THE FOURTH MONDAY IN OCTOBER SURPRISE?

The right-wing blogs are buzzing about some big surprise, some dirt on Kerry, will be shoveled out tomorrow by the Washington (Moonie) Times. I'm going to take a guess at what it is.

I've long been surprised that the Repugs haven't had some surrogate beat up Kerry because of his divorce from (at the time) Julia Thorne, a deeply depressed woman. His subsequent annulment of the marriage in order to marry Teresa Heinz caused some ripples at the time, with charges that he was making "bastards" out of his daughters.

Now that the right has beaten the Mary Cheney thing to death, I'm betting that someone on their side is saying that now that Kerry's made "fair game" of the children of candidates (it was Mary Beth Cahill, of course, not Kerry, that uttered that unfortunate remark), we need for the public to see Kerry as an overly ambitious husband who chose his career over his sick wife and cast his daughters into illegitimacy.

It's old news, but I don't think much of the electorate is aware of this story, and it's rife with potential for damage to the Kerry campaign among Catholics, women and undecideds.

Of course, David Thorne, Julia's brother and Kerry's best and most loyal friend for 40+ years, would try to counter such charges, but it would certainly be awkward for him. And it would be awful for Alexandra and Vanessa Kerry. But as more and more editorials and people apply words like strength, dignity and decency to Kerry, the Repugs would surely like to muddy that image. I can't imagine what's stopped them up till now. It's certainly not due to strength, dignity or decency.

UPDATE: Kos has the scoop. I was wrong. You won't believe how feeble the real "surprise" is...Rove is truly getting desperate.