DAVID NYHAN GUSHED on the Globe Op-Ed page about him recently. Last April, political reporter Robin Toner drenched him with favorable images in The New York Times Magazine. Leslie Gelb wrote in the New York Times last week that folks in New Hampshire were "riveted by his intensity." And New York magazine national affairs writer Joe Klein apologized for many of Kerrey's faults last week, adding that he is "passionate" and "genuine."

Intense. Powerful. Intimate. Persistent. Personal. The press has made Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey seem like the most attractive candidate the Democrats have snookered into running for president in years.

If the momentum continues, Kerrey could turn out to be another Gary Hart (before the scandal, obviously) or Jimmy Carter--a dark horse who basks in media coverage bright enough for electoral success.

But let's hope not. Behind his veneer of good looks and a down-home spiel lies an uninspiring acuity and a frightening tendency to personalize public policy.

THE POLITICAL HACKS and national beat reporters see Kerrey as the ultimate outsider. His Nebraska freshness gives life and some measure of purity to a dirty game.

Indeed, Kerrey's past is impressive, and his penchant for self-deprecation makes him likeable--and extremely unusual for a politician. With term limitations becoming more popular (California's recently passed Proposition 140 shows the movement's strength) and anti-Washington feeling in general skyrocketing, Kerrey's story is a godsend for Joseph Rothstein, his '88 campaign consultant who's now on board for the presidential bid.

The story is devoid of scandal and full of heroism. As part of the elite Navy Sea, Air and Land corps (the SEALs), Kerrey got his leg blown off in one exchange but still managed to call for support and command his troops. (Nyhan really loves this story. So does everyone else. You'll hear it about a thousand times over the next 13 months.) He got a Congressional Medal of Honor for it, but he initially turned it down. No kidding. He accepted it later on behalf of his platoon.

When he came back home, he made himself a millionaire in the restaurant business. He's not a lawyer or a banker. There's no Chappaquidick, no Silverado Savings and Loan, no Anita Hill. He did let Debra Winger sleep over at the mansion when he was governor and drive around in state cars (certainly a bad judgment call), but Nebraskans didn't say much--they thought she was cool.

And after a single term as governor, Kerrey actually left politics. He felt no more "call" to do it, he said. Usually, this means the departing public servant hasn't got a chance in hell of winning again. But Kerrey had favorable ratings in Nebraska that rivaled Ronald Reagan's. He said that the fire in his belly had been doused by the prosaic ins and outs of running a state. It was hard for him to "[do] things that aren't you," as The New Republic quoted him in 1989.

Kerrey exudes honesty and fairness in a country where a politician's false claims to virtue are often tolerated and constant wheeling and dealing can be respected. He appeals (with no small effort) to some basic "Americanness" many of us identify with--a Western sort of freedom (he wears cowboy boots a lot), a blue-jeaned individuality (he's not tied down by marriage) and a populist fear of Washington (to which the AIPACked and Farmer's Unioned Tom Harkin has much less claim).

Cynical reporters tired of the bickering and half-truths which make up politics eat this stuff up. Bob Kerrey would never hire John Sununu, turn a blind eye to CIA shenanigans or pick an unknown for the Supreme Court. J. Robert Kerrey would not be president of the United States, they reason. He would be president for the United States.

BUT HOPEFULLY, he will be neither.

At least I hope he won't be the Democratic nominee. The good press Kerrey has received simply has excused too much. The problem is that he either has not formulated--or is unable to articulate--any set of ideas he believes in. This is not your normal case of campaign dodging. Kerrey is not simply avoiding talking about specific policies he would support as president. Everyone does that.

Kerrey dances around everything. So far in his nascent stumping, he's shown a tendency to spout support for whatever sounds interesting or popular, and a refusal to mount a strong offensive against President Bush--without which the Democrats will self-destruct. Beyond some broad strokes of Democratic posturing, Kerrey's just not there. And when you do pin him down, his ideas all seem just to come down to personal experiences--especially Vietnam.

On foreign affairs, Kerrey is least articulate. For example, according to New York magazine, he though it was just dandy that Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire."