To Know Him Is To Loathe Him

John Kerry is forever "introducing" himself to the voters. The problem is that, the more they see of him, the less they like him.

But there seems to be a very clear reason why: Mr. Kerry is terrible on TV.

"Abysmal," said John Weaver, the former strategist for Senator John McCain’s Presidential run and the man who coined the "Straight Talk Express."

Watching Mr. Kerry on TV, he said, "I don’t know if it’s a stream of consciousness or stream of unconsciousness."

"It’s a lot of words and no clarity, a lot of presence and no warmth," said Chris Matthews, the host of MSNBC’s Hardball, who was preparing to interview Mr. Kerry for an hour on April 27. "And I think he’s got to deal with that."

Take a look, for example, at NBC’s Meet the Press on April 18. Tim Russert aired a tape of Senator John Kerry’s appearance on the show 33 years earlier, when he was a young, jut-chinned veteran, 27 years old, full of baleful gravity, expressing a sense of shame for his actions in Vietnam. The camera cut back to Senator Kerry, now a man running for President of United States.

"You committed atrocities," said Mr. Russert gravely, asking Mr. Kerry to address the statements of the young man on the screen.

Suddenly, the current John Kerry, of 2004, gave a stumbling, inexplicable guffaw.

"Where did all that dark hair go, Tim? That’s a big question for me."