Gail Collins has some unusually harsh words - for a Democrat, anyway - in her column this morning:

Something weird is going on with John Edwards, who was cheerfulness incarnate when four years ago he was the moderate-Southerner-who-can-speak-to-the-Reagan-Democrats. Then he morphed into a sorrowful populist who thought we should vote for him because he cared the most about the poor. Now he's running around like a rabid gerbil, telling people he should be president because he's the angriest.

A rabid gerbil? Yowzer. That's as derisive and demeaning as the right's two favorite nicknames for Edwards: "The Breck Girl" and "Silky Pony."