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The Big Trunk at the Power Line blog points to an article about Kerry's "lucky hat" which he says was given him by a CIA agent during his secret mission into Cambodia.

Oooo-kay. I wonder if he's has a tee shirt to go with it: "Shoot me! I'm CIA!" The article doesn't say whether the hat can be identified as CIA issue, but it probably doesn't. Nor is the CIA likely to confirm the story. Maybe it's true; maybe it's a silly fib; maybe Kerry is just gullible. But who will ever know?

Update: Here's a picture of what may be the lucky hat. I wonder if he attributes his three purple hearts in four months to the hat.

Update: Mickey Kaus links to this New Yorker piece by Phillip Gourevitch, in which he quotes Sandy Berger as saying, " �There are no silver bullets on Iraq.� That's essentially what Bush has been saying, so why is Kerry saying he has a silver bullet?

Then there's this:

No other Vietnam War hero has ever been nominated for President, nor has any other former antiwar leader, and, while Kerry presents himself as a unifying figure, he embodies a conflict that is still surprisingly raw. �He�ll often thrash around in the night,� the filmmaker George Butler, who is one of Kerry�s oldest friends, told me. �He smashed up a lamp in my house in New Hampshire, in the bedroom where he was staying. Most Vietnam veterans go through this.�

We had similar warning notes about Bill Clinton in 1992, but the press was so intent on beating the Republicans that they papered them over and then we found out how inept, and randy, the candidate really was. Kerry's use of his service in Vietnam as the main pole of his political tent, and the myths he has created for himself, are pretty worrisome, as Roger L. Simon has written. The press really should be more honest about this, lest Kerry turn Iraq into another Vietnam.

Update: John O'Neill, the co-author of Unfit for Command, appeared on Hugh Hewitt's program on Friday. Hugh played clips from O'Neill's appearances on Hard Ball and Crossfire. He was shouted down by Matthews and Carville. Chris Matthews took the position that O'Neill was slandering a Silver Star recipient and wouldn't let him get his story out. Carville demanded that O'Neill answer for the sins of his co-author that apparently don't have much to do with the facts in the book.

Nevertheless, the story is starting to break into the media, though not the NYTimes and WaPo.