Jay Nordlinger writes about Teresa Heinz Kerry, whom he describes as "a Martha Mitchell for our time", who's "going to be a big story in the '04 campaign":

Anyway, the really beautiful stuff comes from Teresa. She said, "They [the Republicans] will probably say he's French, he's Jewish . . . he's a monkey. I just find it sad."

Whoa, whoa: Jewish? monkey? You mean, the GOP — my GOP — will attack Kerry for having a smidgeon of Jewish ancestry, somewhere (so he says — but wasn't he supposed to be Irish?)? The Democrats had an actual Jew on the ticket in 2000. I don't recall my party going all brownshirt on him.

And where did "monkey" come from? (I know: Darwin.)

But here's the kicker: Mrs. Heinz Kerry sniffed about the White House, "They probably don't even speak French."

Aside from the delicious hauteur of that comment: How much you wanna bet the lady's French stinks? I've heard it before: rich (American) lady's French. It's not pretty.

I almost pity the Kerry campaign. They're going to have to do something about this live wire.

Dean said, "We don't know that yet. We don't know that yet, Wolf. We still have a country whose city is mostly without electricity. We have tumultuous occasions in the south where there is no clear governance. We have a major city without clear governance."

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that "the Justice Department's public integrity section has opened a criminal investigation into donations made to the presidential campaign of Senator John Edwards by employees at a prominent Arkansas law firm, according to lawyers close to the matter."

Err, a prominent Arkansas law firm? That has a familiar ring to it...