Kerry Haters: We're Not Fonda John

 
Blog Rolling

Be sure to visit Anti-John Kerry. He's got lots of cool pictures, buttons, editorial cartoons, etc. Well worth the visit. He's also got a comments section--you're a braver man than I, Gunga Din!

 
To Know, Know, Know Him... Part Deux

Another former girlfriend is Michelle Phillips, former singer for the Mamas & Papas, who has donated to Howard Dean, but not John Kerry.

 
To Know, Know, Know Him...

Kaus points out that Morgan Fairchild, who dated Kerry back before he married Teh-ray-za has donated to John Edwards, Howard Dean, and Dick Gephardt... but not John Kerry.

 
Please, Please, Kill This Blog!

I may make this a weekly request from now on. Please, folks, let's make sure that this blog dies a noble death on or about November 2, 2004!

 
A Third Rate Burglary? Part Deux

I'm boggled by what keeps popping up. In the previous post, I joked about ketchup being left behind at Gerald Nicosia's house when it was burglarized. Fortunately for Kerry, he's a Boston Brahmin, who would not know anybody who would commit burglary for the sake of one of his campaigns, right?

Maybe, maybe not.

On Sept. 18, 1972, the evening before the primary election during his second attempt for Congress, Kerry's brother Cameron and one Thomas Vallely, both part of his current campaign team, were arrested by Lowell police at 1:40 a.m. and charged with breaking and entering with the intent to commit larceny. The two were apprehended in the basement of a building whose door had been forced open, police said. It housed the headquarters of candidate DiFruscia. The Watergate scandal was making headlines at this time, and it was called the Lowell Watergate.

"They wanted to sever my telephone lines," DiFruscia said recently. Had those lines been cut, Kerry's opponent would not have been able to telephone supporters on Election Day to get out the vote and coordinate poll watchers, vital roles in a close election. "I do not know if they wanted to break into my office," says DiFruscia today. At the time he said, "All my IBM cards and the list of my voter identification in the greater Lowell area are in my headquarters."

Cameron and Vallely, along with David Thorne, who was Kerry's campaign manager at the time and has been close to him since they attended Yale together, did not deny the two entered the building in which they were captured. They said at the time they were in the cellar of the building to check their own telephone lines because they had received an anonymous call warning they would be cut.

Kudos to Lucianne.com poster ProudVet for the link!

 
A Third-Rate Burglary?

Gerald Nicosia, the author whose book led to the story about Kerry being present at the VVAW meeting where the assassination of US senators was discussed, reports that some of his files on John Kerry were stolen this week.

Particular files from the remaining 11 boxes were also taken, Nicosia said, including files containing documents about Kerry that hadn't been reviewed yet by others.

"The three files folders about John Kerry were taken," Nicosia said. "Those revelations are lost now, at least to me."

Hmmm, did they leave any ketchup behind?

 
John Kerry, Genetics Expert

John Kerry checks in with his thoughts on the gay gene for the MTV generation.

Senator and presidential contender John Kerry weighed in on the ongoing gay-marriage debate, saying that he believes that sexual orientation is a matter of genetics, not choice, and that both gay and straight people should be accorded equal rights under the law.

Then why doesn't he support gay marriage?

 
About This Blog

In retrospect, the title Kerry Haters might have been a mistake. As I commented below, it was partially inspired by the (now defunct) Dean-O-Phobe blog at The New Republic. Another possible mistake is the joke "Who says we have to be fair at Kerryhaters?" In fact, I am trying to be fair, while still scouring the net for the best and most reliable stories about Kerry that portray him in a negative light.

For example, I have read the article where the author claims that Admiral Zumwalt told him years ago that Kerry was causing trouble by killing too many innocent Vietnamese. I didn't find the article credible enough and so I haven't commented about it or linked to it. I also have avoided linking to numerous stories on the web which express skepticism about Kerry's rapidly assembled medal collection. I wasn't in Vietnam myself, so I don't have any good way of knowing what was reasonable in this regard.

Here's a third example (as Mickey Kaus would say, this makes a trend!). Kerry has always claimed that he resigned from the VVAW in St. Louis in the summer of 1971, although Gerald Nicosia and several others make it clear (and Kerry does not dispute any longer) that Kerry was present at the November 1971 meeting in Kansas City where the assassination plot was discussed. However, in fairness Nicosia's book does give Kerry a bit of an out on this issue. Quoting from page 211, "In St. Louis in July... Kerry played his trump card: He resigned from the executive committee."

