Hugh Hewitt spent a fair amoutn of airtime yesterday replaying John Kerry's bizarre and bullying attack on a questioner at a speech the other day. For those of you who don't know, the man, a West Point grad, as it turns out, so maybe there was some inter-service rivalry on Kerry's part, asked Kerry to name some of the "foreign leaders" who preferred him to Bush. Kerry did his usual Mark Breland bob-and-weave, and the man pressed him on it a little. At this point, Kerry pointed to the man, hectoring him about his party registration and for whom he voted last time.

The foolishness of this sort of reply is obvious. In the first place, it's exactly the kind of thing that caused people to have second thoughts about Howard Dean. Secondly, the question itself is relevant, regardless of the party affiliation of the questioner. He wasn't heckling, wasn't rude, and wasn't trying to shout Kerry down, he was asking a question and wasn't happy with the answer. (Get used to it John; there's going to be a lot of that until you start giving straight answers.)

But the best line, the tail line, that didn't get played, was Kerry gloating that "Democracy works both ways." Talk about haughty and French-looking. Democracy in fact does not work both ways. That former soldier was not asking for money, for votes, was not running for President, trying to persuade an audience that he was fit to hold the highest office in the country. John Kerry was doing that, and chose to respond by belittling someone he wants to represent on the world stage. In front of "foreign leaders" who do actually exist.

If that citizen thought that Kerry was making it up, was trying to claim stature he doesn't have, he had a responsibility to ask that question. Only that responsibility doesn't devolve to Kerry, but to himself and his fellow citizens. So in that sense, Kerry was right.