John Kerry: Bush a Criminal, Looting Country

Failed presidential candidate John Kerry blasted President Bush on Thursday as a "criminal" who has been "looting the country."

The Massachusetts Democrat offered the incendiary comments during an off the record meeting with liberal bloggers after a speech in Los Angeles to the Pacific Council on International Policy.

According to the Web site L.A. Observed, Kerry asked the bloggers to keep his comments confidential; a request they apparently dismissed out of hand without telling him.

Blogger "Hollywood Liberal" reports that Kerry "agreed completely with someone's assessment that everything that Bush does is solely for the purpose of looting the country."

"[Kerry] basically said that Bush and his cohorts are criminals" the blogger continued. "At some other point he referred to Supreme Court Justices Alito, Scalia, and Roberts as 'Idiots.'"

With an eye on 2008, Kerry has been courting the blog community, which helped make Howard Dean the early Democratic presidential frontrunner in 2004.

Meanwhile, current Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton's star continues to fade with the same group. Polls taken over the last year by the leading liberal blog, Daily Kos, show Clinton trailing Russ Feingold, Mark Warner and even Wesley Clark.