Rich Lowry has the goods on Max Cleland

I would love to know whether Cleland gets money from the Kerry campaign, or just perqs like travel and free food.

That's funny, last night's NBC news segment on Cleland's visit to Crawford did not mention any of this information. It just showed him, surrounded by reporters, making his pitch. And correspondent David Gregory ended the segment this line: "The president is on the defensive about negative commercials." A Kerry campaign operative couldn't have written more perfectly scripted words.

A new meta-narrative has emerged: Shocked, shocked war heroes like Max Cleland and John McCain defend heroic John Kerry against Mean, Hateful, and apparently Lying-Right-Wing Self-Promoters.

John Kerry wanted to make the campaign about Vietnam. So for now, it's about Vietnam. And whatever the facts about what boat was where when, this much is clear: Kerry was a medal-chaser who went just long enough to get his picture taken lots of times, get three Purple Ouchies, and ship out as fast as possible, to set himself up for politics. There's just the little complication that he dumped all over his fellow veterans after he came home, and like bad, disruptive children they haven't forgotten.

Kerry shouldn't have been so blatant about his setup, because all of this is coming out. Did Kerry really expect that because he said the magic word "veteran" that people would just shut up and not ask questions?

And the fall campaign season hasn't even started yet. It'll be interesting to see what comes out next.

I wish mccain would do the honorable thing like Jim Jeffords of Vermont pulled a few years back....he's as troubling a flip-flopper as Kerry.....as for the ex-senator from Georgia....he's lying about just about everything.