It's true the press has been giving John Kerry a hard time. Here's how one columnist recently described the Democratic presidential nominee: "…Kerry is frustrating and infuriating because he seems not to believe much of anything worth risking offense … what infuriates [me] about Kerry is his wish to be all things to all people--or, at any rate, not to give them any basis for attacking him…. Is Kerry acting on advice of his political advisers, or does he really have no important and articulable policy differences with the man he would replace? If the former, it strikes me as questionable advice; if the latter, it suggests a president who would be weak on leadership." The columnist is not, however, George Will or Charles Krauthammer. Rather, it is lefty writer William Raspberry in yesterday's Washington Post.

And today another columnist says Kerry "seems to be speaking from under water, making glub, glub sounds as he tries to explain his original vote in support of the Iraq war resolution, his subsequent vote against funding the war and now his conduct in Vietnam lo these many years ago and what he said afterward … as a public speaker he is no public speaker." The writer goes on describe the senator as being trapped "in a kind of rhetorical molasses" and thinks he ought to learn from John McCain. "It is a magical thing McCain does: Tell the truth, tell it simply and get on with life." And again, this columnist is no Robert Novak, but rather the liberal Richard Cohen.

What's next? An article by James Carville calling John Kerry the second coming of Michael Dukakis? Unlikely, but at least we know there are some on the left who are starting to think this.