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John Kerry. "Perhaps more than any other presidential candidate in recent memory, Kerry seems to be living in another time, playing a movie of Vietnam over and over in his mind ..

Kerry told reporter Charles Sennott the oft-repeated story of the February 1969 firefight in which Kerry attacked the Viet Cong who ambushed his Swift boat. Kerry won the Silver Star, as well as a Purple Heart, for his efforts. But the story wasn’t about the firefight itself. It was also Kerry’s reaction to it. The future senator was so “focused on his future ambitions,” Sennott reported, that he bought a Super-8 movie camera, returned to the scene, and re-enacted the skirmish on film .. In John Kerry’s home entertainment center, it’s always 1969. It’s sometimes that way in his campaign, too ..

This man is living in a time warp. No wonder Kerry sees any conflict — Gulf War I, Afghanistan, Gulf War II — as a potential Vietnam. In Kerry’s world, Vietnam is running on a continuous loop on that big-screen TV — with Jimi, Kris and Peter, Paul and Mary singing in the background.

Some people become stuck in the time period in which they had their most intense experiences. Others, perhaps with more mental or emotional flexibility, move on. Kerry seems to be the former.

At 60 years old, Kerry seems to be obsessed with the past in ways that the 57-year-old George W. Bush isn’t.

And Kerry seems far older than, say, the 71-year-old Donald Rumsfeld — a man who is always moving ahead, not inclined to lecture about the way things were 30 or 40 years ago.

Kerry’s penchant for looking back would not a good trait in a president who will have to deal with a distinctly 21st century, post-Sept. 11 world .. ". More on John Kerry, stuck in a Vietnam-era time warp.