So that's some reasonably exculpatory evidence that Kerry is not completely making up the story about resigning from the VVAW at the St. Louis meeting. Is it possible that he mentally conflated his resignation from the VVAW entirely (which apparently took place in KC) with his resignation from the executive committee? I'd say it's quite possible.

But this still does not get him off the hook. Remember, Kerry had consistently claimed not to have been at the Kansas City meeting, but now, faced with FBI reports that place him there, he says it was just a lapse of memory. A lapse of memory of a meeting where the assassination of US senators was discussed, where the meeting was moved to two different locations in an attempt to avoid surveillance? Where all but the upper leadership of the VVAW (which Kerry still belonged to as a regional coordinator even though he had resigned from the executive committee) was excluded because "...the discussion in that hall 'was grounds for criminal indictment of conspiracy,'"? Sorry, that just doesn't pass the sniff test. As I've said before, either Kerry's lying, or discussions of assassinations of US senators was so commonplace that he could forget a specific incident like this. Which is it, Senator Kerry?

(Later Addition: Why do I say that the name Kerry Haters might be a mistake? Because I suspect that some bloggers who support Bush will be unlikely to link to a site with that name. It may hurt their credibility.)

 
The Assassination Game, Part Onze

This evening I got the bright idea of checking out the book that apparently launched the VVAW assassination story into the mainstream, Gerald Nicosia's Home to War. First of all, any notion that this is some fellow Kerry hater can be laid to rest; Kerry has a blurb on the inside of the book that reads as follows:

"Home to War captures America's struggle to heal the wounds of a war too many--particularly those at the highest levels of our government--would have preferred to forget. Gerry Nicosia's important new book ties together the many threads of a difficult perioud in our history every American should take the time to understand in its totality."--Senator John F. Kerry, recipient of the Silver Star for heroism in Vietnam.

Ironic, no, that bit about how too many at the highest levels of our government would prefer to forget? Here's Kerry, running for the highest level of our government, and you can be damned sure he would prefer everybody forget this book right now!

It's a fairly long book--626 pages before the footnotes and index. Looking at the latter, we see that the Phoenix plan appears on just 2 pages, from 221-222; if I were of a mind to I suppose I could scan in and OCR the text for those pages, and maybe I will later. But for now, I'll just give a synopsis.

The section begins by introducing Scott Camil, the person who proposed the assassination. "...[E]x-Marine Sergeant Camil could be described as on fire most of his waking hours." When he got to Vietnam, "he had done his best to kill as many Vietnamese as he could--men, women and children." Camil had become something of a leader in the VVAW after coming home and reading the Pentagon Papers and realizing that "his conduct was not so distant from that of the good German boys of the thirties who had followed orders and exterminated Jews..."

Camil went to the Kansas City meeting with several proposals. One of the sticking points about ending the war at the time was the situation of the POWs. Camil proposed that the VVAW offer themselves to the North Vietnamese as hostages in exchange for the POWs; unfortunately this plan foundered when none of the other VVAW members volunteered.

He also proposed that the VVAW "return in force to Washington D.C., and there apply pressure in every conceivable way to the legislators who were still voting to fund the war." When this also was voted down, Camil made his most dramatic proposal.

An aside here. Lawrence O'Donnell claimed on Scarborough Country last night that Camil's plan was "One nut at a meeting suggested a nutty idea. Everybody said, you‘re a nut. We‘re not going to do the nutty idea." Nice try.

In fact, Camil's proposal was so "nutty" that the VVAW coordinators moved the meeting TWICE before even discussing it. First they moved it to a church, but their electronics expert discovered that the church was bugged. After that, they moved to a Mennonite hall located on 77th Terrace. At that location "a vote was taken to exclude anyone but regional coordinators and members of the national office". There was good reason for the desire for secrecy; "According to [VVAW member Randy] Barnes, everybody knew the discussion in that hall 'was grounds for criminal indictment of conspiracy.'"

Camil's proposal became known as the Phoenix plan, in mockery of a US military plan in Vietnam, under which village leaders and others sympathetic to the communists were being executed. The "Phoenix" notion was that Vietnam would rise from the ashes, transformed after the elimination of the communist sympathizers. The VVAW's Phoenix plan was to assassinate "the most hard-core conservative members of Congress, as well as any powerful, intractable opponents of the anti-war movement."

John Upton, a member of the VVAW steering committee, says that at first the plan was laughed down, but Camil was insistent and he had supporters. "Especially when we moved over to 77th Terrace, a lot of people were convinced this was the way to do it." (Italics in original).

