Lurch alert!
Here's the latest scoop on Mr. Ketchup.

Kerry has a bad case of the sulks:

JOHN KERRY and his staff have got their . . . um . . . Austrian up.

Senator and staff are steamed at The Boston Globe because of a story exploring a couple of incidents where Kerry could be interpreted as donning a mock shamrock, wielding a sham shillelagh. Pretending to be Irish, in other words.

Kerry to skip St. Pat's Day political roast:

His White House ambitions and a lack of Irish heritage make him the perfect target at Sunday's St. Patrick's Day political roast, but U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry apparently won't be there to take the heat.

Meanwhile over at The Corner, Andrew Stuttaford is having a laugh at the Kerry puff piece in Vogue. Aside from posing in a wetsuit, Mr. Ketchup drops various pearls including that Pablo Neruda is his favorite poet. Apparently none of his handlers told John that when you pick a Communist for poesy, you have to put up with stuff like this tribute to Stalin on his demise:

"To be men! That is the Stalinist law!
...We must learn from Stalin
his sincere intensity
his concrete clarity
...Stalin is the noon,
the maturity of man and the peoples.
Stalinists, Let us bear this title with pride.
...Stalinist workers, clerks, women
take care of this day!
The light has not vanished.
The fire has not disappeared,
There is only the growth of
Light, bread, fire and hope
In Stalin’s invincible time!
...In recent years the dove,
Peace, the wandering persecuted rose,
Found herself on his shoulders
And Stalin, the giant,
Carried at the heights of his forehead.
...A wave beats against the stones of the shore.
But Malenkov will continue his work."

Hmm, no mention of warfarin in the vodka.

Oh yeah, Brainiac took time out from his fund raising to bless us with his wisdom - "Visiting New York to raise cash, Sen. Kerry (D-Mass.) contended Bush should delay war and agree to more weapons inspections if that would result in more countries supporting military action." Zzzzzzz.