LA Times: "John Kerry's next move? Forward"

Like that fluffy headline? Try this paragraph:

Kerry lost the White House to President Bush in 2004, coming 118,000 votes short in Ohio of fulfilling a dream that some old acquaintances said he'd nurtured since his teens. In the three years since, he has faced an uneven slog toward a new incarnation -- a journey that the achingly contemplative senator concedes has no certain destination.

"A new incarnation"? Doesn't that means he's going to have a new body? "Achingly contemplative"? Does that make you want to "fwow up," as Dorothy Parker once put it?

Often below the media radar these days, Kerry got a shot at a wider audience when he appeared on Don Imus' radio show the next day. Imus had just returned to the airwaves, eight months after being fired for calling members of the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos."

There seemed to be more than a little empathy between the snarly entertainer, back from exile, and the politician, trying to make his way back into the public's good graces.

"There is a whole new chance for life," Kerry quipped on the air. "For you, for me, for everybody."

That's a "quip"? Here's the parting platitude:

Asked if his time on the national stage will come again, Kerry leaned back and took a breath.

"I don't know. I honestly don't know," he said. "But I am an optimist who feels if you work hard, you're capable and you stick at it, things can change."

Not a well-used breath, if you ask me. (Note: The headline as worded above appears in the front-page link/summary for the article.)

Tags: John Kerry, ketchup