ASK ME NO QUESTIONS, AND . . . .

NEW ORLEANS — Who knows what lurks in the heart and mind of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry?

Not the traveling press corps, that’s for sure.

Kerry has been under wraps for the last month, declining to subject himself to what must surely be the painful process of answering national reporters’ questions.

Kerry used to regularly assure his audiences that, if elected president, he would hold a press conference every month to communicate with the nation’s citizenry. (That was a not-so-subtle dig at President Bush, who has held only 12 formal press conferences during his four years in office, a record low number.)

“I have pledged that I am going to have a press conference at least once a month to talk to the nation about what I’m doing because I don’t have anything to hide,” Kerry said during a campaign stop in Beloit, Wis., after the Democratic National Convention. “I want America to know what I’m doing. I want you to know what I’m fighting for. I want you to ask me questions.”

But Kerry doesn’t make that promise anymore.

(Via Romenesko, who now has a sidebar link to the WP CBS-forgery story).