He was the anti-Vietnam War counterpart to that one asshole who's name I forget... (that guy who toured the country speaking of the Vietnam War in terms of honor to family and the like.)

IF Stone, in his newsletter, mentioned John Kerry as an articulate veteran who was a refreshing change of pace to a somewhat disillusioning antiwar movement. This was the start of John Kerry's political career.

The key line is this: Colson, in a secret memo, revealed he had a mission to target Kerry: "Destroy the young demagogue before he becomes another Ralph Nader."

Okay. So, they wanted to destroy John Kerry's career before it took shape. Here's where Nixon looks like a complete nincompoop:

Nixon was a paranoid who used extra-constitutional and extra-judicial powers to meet his aims. He did not hold distortion and outright lying as beneath him. And yet... a debate was the best they could do?

Not that Kerry would've been priority number one on Nixon's enemies list... but still.

So now, John Kerry sits on the precipice. His career was never destroyed, and we have a Frankenstein. He is prepared to do nothing less than to go down in history as a footnote in the current family fued that is the 80 year reign of rotating Bush and Clinton administrations. The next Michael Dukakis. The next Bob Dole. The man sitting where Bill Frist will be sitting in 2008, when Hillary Clinton will triumph over him.