There is no shame in running for the presidency and getting only 4.8 of every 10 voters to select you, as opposed to 5.1 of every 10 Americans who preferred the other fellow.

After all, when you look at it that way, it's clear that you would be living in the White House today except for that mere three-tenths of a voter who wanted otherwise.

That three-tenths of a voter went to an evangelical church, didn't want homosexual marriage, liked his guns and couldn't see changing horses in midwar.

So it goes. You did fine. You worked hard. You won two of the three debates and tied the other. You never fell off a stage like Bob Dole or Gary Bauer. You ran so well that the exit polls thought you'd won. If only Ohio ... well, you know.

But here's the thing: You did, in fact, lose. You did so because you came into the race with too many liabilities.

You'd been inconsistent on Iraq and couldn't talk yourself out of it. You had a liberal voting record and were from the Northeast. The country and its politics have evolved to the point that a person can't become president anymore without winning somewhere in the South or the Rockies or the desert.

You never had a chance in any of those places, talking in Arkansas about hunting woodchucks, for heaven's sake. You were lucky to hang on to Wisconsin after talking about how the Packers played in "Lambert" field.

The point is that every dog has his day, and you, John Kerry, had yours in 2004.

It's not your party to lead anymore, because you lost, and because you would lose again, and because you have come, unfortunately, to personify the very impediments to the presidency that have beset the Democrats in every election since 1980 except the two times Bill Clinton ran.

That doesn't mean you should go away.

You still represent Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate.

You still serve on important committees.

You could become a statesman.

You might someday emerge as our greatest living failed Democratic presidential nominee.

But here's what it does mean: You should have shown more discretion the other day in that meeting among party leaders and labor people, at least as it was reported by The Washington Post, which usually is pretty good about getting these kinds of closed-door Beltway exchanges right.

It says there that you spoke up to say to U.S. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, your new minority leader, that the Democrats needed to fight more aggressively, mount a perpetual campaign and devise a plan to keep President Bush from sliding back to a popular middle ground on the Social Security issue he has badly overplayed with a nutty privatization notion.

It says there that Harry Reid told you, in so many words, that he was handling all that and didn't need you instructing him otherwise.

"Reid kind of shot him down. You would never have seen (former Senate Democratic leader) Tom Daschle do that," the Post quoted a source as saying.

You've got a guy there from the Southwest, from Nevada, a bit of a swing state, who is pro-life and not averse, apparently, to putting you in your place.

Maybe you should fold your arms, close your mouth and see what he can do with this mess the Democrats find themselves in.

Not that you made that mess.

You're just not the guy to wipe it up.