Reply #2: Leibovich was at the epicenter of the "rough spell"

[beachmom]

Remember? February 5, 2007.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/5/143453/0122

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/05/us/politics/05kerry.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

A Presidential Also-Ran, Kerry Adjusts to What Passes for a Normal Life in the Senate

By MARK LEIBOVICH

WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 — Senator John Kerry keeps to himself around the Capitol. He is always rushing somewhere, head down, disappearing into elevators. A Senate loner for 22 years, Mr. Kerry seems all the more isolated now as he darts past the media hordes around the next set of presidential seekers, colleagues that include Hillary Rodham Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama.

Even in the best of times, Mr. Kerry’s face hung droopy and funereal, one of the most weary in American politics. Today, Mr. Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who was the exit poll president-elect for a few hours in November 2004, endures the peculiar pariah status that his party reserves for its losing nominees.

Here were the particularly cruel passages Leibovich wrote:

Even in the best of times, Mr. Kerry’s face hung droopy and funereal, one of the most weary in American politics. Today, Mr. Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who was the exit poll president-elect for a few hours in November 2004, endures the peculiar pariah status that his party reserves for its losing nominees.

...

Mr. Kerry ratified his status as Dead Candidate Walking in an emotional speech on the Senate floor two weeks ago. "We came close, certainly close enough to be tempted to try again," Mr. Kerry said, referring to his 2004 campaign.

...

No matter, the photo of Mr. Kerry breaking down ran prominently in the Drudge Report and elsewhere. It buttressed the notion of John Kerry as the forlorn loser who had finally bottomed out. It also served as a grim visual to another round of Kerry abuse, conjuring up the caricature of him as a helmet-haired, flip-flopping elitist.

"He is a stubborn, competitive guy, and it must have been very, very hard to get those words out," said Jim Jordan, a former Kerry campaign manager.

Senate colleagues and staff members say Mr. Kerry struggled to reintegrate himself in the Capitol after losing to Mr. Bush. He was never much a creature of the Senate to begin with, an outcast with few close friends there and a reputation for aloofness and occasional grandstanding. His solemn bearing betrayed a certain joylessness in his job. ("John Kerry walks into a bar," goes the Washington version of the old joke. "Bartender says, ‘Hey, Senator Kerry, why the long face?’ ")

Anyway, I suppose I'll read the new article, but I never forgot this NYT writer's name because it was beyond the pale what he did.