Here's a hotly disputed tale about an animal rescue effort involving a small furry member of the Kerry household:

Aug. 3 - A mass e-mail from the Republican National Committee is questioning whether or not Democratic nominee John Kerry actually saved his daughter Alexandra's pet hamster, Licorice, from drowning during a family boating trip as she has claimed he did.

According to the witness, Licorice was "breathing normally" when Kerry pounced on the hamster and administered "unnecessarily forceful CPR" in an over-the-top bid to appear heroic, breaking several of the hamster's ribs and puncturing its left lung.

The e-mail, with a subject line reading "Kerry Hamster Story --We Smell a Rat," was sent to more than 2,000 news outlets just hours after Alexandra Kerry charmed the Democratic national convention with her tale of the Senator's hamster heroism.

In the e-mail message, the GOP quotes an unnamed witness who claims that not only did Kerry not save the rodent's life, but he may have actually been responsible for its premature demise.

What I want to know is: why a hamster?

And why now?

Is the hamster issue another one of those recurrent Kerry themes which won't go away?

I think some history is in order.

Superficially, the hamster meme might appear to have been started by Jodi Wilgoren of the New York Times. At first it seemed that way to me, because she beat all the other journalists to the punch when she called Kerry a hamster.

At the time, I researched and analyzed the matter as best I could with my post, "HAMSTERS DON'T WAFFLE":

Hamsters lead very busy and restless lives, without regard to habitats or habitrails. Male hamsters have very large, prominent testicles. (They also live short lives, tend to develop untrustworthy personalities, and are susceptible to bladder stones.) Hamsters are sophisticated international critters (major varities include the Syrian, Dwarf Campbells Russian, Dwarf Winter White Russian, Chinese, and European Hamsters) are nocturnal, and have incisors. OK, they're restless, and, er, incisive.

(OK, so I'm long-winded! At least I care!)

But as it turned out, Wilgoren's idea was neither new nor original. They'd been selling "Kerry is my hamster" T-shirts for months. (They still are, so hurry!)

Looking back, I guess someone should have forseen that Kerry had actually been involved with a dramatic, real life encounter with a hamster.

Since no one has questioned the animal's background, I am assuming that the hamster was privately owned and maintained -- at the expense of Senator Kerry or by other members of his immediate family.

While it may be true, I question the timing of this story appearing now.

And, in view of the fact that there are much larger issues, isn't it time to put all this hamster talk behind us?

Forgive me, but I think the revival of the hamster story hamster revival story is nothing but an attempt to breathe new life into another dead issue......

Licorice is dead.

It's time to move on!