Quoting again from the book, not Upton, "The Phoenix plan, like the rest of Camil's proposals, was voted down in Kansas City...."

One important note: There is no discussion in this part of the presence of John Kerry. However, it is quite clear that he was indeed present from the news articles that have been published recently in the KC Star and the New York Sun.

I am going to read some more of the book later tonight and will report further tomorrow.

 
John F. Kerry, Collaborator?

The Boston Globe notes that Kerry met with the North Vietnamese in Paris in 1971. They point out the VVAW connection, but manage to avoid mentioning the assassination plot.

Kerry, now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, yesterday confirmed through a spokesman that he did go to Paris and talked privately with a leading communist representative. But the spokesman played down the extent of Kerry's role and said Kerry did not engage in negotiations.

Asked about the appropriateness of Kerry's saying that the United States had "murdered" 200,000 Vietnamese annually when the United States was at war, Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan said "Senator Kerry used a word he deems inappropriate."

 
Best of the Web Today!

I sent along my comments on Spinsanity's take on the "French-looking" meme about Kerry to Opinion Journal, and they used it in the Best of the Web Today column.

:)

 
The Assassination Game Part Dix

The story hits TV--Scarborough Country to be specific. A transcript is here. Scroll down about 1/4 of the way to find the assassination story.

Key quote from Thomas Lipscomb, who broke the original story:

So this wasn‘t a casual affair. This was a very serious vote. They took the vote. Kerry was impassioned against it, against assassinating the senators.

Lawrence O'Donnell (Democrat) tries two lines of obfuscation:

There was no plot, absolutely no plot. One nut at a meeting suggested a nutty idea. Everybody said, you‘re a nut. We‘re not going to do the nutty idea. And it‘s 33 years ago. And we were all kind of reasonably awake at that time, weren‘t we all? Can we all tell exactly where we were in July of 1971, what cities we were in, when, what cities we were in, when, in November of 1971?

Both Scarborough and Pat Buchanan get the big picture, which is that if there was no big story, why did John Kerry make such an effort to convince people that he was not at the meeting? And why is he trying to get other people to change their story (See Part Neuf)

 
Eeeeeyyyyyaaaaahhhh!

Nuancy Boy's back on the campaign trail today, about to pick up the endorsement of AFSCME and the Vermonster.

(Later addition, as suggested by a Lucianne poster): Where's Al Gore to deliver the kiss of death?

 
It's a French Thing

Spinsanity is usually a pretty entertaining site. They take to task the spin on both the right and the left, although they seem to enjoy tweaking the right a bit more.

But I had to chuckle at their latest offering.

Rather than trying to engage in the now-common rhetorical tactic of creating associations with terrorists or dictatorial regimes, some political opponents of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry are engaged in a slightly more subtle campaign to link him with France, the leading opponent of the war in Iraq, and thereby play on nationalist sentiment. Kerry does, of course, have French relatives and speaks French. But the rhetoric has extended far beyond those near-meaningless facts.

snip to end:

ABC/National Public Radio commentator Cokie Roberts recently told the Palm Beach Daily News, "the new thing is that John Kerry looks French." But this attack is not some "new thing" that just spontaneously popped up; it's the culmination of an aggressive, months-long effort to make the line stick. Sadly, these substance-free attacks are being launched earlier and earlier each election cycle.

Apparently these guys can't take a joke. Calling Kerry French-looking is NOT appealing to nationalist sentiment, or a "substance-free attack". It's just a running gag, like the way most of the people who call Kerry French-looking usually follow that up with "Did you know he served in Vietnam?" What's that part, Spinsanity? An attempt to appeal to anti-Vietnam War veteran attitudes?

Can't wait to see them take on Molly Ivins' comment on Pat Buchanan's 1992 Republican Convention speech, that it was better in the original German. I got that one and thought it was rather funny, even though I'm generally not appreciative of comments comparing Republicans to Nazis.

 
And Now for Something Completely Different

Mudville Gazette has a contest to figure out which quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail best fits the Kerry Campaign. My choice: "I'm French! Why do you think I have this outrageous accent, you silly king?"

 
But Enough About Kerry, Let's Talk About Me

I'm 49, live in Phoenix and have been interested in politics since the 1968 campaign. My parents were active in the anti-Vietnam war movement (ironic, n'est-ce pas?) I became radicalized after watching the Chicago Convention that year. In 1972 I worked for the McGovern campaign at a couple of speeches as part of the "Bucket Brigade". We walked around with KFC-style buckets collecting cash donations from the crowd. I remember seeing Kerry in one of his appearances on the Dick Cavett show. In the mid-70s I flirted with communism/socialism, even attending a recruitment meeting of the Young Socialist Alliance at college. Fortunately, the speaker doing the recruiting was an idiot, and I walked out.

