MICHAEL CROWLEY WRITES IN SLATE that Max Cleland isn’t what the Kerry Campaign needs:

Cleland’s image as Bush’s ultimate victim suits Kerry’s campaign all too well. There are no bold new ideas in the Democratic Party today, no coherent policy themes. Even Kerry’s supporters are hard-pressed to explain what he stands for. What does define and unify the party is a sense of victimhood—and a lust for revenge. Cleland is compelling not because of anything he’s done—he was a mediocre senator and a clumsy candidate—but because of what was done to him. His consignment to a wheelchair only heightens this sentiment. The wheelchair itself is a metaphor for his political trauma. In this sense, Cleland is reminiscent of another fairly ordinary man: Abner Louima, who was brutalized by New York City cops in 1997 and became a symbolic hero to New York liberals convinced Rudy Giuliani’s law-and-order regime had gone too far. But New York liberals were never able to get the upper hand on Giuliani. And if the symbolism of Max Cleland defines his campaign, John Kerry won’t topple Bush, either.

It’s actually worse. “What was done to him” by who, exactly?