The family that burgles together, stays together!

American Presidents and would-be Presidents are traditionally cursed with relatives who they would prefer to keep out of sight. My sentimental favorite was Bubba's mother, the Hot Springs party girl, although his brother Roger is a pip too. Anyhow, Lurch is no exception as the Washingtonian reports:

Now Cameron Kerry, 54, wants to help his big brother, John, win the presidency.

Cameron is an attorney at the Boston firm Mintz Levin, mostly advising clients on environmental law; he also works before the FCC on telecommunications matters. Before joining Mintz Levin, he once worked as an associate at Washington's Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering.

Compatriots of Cameron Kerry's say his self-image is geared toward playing "RFK to his brother's JFK." The two brothers talk frequently, and Cameron played a major role in the campaign-manager switch that turned Kerry from apparent loser to runaway winner.

But there's a shadow on this heart-warming tale:

According to 1972 Massachusetts newspaper articles, Cameron was arrested during his brother's first congressional campaign. He was supposedly found trespassing in the basement of a building where his brother's opponent had an office.

Newspaper headlines proclaimed KERRY BROTHER ARRESTED IN LOWELL WATERGATE.

John Kerry ended up winning the primary. No charges were filed, and suspicion was that Cameron had been lured there by an opponent's dirty trick.

Sounds like a fiendish conspiracy fer sure! Here are some details:

On Sept. 18, 1972, the evening before the primary election during his second attempt for Congress, Kerry's brother Cameron and one Thomas Vallely, both part of his current campaign team, were arrested by Lowell police at 1:40 a.m. and charged with breaking and entering with the intent to commit larceny. The two were apprehended in the basement of a building whose door had been forced open, police said. It housed the headquarters of candidate DiFruscia. The Watergate scandal was making headlines at this time, and it was called the Lowell Watergate.

"They wanted to sever my telephone lines," DiFruscia said recently. Had those lines been cut, Kerry's opponent would not have been able to telephone supporters on Election Day to get out the vote and coordinate poll watchers, vital roles in a close election. "I do not know if they wanted to break into my office," says DiFruscia today. At the time he said, "All my IBM cards and the list of my voter identification in the greater Lowell area are in my headquarters."

Cameron and Vallely, along with David Thorne, who was Kerry's campaign manager at the time and has been close to him since they attended Yale together, did not deny the two entered the building in which they were captured. They said at the time they were in the cellar of the building to check their own telephone lines because they had received an anonymous call warning they would be cut.

So they went to the opponent's HQ to check it out? Makes sense to me! And it's swell that they are "part of his current campaign team".

This reporter heard an allegation that another congressional candidate placed the alleged anonymous call, which was denied. But if the Kerry campaign was concerned about someone breaking and entering to cut off its telephone service, why didn't they just call the police? Why break the law? And what does any of this say about Kerry's mind-set? Kerry campaign officials did not answer important Lowellgate questions.

And if "Thorne" sounds familiar, it's because he's the brother of Kerry's first wife - the one that Lurch dumped when she started suffering from depression. As well she might being married to Lurch. Anyhow, David Thorne is another campaign hanger-on, but that's OK - he and Lurch ran the bulls together at Pamplona. Bulls then and bull by-products now.