I voted for Carter in the first election I was able to (1976). In 1980 I was appalled at the success of Ronald Reagan. By then I was out of college and working in the finance field, where I read the Wall Street Journal daily and had subscriptions to Forbes and Fortune. In 1981, I was transferred by my company to the liberal Mecca of San Francisco. Three years later I voted for Reagan.

It was an accretion of things that changed my political philosophy. First of course was Reagan himself. It was easy to fear him when he was an abstract; it was not so easy with him in my living room day after day. I remember being impressed with his good humor the day he was shot; he asked the doctors about to operate on him whether they were Democrats. Second was San Francisco; it did not take me long to realize that the city was screwed up because of liberalism. And third, I began working for myself and started having to mail those quarterly checks to the IRS rather than "getting money" from them in March.

I voted for Bush, Sr., in 1988, but in a moment of weakness decided to back Clinton in 1992. Big mistake.

In 1996 I began posting to Usenet political forums, initially under my own name, and then when the spam began getting out of hand, under the nom de guerre of Brain Death. I still post to Usenet, but have been blogging for the last year or so on the Brainster blogspot. (Note: the Brainster pseudonym is not intended to be braggadoccio; somebody had already taken the Brain Death blogspot, so I just used my alternate nick from IRC).

I started the Kerryhaters blogspot partially inspired by Mickey Kaus as I noted below; another inspiration was the (now defunct) Dean-O-Phobe blog over at The New Republic.

Now, back to Nuancy Boy!

 
The Religion Media-Op

I gotta say, this is really galling:

On Sunday, John Kerry showed up for the 10:30 Mass at Our Lady of the Snows Catholic Church at 10:41 a.m. (The church had roped off two pews for the VIP.) Adding further insult, Kerry arrived noisily, fully outfitted for skiing, not dressed for a religious service. Compounding the insult -- this time to all Catholics in good standings -- Kerry received the sacrament of Holy Eucharist, even though he's not considered to be a Catholic in good standing.

"It was just a media-op," says a Kerry advance staffer. "We set it up with some reporters that we knew were going to be there."

 
Should the Band Play the Marseillese?

Dr David Hill points out that not only is Kerry French-looking, but French-acting too.

Kerry’s remarks suggest that it is only the United States that’s being uncooperative. But the polling seems to imply something very different. The Pew poll found that it’s the Europeans who want to take a more independent approach to the relationship than in the past.

 
Kerry Looking Like the New England Patriots

The 1985 New England Patriots, that is. Dick Morris sees a blowout in the making, along the lines of the 46-10 shellacking the Patriots took at the hands of the Chicago Bears in the Super Bowl.

But with the gap closing because of Kerry's drop, the impact is likely to last a lot longer. The fact is that 6 to 9 percent of Americans were voting for the Democrat two weeks ago and now are undecided. The doubts that Bush's ads are raising about Kerry are not going to go away; they will grow as the ads continue and the facts pile up.

 
The Assassination Game, Part Neuf

The New York Sun continues to shine:

A Vietnam veteran who said he remembers John Kerry participating in a 1971 Kansas City meeting at which an assassination plot was discussed says an official with the Kerry presidential campaign called him this month and pressured him to change his story.

The veteran, John Musgrave, says he was called twice by the head of Veterans for Kerry, John Hurley, while a reporter for the Kansas City Star worked on a follow-up piece to a New York Sun article about the November 1971 meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War at which a plot to kill U.S. senators was voted down. Asked by The New York Sun if he felt pressured, Mr. Musgrave said, “In the second call I did.” Mr. Musgrave said Mr. Hurley said Mr. Kerry had told him “he was definitely not in Kansas City.”

According to Mr. Musgrave, Mr. Hurley said, “Why don’t you refresh your memory and call that reporter back?”

 
The Assassination Game, Part Huit

The story is finally getting out. CNN covers it much like the NY Times, as if it were an outrage that the FBI was conducting surveillance on this fine, upstanding young man. However, they do slip in the assassination story... starting in the 25th paragraph!

But before that gathering adjourned, there was some discussion about the idea of assassinating American leaders who voted to prolong the war, said Nicosia and three veterans who attended the gathering.

Scott Camil, a Florida vet who put forward the idea, says the notion didn't get very far.

