Several readers from Crooked Timber have sent me links to this bit from Snopes saying that the “Do you know who I am?” emails I posted about Kerry must not be true. With all do respect to Snopes, which I consider pretty authoritative, and a little less respect to the folks sending me the email, So what?
The Snopes page largely debunks a story about Jane Fonda and Ted Turner. Okay. But the idea that self-important Senators, media bigwigs and the like don’t ever say “Do you know who I am?” is batty. I’ve heard it said by self-annointed big shots numeroues times. At almost every political convention you’ll find a scene where some bigwig isn’t on the list for a party and pulls the DYKWIA card. I have no doubt that there are more stories like this than real-world instances, but there lots of real-world instances. And I still fully believe Kerry has provided more than a few of them.