the terrorists insurgents killing our kids weren't terrorists but "The REVOLUTION", "that their numbers were growing", and that "they would win."

So what gives?

My observation is simple. As the American people are getting to know John Kerry, they just don't like him. And as Kerry, who Peggy Noon called this week "a sad hollow tree", runs headlong through his campaign schedule I believe he hits on all the wrong buttons. The American people aren't stupid, yet we feel that John Kerry treats as though we are.

Some examples...

Early on in his campaign John Kerry granted an interview to Rolling Stone magazine. Using the "F" word with all the grace and dignity the American listener can stomach, Kerry repeatedly cursed the very policy of holding Iraq accountable - that he had voted for. This flip-floppery continues to this day as is so well captured by the Bush campaign commercial "...I actually voted for the 87 billion (support for our troops in Iraq), before I voted against it..."

But the nation was patient and generous. Perhaps after we got to see his "softer side" we would be able to like him personally.

Then he went on his ski vacation and so memorably cursed out the Secret Service agent who was there to take a bullet on his behalf. The reason? Simply because the Senator ran into him and got a bit of snow on himself. Ok...scratch personal "like-ability" off the list...

This was followed by his invention of a group of international leaders that looked him in the imaginary eye and told him in his imaginary ear that he "must win this thing". An easily provable false claim, that he continues to repeat even as recently as this last Sunday.

But add to that list the fact that he told members of a labor union (when he believed his mic to be off) that this administration was the biggest bunch of crooks and liars he'd ever seen.

Senator Kerry, the "sad hollow tree" of honesty, also questioned President Bush's well documented time in the National Guard and demanded the thirty year old service records of the President be made public. But when he is asked if his service records would be - first he claimed they already were, and now his campaign says that only portions of them can be released.

But last week on NBC's Meet the Press might have taken the cake for why people don't care for John Kerry. He's arrogant.

Tim Russert pulled out a video clip of John Kerry admitting that he had committed atrocities in Vietnam. He claimed in the clip he had burned villages to the ground, conducted search and destroy missions, and using his 50 caliber machine gun killed innocents in the process.

It astounds me that someone who can even admit doing such things can make a serious run for President. Though Kerry says in the clip that "thousands of other vietnam veternas did the same exact things". (Thousands committed atrocities?)

The answer to Time Russert's question should have given insight into a serious and reflective and compassionate man. Russert asked, "YOU...committed atrocities?"

Kerry's response was a knee slapping joke, "Where did all of that dark hair go Tim, that's the important question for me...(laughter trails off)" (Referring to his own vanity and why he wasn't the handsome cuss he used to be.)

With behavior like this its easy to understand why people might see Kerry as more arrogant than President Bush.

And according to this week's ABC NEWS/WASH POST poll - they do.

Kevin McCullough is heard daily in New York City, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware on AM 570 WMCA and AM 970 WWDJ from 1-4pm. Adding stations in Chicago, Boston, and 16 more markets soon. Write KMC at kmc@wmca.com. Read KMC daily on his web-log at http://kmc.crosswalk.com. For information on how to bring "The Kevin McCullough Show" to a station near you drop an e-mail to kmc@wmca.com.