"If people considered our plans to be so bad, we would have been charged, and they would have made a big stink about it."

Camil, who was later tried and acquitted with seven other vets for plotting an assault on the 1972 Republican National Convention, said Kerry's opponents are "trying to blacken him with my brush and my ideas, and that's not fair."

Kerry, whose campaign insisted that Kerry had not been present in Kansas City until the FBI reports and VVAW minutes proved otherwise, cannot recall hearing the radical idea.

As I've said before, either such assassination plots were commonplace, or Kerry is lying about not remembering this one. Which is it, Senator Kerry?

 
The Assassination Game, Part Sept

The New York Times ignores the assassination story in an article about Kerry's aides decrying Nuancy Boy's surveillance by the FBI.

A yearlong F.B.I. surveillance of John Kerry's antiwar activities in the early 1970's was "a badge of honor" and an encroachment on civil liberties that has echoes in the presidential race, a Kerry spokesman said on Monday.

However, they do mention the Kansas City meeting, if only to highlight another proposal:

A Nov. 19, 1971, F.B.I. teletype marked "urgent" quoted an informant describing a group meeting six days earlier in Kansas City, Mo., at which many delegates wanted the group to take the initiative in peace efforts with North Vietnam. "John Kerry, V.V.A.W. national chairman, considered conservative by most V.V.A.W. members resigned for `personal reasons,' " the report said.

No mention of the assassination plot, which of course would tend to validate the FBI's surveillance of Kerry.

 
The Assassination Game, Part Six

Hooray! The blogosphere is finally catching wind of this story! Instapundit comments:

Was Kerry at a meeting in 1971 where people talked about assassinations? Does it matter now? I'm really not sure what I think about this story, which seems rather complicated to me. Hedging on Kerry's part probably won't help, though.

Indeed (heh)!

Just One Minute has a take here and here.

Now, where might this story be headed? As to the most serious allegation, that Kerry had an obligation to report a criminal conspiracy, I am skeptical. Whether the proposal took place as part of a V.V.A.W. business meeting or in a late night bull session is in dispute; in any event, the proposal was shouted down (or voted down?), and no further action was taken, so one might well ask, what conspiracy?

I would say, regardless of whether Kerry had an obligation to report the conspiracy or not, it can't be helpful to a man running for the presidency to have these kinds of associations in his past. Legally it may not be an issue; politically it could be the death knell.

The Cracker Barrel Philosopher has the same take as I:

Lurch's memory is so bad that he can't remember resigning from an organization he led because the members were planning an assassination campaign. I wouldn't remember that either.

Exactly. Politically it's a problem and the lying about it today gives it relevance. The question is whether the MSM will cover it; my guess is no because they will say it's too damaging, and after all, he did vote against the proposal and nothing ever came of it. But as a poster on Lucianne said last week, if George W. Bush had attended a meeting of a pro-life group where the assassination of pro-choice senators was discussed and voted down, do you think the media would give him a pass?

 
It's Funny 'Cause It's True

(Via a comment at Lucianne, apparently quoting Don Imus).

Senator Kerry was seriously injured yesterday while skiing on vacation in Idaho. He tried to ski down both sides of the mountain.

 
Unlike Others, This Man Has a Vote

Kerry picked up another endorsement. This time it's noted America-hater (and US citizen) Noam Chomsky.

"Kerry is sometimes described as 'Bush-lite', which is not inaccurate. But despite the limited differences both domestically and internationally, there are differences. In a system of immense power, small differences can translate into large outcomes."

 
Kerry Reckless and Irresponsible, and Abandoned the Troops According to... John Kerry

(Via Best of the Web) Jake Tapper (yes, Jake Tapper!) points out that Kerry characterized a vote against the $87 billion funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as reckless, irresponsible, and tantamount to abandoning US troops... one month before voting against the $87 billion package.

Not surprisingly, Republicans expressed shock at the Face the Nation transcript; Bush-Cheney campaign spokesperson Terry Holt called the quote "stunning." "'I don't think any United States senator should abandon the troops'?" Holt asked, quoting Kerry. "That is exactly what he voted to do." He called the quote "another example of John Kerry living in a parallel universe where he thinks he can take two mutually exclusive positions on one issue. I would love for these two Kerrys to meet some day."

 
Kerry Meets With a World Leader

Scott Belliveau has an amusing take.

 
First Guess is Down

Nuancy Boy's new ads promise a new direction for America.

