Dept. of WTF?? (Special Senate edition, part 2) Is there anyone, anyone at all, who can explain to me why Katharine Seelye is blowing a big wet kiss at "Viagra" BobDole today from A1? Flash: BobDole is working as an election-night pundit! And the "political cognoscenti" think he's just absolutely the bee's knees.

[Robert Norton] Smith, the former director of the Dole Institute, said it was important to Mr. Dole to stay relevant.

"For Dole, he has always wanted to stay contemporary," Mr. Smith said. "He's so square, he's hip. That's part of his appeal."

The article's just chock-full of unbiased, unclichéd insights like that!

Kit apparently wants us to admire Viagra Bob's vitality, "still career-hopping at age 80," offering us this breathless summary of his recent activity:

It is not clear where he finds the time to watch so much television. [That, she's just told us, is where Bob does all his pundit research.] He is special counsel to a Washington law firm, Alston & Bird. One of his clients is the president of Indonesia, where he has traveled recently. He was in Moscow last month, helping someone get a visa. That trip coincided with the Virginia and Tennessee primaries, so Mr. Dole was ready at 5 A.M. Moscow time for CNN to beam him back to the states.

Mr. Dole has also embarked on a speaking tour, underwritten by Pfizer, the drug company, to explain the new Medicare prescription drug benefit. He has scheduled stops in both Ohio and Florida, important states in the November election, but he says these stops are not campaign swings for President Bush. He is a consultant to Pfizer, maker of Viagra, which he has promoted in commercials.

What a feisty old guy, huh? Shilling up and down the country for Big Pharma at his age, and probably for no more than millions of dollars in fees annually. (Nice to see that Pfizer is out there helping explain that new drug benefit to seniors, so they don't get any wrong messages about it.) That's selflessness for ya! So much more admirable, isn't it Kit, than the stuff some ex-politicians are into ...

I repeat: why is this steaming pile of crap defacing my front page?

posted by michael  5:22:17 PM  
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It's true. I never see them trading jokes at the Senate water cooler or anything. Yesterday Adam Nagourney tried to read John Edwards' (still entirely speculative) Vice-Presidential fate in the angle of arch of John Kerry's eyebrow. Today, Sheryl Gay Stolberg has (if it were possible) an even more incisive, richly informed take on the whole raging do-you-think-they-don't-like-each-other? debate:

They live a block away from each other in Georgetown, the capital's ritziest address. They have the same job and the same first name. They have turned to the same political consultant and have strikingly similar voting records.

Yet in the clubby world of the Senate, John Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina have hardly become fast friends.

That's it. All that stuff about how a Kerry/Edwards ticket is currently beating the pants off Bush/Cheney? Those things us naive commoners tend to believe, about how Vice Presidential nominees are chosen based on geographic and demographic calculation, on what will and won't make a strong ticket? Out the window. Professional Political Analyst Stolberg has the distressing scoop: These guys not only work together, they have the same first name, for God's sake, and they're still not bosom pals! (I know I'm certainly fast friends instantly, myself, with anyone I meet named Michael.) How can they ever have the special love that only exists between a Pres and his Vice?

Of course, maybe all is not lost. Stolberg ends her piece wryly, almost but not quite resolving to the tonic major:

In May 2002, when the presidential campaign was just beginning, Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards traveled to South Carolina for a weekend of politicking, and were invited to spend the night at the home of Jim Hodges, then the governor. ... "There was some concern that if one of them stayed, the other one may not want to," recalled Mr. Hodges, who took pains to house the two senators in rooms at opposite ends of the 16,000-square-foot mansion. But, he said, he need not have worried.

Mr. Hodges said that he and the two candidates stayed up until 2 a.m., sitting in rocking chairs on the mansion's front porch, overlooking the palmetto trees and enjoying the balmy night air.

"We talked long into the night about a variety of different political topics, political interests that we had," Mr. Hodges said, adding that there was no evidence of tension between the two.

Then again, Mr. Hodges said, "I don't recall either of them saying when they left, `Gee, I really would like that guy to be my vice president.' "

Ah, the palmettos, the rocking chairs on the porch, the balmy night air! Mmmm, that's good scene-painting. Nice to know the two Senators didn't start hissing and spitting and spraying on the mansion carpet when they saw each other.

Is there any depth of triviality to which A1 doesn't plan to sink in 2004? From the looks of it, I'm guessing no.

posted by michael  3:18:24 PM  
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