"No, wait, I mean, hell, man, I haven't had this much fun since I was a dadgum Swiftee in Vietnam, much as I hate to bring up the war in which I was wounded three times and received the Silver Star and Bronze Star as a Swift Boat captain.
"But anytime I fish, which I do pretty much whenever I'm not huntin', I can't help remembering one Christmas when my men and I pulled a few fish from the Mekong and, with a couple of bread loaves baked by some local Cambodian women, who were lesbians, we managed to feed a multitude. It was a miracle - just like embryonic stem cell research."
Kerry became perceptibly emotional at this point, obviously remembering his friend Christopher Reeve, who, according to Kerry's running-mate, John Edwards, would have been walking by now if not for Bush's "ignorant" belief that human life shouldn't be deliberately destroyed for scientific research with the financial backing of the federal government.
Asked later to comment on Kerry's Vietnam remarks, Bush seemed annoyed at the interruption. He had been listening to a recording of himself reciting T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," one of many poems Bush has committed to memory, and was finishing an oil painting of a Kennebunkport seascape, which he intended to donate to an AIDS fund-raising auction.
"I have nothing but admiration for my opponent's service to our country, and I see no profit in comparing notes on what happened 30 years ago," he said, dabbing perspiration from his brow with a monogrammed handkerchief. "These forays into one-upmanship devalue the currency and demean us all."
Suddenly Bush excused himself, saying he had to rush back to Washington for dinner with Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder. "We're working on a summit for early April," he said. Then, pursing his lips in a failed attempt to conceal his obvious delight, Bush said:
"Jacques has promised to uncork a 1914 Lafite-Rothschild. Don't you just love Paris in springtime?"