 
The Assassination Game, Part Cinq

I've been wondering why the story of John Kerry's attendance at a meeting of the VVAW where the assassination of US Senators was voted on has not been catching on in the blogosphere. Here are some thoughts:

1. It took place in 1971 and everything was different back then. True enough, but Kerry's denial and now apparent admission of attendance at the meeting is recent.

2. Kerry voted against the measure, which was defeated, and then promptly resigned. Again, true enough, but did Kerry think to warn anybody about the possibility of senators being shot?

3. A lot of people who have become conservative over the years were active in the anti-war movement during the Vietnam era and are uncomfortable with pointing fingers at anything anybody did back in that time.

I suspect it's a combination of all three.

 
One Less Foreign Leader for Kerry

Greasespots don't vote.

 
Kennedy Steps Into Merde

Ted Kennedy suggests that if the Bush Administration wants to find out which foreign leaders like John Kerry, they check with the CIA.

"All we have to do is go down the list of members of the United Nations to find out where the support is. The CIA knows it. They work for the president. They can give him the names of all of those countries," Mr. Kennedy told "Meet the Press" in an interview yesterday.

We checked with the CIA ourselves, and here's the list:

North Korea
Syria
Cuba
Iran
Libya

 
John Kerry, MD?

In a throwaway piece by Tara Weiss on Kerry's kids, comes this startling revelation:

Alexandra, 30, and Vanessa, 27, wooed voters — and the media — by telling stories of their father’s Sunday morning pancake-making debacles and gave a hilarious description of the war hero’s saving the family hamster Licorice when it fell overboard during a vacation. He performed chest compressions on it.

 
Can An Appearance at the X-Games Be Coming?

John Kerry is so hip to all those edgy sports. The NY Post's Page Six reports:

We hear... THAT the Secret Service is selecting agents who know how to windsurf for Sen. John Kerry's detail. The candidate and his wife Teresa Heinz are rumored to be going somewhere warm where Kerry can frolic on his sailboard after a visit to their Idaho spread.

 
Charity Begins at Home

Byron York looks at Kerry's record of charitable giving, among other taxing matters. Money points:


Kerry's returns from 1995 and earlier, before his marriage to Heinz, have sometimes attracted criticism over the issue of charitable giving. In 1995, according to published reports, Kerry reported a taxable income of $126,179, and charitable contributions of $0. In 1994, he reported income of $127,884, and charitable donations of $2,039. In 1993, he reported income of $130,345, and contributions of $175. In 1992, he reported income of $127,646, and contributions of $820. In 1991, he reported income of $113,857, and contributions of $0.

As far as Bush is concerned, in 1991, the future president, then a private citizen, reportedly had income of $179,591, and charitable contributions of $28,236. In 1992, Bush reported income of $212.313, and contributions of $31,914. In 1993, Bush reported income of $610,772, and contributions of $31,292. In 1994, Bush reported income of $474,937 and in 1995, income of $419,481. Published reports at that time did not list Bush's charitable contributions for those two years.

 
Inspector Rousseau?

John Fund takes on Kerry's internationalist tendencies.

To point out Sen. Kerry's record as an internationalist, a believer in nuanced diplomacy and an abiding faith in the United Nations as an instrument of foreign policy is not to question his patriotism or fidelity to American values. It is to question his judgment, since time and time again his approach to international terrorism has been tried and failed.

 
Jeff Jacoby takes on Nuancy Boy's nuanced position(s) on Cuba. Top observation:

Unlike John Kerry, Cuba's brave democrats don't bob and weave and dissemble. They speak plainly and face up to the consequences. Their courage and dignity should inspire us all.

 
Mark Steyn just continues to amaze with his dazzling wit. Best bit:

Q: How many John Kerrys does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: At least four. One to unscrew the old lightbulb. One to simultaneously announce his courageous commitment to replacing the old bulb. One to vote against funding the new light bulb. And one to denounce George W. Bush and America's Benedict Arnold CEOs for leaving everyone in the dark.

Read it all.

 
It's a Gray Thing

The Washington Post informs us:

Indeed, many of Kerry's speeches during his Senate years were lengthy and subtle, reflecting an understanding of complex issues but also a tendency to sketch so many shades of gray that the reasoning for his position became opaque.

 
Boston Powers, Part Deux

Follow this link to see the International Man of Mystery video. The funny thing is that Kerry does seem stuck in the 1970s.

 
86 Him

Donald Lambro does the numbers for the Washington Times.

If the president's Southern advantage continues to hold up over the next eight months, Mr. Kerry will have to clear a nearly insurmountable electoral hurdle, the president's advisers say.