To an undiscerning and/or unsuspecting segment of the electorate, John Kerry emerged from the debates with his facade of moderation intact.

Partly that is a consequence of a practiced politician who shuns the liberal label the way a cat rejects a branding. And partly it is a consequence of protection by a mainline press broadly sympathetic to Kerry as "one of us."

To see the shamelessness of it all regarding the operative double standards applied to Kerry's statements, votes, and behavior, imagine if he went by another name.

If John Kerry's name were, for instance, Teddy Kennedy:

- Beyond Massachusetts, he would be dismissed as the Massachusetts leftie he truly is. Attention would be given to his unremitting votes for higher taxes and against crucial weapons systems. His lifetime voting record, marking him as the Senate's most liberal member (more liberal than Kennedy himself), would be seen as utterly in character.

- His early 1970s lobbing of peacenik rhetorical bombs from the ramparts with Jane Fonda would have marked him as a siren of defeatism doing the work of the enemy.

- The electorate would see the disconnect between Kerry deploring the absence of a "global test" prior to the current war in Iraq (which he voted for), and his vote against war in 1991 when precisely the "global test" he now demands had been easily passed.

- When he was termed "unfit" to be commander in chief, the electorate would understand clearly how and why. And when his Senate colleague from Massachusetts was his principal campaign surrogate, the voters would not wonder at his brazenness in parading the liberalism he otherwise so diligently sought to conceal.

Indeed, if Kerry's name were Kennedy:

- The electorate likely would not accept a top campaign aide (Joe Lockhart) disparaging Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi as a puppet. Nor would the electorate allow Kerry to get away with dismissing our current allies (e.g., Britain, Australia, Poland, Italy) as a "coalition of the bribed and the coerced." The re-election of Australia's government would be an obvious repudiation of such arrogance - as would the first Afghan elections in 5,000 years and the enfranchising of women there.