I Don't Get This: Kerry's being oddly prickly over the media's "veepstakes" speculation:

John Kerry sought to curb rampant speculation Thursday about his vice presidential search, taking issue with leaks from campaign aides "who don't know what they're talking about."

"I'm the only person who knows when I will" announce a running mate "or what even direction I might take. And I intend to keep it that way," the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said as fresh clues about his intentions emerged.

He knoes the media will watch this game closely, so what's the problem? The leaks from his staff? That seems to me to be an internal campaign matter, and Kerry's airing of it to the press simply makes him look like a boob who can't control his underlings, as the story notes:

Kerry, a four-term senator with a history of publicly chastising his staff, smiled and chuckled as he recalled that he "read with amusement about aides who don't know what they're talking about with respect to my schedule" for announcing a running mate.

That just doesn't sound right to me. I'm thinking that there must be a reason Kerry's handlers told him to say something other than the polite version of "No comment" on the veep question. My guess? It's because one of the leaks pretty closely approximated Kerry's veep strategy. He doesn't want to confirm it by pointing out which one (obviously), so he'll "chuckle" about them all and dismiss them together. You can bet there's no chuckling in the war room over this, though.