Inside the Beltway

Clint for president

Suffice it to say, John Kerry has a potty mouth.

Days after coming under sharp criticism for his inappropriate use of four-letter words, the Democratic presidential nominee has cursed a Secret Service agent whose job is to take a bullet for the politician.

It was a tough assignment from the start for Secret Service agents dispatched to guard the Massachusetts senator as he vacations for seven days in star-studded Sun Valley, Idaho.

“Hotel managers in the valley are aware of Kerry’s presence, only because the Secret Service personnel assigned to protect Kerry have had trouble finding a place to stay,” the Idaho Statesman reported the other day.

“They called and wanted rooms, but I had to tell them we’re full,” said Tamarack Lodge manager Jitka Sullivan.

Surely, Mr. Kerry could have found a couple of spare beds within the $8 million Sun Valley estate owned by his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. According to the Statesman, the European country-style manor is the largest and most secluded of all the resort’s properties, with two huge stone fireplaces to keep the place cozy.

And if bunking down wasn’t difficult enough for Uncle Sam’s bodyguards, the New York Times buried way down in its story filed from the sun-splashed slopes: “His next trip down, a reporter and a camera crew were allowed to follow along on skis — just in time to see Mr. Kerry taken out by one of the Secret Service men, who had inadvertently moved into his path, sending him into the snow.

“When asked about the mishap a moment later, [Mr. Kerry] said sharply, ‘I don’t fall down,’ then used an expletive to describe the agent who ‘knocked me over.’”

Maybe the senator is sore because after months of his grueling campaign, few are paying him attention in Sun Valley — that is, if they know who he is.

“Most people aren’t even aware Kerry is here, and many don’t seem to care anyway,” observes the Statesman. “At the Roosevelt Bar and Grill on the corner of Main and Sun Valley Road, a young, curly-haired bartender named Ryan Parade had no clue that the man challenging President Bush was close at hand.

“Who’s that?” Mr. Parade said when asked if he knew Mr. Kerry was in town for a week.

Admitted vacationer Joyce Bavas of Chicago: “I see Clint Eastwood all the time. Now, he’s more my idea of a president.”

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