The Making Of John Kerry

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"Impossible," Kerry says flatly, when asked if he remembered any such thing. "I think that's mythology. I mean, it's just one of those things that I keep hearing about or reading about later that is just, you know, mischievous to say the least." Barbiero acknowledges that other kids viewed Kerry's ambition with some disdain. The "problem," says Barbiero, is that Kerry "is so passionate about the issues he believes in. He has a larger share [of passion] than most, and he acts on it. That can turn some people off. People think, 'Who is this guy? Who does he think he is?'" Kerry's admiring biographer, Douglas Brinkley, attributes the likability gap to a "cult of envy" that has persisted throughout Kerry's career.

There is some dispute about whether and where Bush and Kerry crossed paths during the years they overlapped at Yale. They certainly ran in different circles. Among the more vivid contrasts between Bush and Kerry is the fact that Bush, the true political heir, showed so little interest in the substance of politics while Kerry, whose father was a public servant, though not a very happy one, fell deeper and deeper in love with public life. Where Bush ended up president of the fraternity and knew the name of every pledge from the day he walked in the door, Kerry could become president of the Yale Political Union but still have classmates recall his never getting their names right in four years on campus.

Though they graduated only two years apart — Kerry in 1966, Bush in '68--in between their world turned on its axis. Bush called his the "last short-haired class," but they were rebels compared with Kerry's. Of the 15 Skull and Bones members in the graduating class that included Kerry, four enlisted after graduation; two years later, none did. Speaking of John's decision to join the Navy, Richard Kerry told the Boston Globe in 1996, "I thought [the war] a serious policy mistake. His attitude was gung-ho: he had to show the flag. He was quite immature in that direction."

LIVING UP TO DAD
George W. Bush may have been shoved at birth into an impossible competition with a man he could never hope to surpass. He may have suffered in his father's shadow, protested that sharing his name was as much a curse as a blessing as he tried to make his way in the world. But people who grew up watching the Bush family recall a powerful bond among them. "His father was an inspiration," says childhood friend Randall Roden. "He played with us. He joked with us. The family had an impact on me. They were very lively, and they were interested in you. They asked questions and made you feel welcomed and important."

When you ask Kerry about his father — who developed views of the U.S.'s role in the world so strong he felt a need, almost 30 years after he retired from the foreign service, to write a book about it — he often changes the subject. John talks instead about his mother, who died of respiratory complications in 2002--how influential she was and how warm, or he skips ahead to Vietnam and how that experience shaped his world view. Richard moves in and out of the picture like a shadow, looming large especially in childhood as John fought to win his approval, but ultimately shrinking as John found his place under the hot lights. By the time the son had won his seat in the Senate in 1984, the father was the one looking for affirmation, firing off faxes to John, suggesting positions and finally, in the months before he died of prostate cancer in 2000, talking about the things that mattered but had never really been discussed.