"She was around in the early 1960s when JFK was cutting a swath through his aides at the White House..."

"... which served as preparation for the moment she became world-famous. That was at the end of January 1998, when she became the public representative of Linda Tripp, the intimate (and betrayer) of Monica Lewinsky, whose taped phone calls (taped on Lucianne’s advice) revealed the relationship between Lewinsky and President Clinton. You’ve probably forgotten, but I haven’t, the hilarious spectacle of a hundred reporters standing on the sidewalk at 84th and Broadway in front of Lucianne’s building as she calmly and with a Cheshire-cat smile replied to the screams of America’s journalists. 'That’s not a Linda Tripp question,' she would say, in her sing-song voice, if they asked what the agenda was here, or the angle, or whatever. Sure, she had an agenda, and she was totally honest about it. She didn’t like Clinton, either personally or ideologically, and wanted to see him laid low, and unlike other people who’ve been in the destroy-the-president game, she didn’t make any bones about it. When Lewinsky-gate ultimately came a cropper, she was even-keeled. 'If you go at the king, you’d best kill the king,' she said, 'and we didn’t.'"

From "Lucianne Goldberg, 1935-2022" by John Podhoretz (Commentary).

Lots more at the link, but let me quote this too: "She could tell you...  how incredibly depressing it was to spend time with Charles Schulz, who drew 'Peanuts'... 'They called him Sparky... It was the most inappropriate nickname ever.'"

The return of Bob Dole.

No sooner does the Boston Globe invoke the name of Bob Dole in a carefully constructed editorial against the Swift Boat Veterans than the old man himself rises up and speaks for himself--in a few short devastating words:

"One day he's saying that we were shooting civilians, cutting off their ears, cutting off their heads, throwing away his medals or his ribbons," Dole said. "The next day he's standing there, 'I want to be president because I'm a Vietnam veteran. "Maybe he should apologize to all the other 2.5 million veterans who served. He wasn't the only one in Vietnam," said Dole, whose World War II wounds left him without the use of his right arm. Dole added: "And here's, you know, a good guy, a good friend. I respect his record. But three Purple Hearts and never bled that I know of. I mean, they're all superficial wounds. Three Purple Hearts and you're out."

What is to stop this story from being the central story of the Presidential campaign? The Kerry camp has relied heavily on expressing indignation and outrage that the issue ever was raised, on pointing to old questions about Bush's military record, and on fussing over who connected to the ad is connected to someone with a connection to Bush, but this hardly seems capable of pulling the candidate out of the quicksand. It's distressing that the candidate did not take this foreseeable problem seriously. Dole's remarks today (on "Late Edition") included the fact that he warned Kerry that he was going "too far" with his use of Vietnam. How could the Kerry people have blinded themselves to the risks they were taking? 

UPDATE: Thanks to Instapundit and Lucianne.com for linking. They both answer that last question of mine the same way ("Groupthink"/"Koolaid will do that"). I have some additional comments on Kerry's response to the ads here.

Kerry's coy convention.

So John Kerry may have to act coy at the Democratic Convention and just hear that he's nominated and give a big speech about how he's honored to have received the nomination and leave out the big exciting "I accept your nomination" line. This is because, under campaign finance law, upon accepting the nomination, he takes on a $75 million spending cap.

Why did the Democrats schedule their convention 5 weeks before the Republican convention? The Democrats weren't fools. They just assumed their candidate would have submitted to the spending caps that apply to the primary season and would want to get to the $75 million earlier rather than later. But since Kerry opted out of the primary caps, what was predicted to be an advantage became a disadvantage, and now Kerry's looking for a way out.

It does seem that Bush and Kerry should both start with the same amount of money at the same point in time. But then does Kerry get an unfair advantage by having his convention at an earlier point? Does the convention do something important to elevate the candidate in the public's eyes?

We know there is always a bump in the candidate's popularity rating after the convention. But is it better to have the early bump or the later bump? It's surprising really that anyone watches the conventions. But then again, I'm surprised people watch commercials. Or read the campaign mail. Yet apparently they do, because look at all that money that is spent on this low quality human communication. It would be better to watch the junkiest reality TV show than to consume this drivel. And we are expected to pay vast sums of tax money to produce this nearly worthless communication, and the candidates have to craft their campaigns to satisfy the law that comes along with the money, and we are expected to take into account whether this crafting is too sleazy as we judge a candidate's worthiness for the Presidency.

So now, instead of talking about the substance of issues that Kerry will affect if he becomes President, we need to waste a lot of time talking about what we think about a big nominating convention with a nonacceptance speech. So I hope Kerry does try to pull this coy maneuver, because it will help teach people to ignore the conventions. It might even make them reconsider their support for campaign funding and the complicated regulation that comes along with it.

UPDATE: Thanks to Instapundit for linking to this. (It produced an Instalanche that jammed the Sitemeter, so I'll have to check my "score" later.) Ideoblog also has linked, and I especially like the line "It depends on what the meaning of 'accept' is," especially since I was just wondering (see post just above this one) how well Kerry is going to do juxtaposed with Clinton.

FURTHER UPDATE: And thanks as well to Lucianne.com. Here I was expecting a quiet little Sunday, and suddenly all the Lucianne fans are here. Welcome, go ahead and look around.