So this bit, by Ryan Lizza, is proof that John Kerry is "[n]ot aloof, but plodding, unimaginative, bone dry," according to Patrick Ruffini. (I like the title of that post: "Mondale With Hair.")

And he's right. But it's also proof that Dean is deranged:

Dean is almost irrationally protective of "Bush Lite." Indeed, several weeks before Dean blasted Kerry, Dean's aides went after Gephardt for using the term. But, this week, alerted to the fact that Dean's campaign had accused their man of stealing Dean's supposedly trademarked expression, the Gephardt campaign quickly responded with a "Brief History of 'Bush Lite,'" a paper documenting 15 years of the term's use, from its origins as a reference to Dan Quayle in the late '80s to its emergence as a description of Bill Clinton's early foreign policy to its widespread application as a derogatory moniker for George W. Bush during his 1994 gubernatorial campaign. As recently as 2000, according to the Gephardt study, the term was being used in the same context in which Dean now uses it: "The first modern documentation of a Democrat being considered `Bush Lite'" occurred in 2000 when someone hurled the epithet at Al Gore, the Gephardt report states. "When will [Dean] file the lawsuit against Bud and Miller?" asks Gephardt's spokesman, Erik Smith.

You know Jackass politics have descended to a new low when (1) this is a significant issue, and (2) the yutz who keeps dragging it up is an outside favorite to win the nomination.