What, my fault? What in the world do you mean you proletariat. - Kerry won't quit. As someone said, I just wish he would disappear. At least hush.

Capping his week-long return to the spotlight, a defensive John Kerry appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday to explain his election loss.

Did it have anything to do with him? Are you kidding?

He said his loss was due to 9/11, that it was hard for people to forsake their president after such a national trauma. "I believe that 9-11 was the central deciding issue in this race." Kerry said. President Bush "obviously connected to the American people in those immediate days. When a country is at war and in the wake of 9-11, it's very difficult to shift horses."

Kerry has made little effort to hide his expectation to run again in 2008, and he has the money - about $20 million left over - the organization and the name recognition needed.

However, many Democrats are still baffled at how a candidate with so much money and such a united party could lose against a relatively unpopular president who sent the nation to war for weapons that didn't exist. The loss must be Kerry's fault, they think.

Billionaire George Soros, who spent $26 million on anti-Bush efforts, also blamed Kerry, telling Bloomberg News Sunday, "Kerry did not, actually, offer a credible and coherent alternative."

(1/31/05 New York Daily News.)