Since then, quoting Lugar as critical of his own administration has become a staple of Kerry's campaign oratory. On Oct. 9, the day after the second debate, Kerry cited Lugar twice in the same speech at Elyria, Ohio ("Dick Lugar stood up and said that the delivery of the way that it's been administered by this administration has been incompetent.")
Lugar is a gentleman of the old school, not inclined to call up Kerry and tell him to knock it off. Speaking Oct. 15 in Carmel, Ind., Lugar said it is "very, very unfortunate" that Kerry is "trying to stir up waters when we, in a very bipartisan way, on the Foreign Relations Committee support our troops." In Culver, Ind., Oct. 17, he said: "It does infuriate all my friends, and they wish that somehow or other I could seize Sen. Kerry and tell him, 'Don't do it.'"
Lugar was more blunt with me last week. "The use of my remarks is an attempt to shore up a weak position on his [Kerry's] part," he told me, adding that Kerry "has tried to extend the failing of reconstruction to a more general criticism of the war."
Kerry stresses he is a colleague of Lugar on Foreign Relations, but the chairman notes that the Democratic nominee missed 22 out of 23 committee sessions on Iraq. Even before the 2002 election kicked off presidential campaigning, Kerry was present for only 12 of 38 meetings. He co-sponsored none of the Nunn-Lugar legislation. As the classic Senate showhorse who was just waiting to run for president, perhaps he ought to give a workhorse a break and drop him from his speeches.