News=Gossip

Sitting in the lobby restaurant of the Renaissance Savery hotel, John Kerry was overheard by an NBC News analyst explaining that in order to run, he'd have to step down from the board of Bank of America and give up his ability to make paid speeches. https://t.co/o78nPM9pI4

— Matt Viser (@mviser) February 2, 2020

Pay attention, this is now gossip becomes news.  Or, a scoop!

If you're John Kerry in a Des Moines hotel the day before the Iowa Caucus, assume people will overhear you loudly spitballing about entering the presidential race! Great @jonallendc scoop. https://t.co/HZkFtXS70G

— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) February 2, 2020

Yeah, not so much.

It seems John Kerry "was overheard Sunday on the phone at a Des Moines hotel explaining what he would have to do to enter the presidential race amid 'the possibility of Bernie Sanders taking down the Democratic Party — down whole.' "

Got that?  Somebody was listening to one end of Kerry's cell phone conversation.  Like most of us, Kerry was probably talking louder than he needed to because cell phones don't provide the "feedback" a more conventional phone does.  So, bad on him, I guess?

Sitting in the lobby restaurant of the Renaissance Savery hotel, Kerry was overheard by an NBC News analyst saying "maybe I'm f---ing deluding myself here" and explaining that in order to run, he'd have to step down from the board of Bank of America and give up his ability to make paid speeches. Kerry said donors like venture capitalist Doug Hickey would have to "raise a couple of million," adding that such donors "now have the reality of Bernie."

Kerry denied this, emphatically:

It appears John Kerry deleted this amazing tweet and replaced it with a version of the tweet that does not contain the word “fucking.” pic.twitter.com/T8aKbKJIQb

— Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) February 2, 2020

He told NBC News later on Sunday that, "This is a complete and total misinterpretation based on overhearing only one side of a phone conversation. A friend who watches too much cable called me wondering whether I’d ever jump into the race late in the game if Democrats were choosing an unelectable nominee. I listed all the reasons I could not possibly do that and would not — and will not under any circumstances — do that."

So, when a friend calls and asks "What ya doin'?", and Kerry says "In Iowa, campaigning for Biden," and the friend says "Looks tough, huh?  Think you'd run again?," Kerry says, yeah, if I wanted to give up real life and sanity and found a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow just now.  Which becomes:

It’s not clear how serious Kerry was on the call about jumping into the race. But that he would even discuss the possibility suggests that prominent members of the Democratic Party remain deeply unsettled by the current field, Sanders' strength in the polls, and the ability of any candidate to defeat President Donald Trump.

It also suggests that Kerry, who has campaigned with Biden in Iowa and New Hampshire, may be nervous about the former vice president's chances ahead of Monday's first-in-the-nation primary caucuses. At a North Liberty, Iowa, campaign event on Saturday, Kerry spoke both after and for longer than Biden did.

Because apparently Kerry should have said "FUCK NO!  I DENY IT!  I DENY IT ALL!," and cursed his friend out in no uncertain terms for raising the issue in a private (!) phone call.  Of course, then the reporter could have said it wasn't a firm denial....

Political reporting is almost entirely gossip and who heard what said by whom about whom in the lunch room 30 minutes ago.

Wotta scoop!