James Wolcott speaks the truth

James Wolcott was inspired by Digby to write these lines:

Reading it reminded me of the scene in The Best Man where a former president, played by the brilliant Lee Tracy (a comedy star in the thirties whose career went bust after he drunkenly peed off a balcony), challenges Henry Fonda, playing a fastidious liberal, to use the dirt he has on Cliff Robertson, playing his Nixonian rival and a master of dirty tricks.

Fonda wavers, equivocates. He doesn't want to win if this is what winning takes. And with his reluctance a disgusted Lee Tracy says that if he's that squeamish about seizing the initiative he doesn't deserve to be president because once in the White House he won't have the luxury of quizzing his conscience. The last thing the country needs is a president who thinks he's too good for the job and doesn't want to get his cuffs dirty.

I don't think Kerry is that man. I don't see any Stevensonian trace of Fonda in him. You don't earn the medals he did in Vietnam by playing Hamlet in the clutch. The people around him--that's a different story. Unlike Bush, Kerry can't delegate his aggression to Cheney, Fox News, and a yapping band of attack poodles; the Democratic party doesn't have that same threshing infrastructure. He has to go it almost alone and run the risk of being too forceful and coming across as "unlikeable" in the eyes of gardening clubs like The Capital Gang. Pundits prefer their Democrats soft and emasculated, it makes them so much easier to filet.

Bravo. I'd only add that Kerry also has to do it in spite of the near-constant navel-gazing, whining, and second-guessing of those who claim to support him. Free speech is our right. But can't democrats keep their lips zipped till Bush is beaten?