By Paul A. Anthony, Editor in Chief

The latest political joke to circulate the Internet comes in slogan form:

“Dated Dean, Married Kerry, Woke Up With Bush”

The inference is that Democratic voters, in their frantic quest to find the “electable” candidate, flirted with nominating former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, instead nominated Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, but ended up seeing President Bush re-elected anyway.

Kerry seems to be the Democratic dream candidate. War veteran, conservative enough to capture the center in the general elections … with only one problem. He cannot say or do what he thinks is right-and never has.

For example, before the Persian Gulf War, which Kerry voted against, the senator sent two letters to the same person-one read this way:

“Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition … to the early use of military force by the US against Iraq. I share your concerns. On January 11, I voted … against a resolution giving the president the immediate authority to go to war.”

The second letter, dated nine days later, said this:

“Thank you very much for contacting me to express your support for the actions of President Bush in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. From the outset of the invasion, I have strongly and unequivocally supported President Bush’s response to the crisis …”

Kerry has a long history of similar equivocation-where he takes the side of whatever he believes is politically expedient, said Mickey Kaus, a Web logger for Slate Internet magazine.

“There’s a palpable will to self-deceive among Democrats eager to rationalize away Kerry’s flaws,” Kaus wrote. This understandable impulse-“denial” may be the technical term-is highly dangerous at this point in the presidential race, when it’s not too late to nominate an alternative.”

Repeating the Democratic creed this election cycle, Kerry has pledged to fight Washington special interests and lobbyists, pledging not to raise funds from them.

This leads to problems when one considers the recent Washington Post article that revealed Kerry has raised more money from paid lobbyists in the past 15 years than any other senator.

Kaus, who has made his fear of a Kerry nomination the running theme of his blog in recent days, posted an excerpt from a debate on the senator in The New Republic magazine’s Web site.

“[Kerry] demonstrated less-than-inspiring follow-through after his critical remarks regarding affirmative action and public education,” wrote one participant. “I cannot defend his attempts to have it both ways on his vote in favor of the Iraq war resolution.”

Kaus seems to take great pleasure in noting that these points are made by a Kerry defender.