powerline blogWe have documented, on many occasions, John Kerry's obsessive need to present himself to the public as an athlete and sportsman. He takes camera crews with him as he goes biking in spandex outfits; he snowboards in the Rockies wearing a daisy flower power zipper pull; he windsurfs off Nantucket; he keeps airplanes waiting while he plays catch on the tarmac; and he bounces a ceremonial first pitch far in front of home plate at Fenway Park, later explaining that he lobbed the ball because the National Guardsman who was poised to catch the ball behind the plate was so nervous.
He even went so far as to take a crew of reporters with him while he went to a sporting goods store to buy a jockstrap.
What on earth possesses him to do these things? It's one thing to get some exercise; it's something else to repeatedly, day after day, show off in spandex before a horde of newspapermen.
My theory is that Kerry is trying to live up to his image of John Kennedy. That theory was reinforced today as Kerry re-enacted an archetypal Kennedy event: a touch football game on the Esplanade in Boston. Kerry summoned camera crews to watch him walk from his Boston mansion to the Esplanade, football in hand. He ordered his entourage to form up into teams, as chosen by him, and then directed the action as the cameras recorded every athletic moment. He even dragooned an eleven-year-old Indian boy to participate in the photo-op,
Somehow, though, these events never quite work for Kerry. He's too much like the Monopoly man in the top hat to be a convincing jock. Nevertheless, for what it's worth, we'll give Kerry his due. Here he is, looking his best in a carefully staged athletic photo op:
DEACON adds: I guess Kerry's Swiss gym teachers failed to teach him to look the ball into his hands.