The weirdest thing about Douglas Brinkley today is that he can appear on friendly media outlets — Chris Matthews and National Public Radio, I’ve noticed — and nobody asks him: when are you going to release the private journals and other John Kerry material he says you have that would clear some of this mess up? Brinkley is holding them close as his commercial stash, and none of his pals in the liberal media is exactly thumping on his door asking him to give ‘em up. They’re also beating around the point that Brinkley did not write “Tour of Duty” as a professional historian, but as a helpful member of Team Kerry, like a little Schlesinger Junior. Brinkley is as much a Kerry booster as Jim Rassmann.