DON’T MAKE BOB DOLE ANGRY: You won’t like Bob Dole when he’s angry:

So this time you’ve got a candidate named John Kerry who had a good record in Vietnam, came back from the service, denounced the war, in effect, trashed the Americans who were still fighting there. Went before a Senate committee in April of 1971, threw away his ribbons or his medals or whatever and now is standing before the American people and saying you’ve got to elect me because I’m this Vietnam hero.

And it’s kind of hard to reconcile all of these things. So it does sort of bring up focus that I don’t think we’ve had in the past. . . .

But this is after we’d had somebody called Vice President Cheney a coward. They’ve called Bush “a deserter” that he was AWOL, that he’s condoned torture, that he’s condoned poisoning of pregnant women. I mean, all these nasty, nasty, over-the-top attacks.

And they spent $65 million trying to defame President Bush. I told John Kerry on the telephone the next day. I said, “John, President Bush is my guy. And when I see all the people dumping on him, and all the misstatements and—and untruths, it kind of riles me up a little.” So maybe I expressed that on Sunday.

And he’s angry.

UPDATE: Fred Boness disagrees: “Hey! Bob Dole is beautiful when he’s angry, assuming of course that he’s angry at someone else.”

Bob Dole, beautiful? It’s in the eye of the beholder, I guess.