Leave Kerry alone

What Linnet said.

Kerry ran against an incumbent wartime president who had the support of the whole country behind him at 9/11 (and it took a while for this support to even start to fade), who had fanatical cult-like supporters and who owned the media body and soul. And he got 48% of the vote. Plus his entire career shows that he has a great deal of integrity, and he's one of the very few, count'em-on-one-hand American politicians who I think are deserving of respect and trust. We shouldn't blame him for a situation caused by factors much more deeply-rooted than any individual candidate. Michael Berube is right: watch where the "Kerry was a boring, weak, ABB candidate" meme started. (Answer: the Beltway, the DLC and Al From). We shouldn't internalize the spin we try to fight.

Go read.