Cringe-Inducing

This sounds just so, so, so horrible; I can’t even imagine how painful it would be to watch. Something tells me that twenty minutes in, I’d be begging for a sharp object I could use to gouge out my eyes. (Emphasis mine.)

Lloyd Grove says Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) loyalists "are kicking themselves for cooperating last year with filmmaker Steve Rosenbaum on Inside the Bubble, a potentially devastating behind-the-scenes look at the Massachusetts senator's failed presidential campaign."

"I'm also told that Hillary Clinton partisans are licking their chops to see the film, which 'could end up being the silver bullet that kills Kerry's presidential chances for 2008."

The film won't be seen publicly until Thursday, but a press release claims the movie "turns a harsh but deeply revealing mirror on the campaign ... a disorganized, contentious, self-absorbed team that thought they could win by 'not making mistakes,' and keeping their candidate in the public eye without clarifying a position on anything."

Key highlights from those who've seen it privately: "Clinton scowling and rolling her eyes over an apparent Kerry gaffe during a presidential debate; Kerry pretending to interview himself and babbling in Italian while waiting for a real interview to begin; Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) cursing at reporters during a campaign stop, and Kerry message guru Robert Shrum confidently declaring a few days before the 2004 election: 'Zogby just announced who's gonna win. Us!'"

Reason #1,336,892 why Bob Shrum needs to be exiled to Loserville, Nerdovia, pronto, never to have his name even distantly associated with another Democratic presidential contender for the remainder of his useless days.

And while I admit that “babbling in Italian” is probably not as empirically idiotic as flipping off the camera while one waits to go live, as our current president is wont to do, or giving one’s do a saliva slickdown, a habit of Wolfie’s made famous by Michael Moore, it still sounds pretty damn dopey. Nothing I’d personally hold against a fella running for president, but, then again, I’m pretty damn dopey myself.