John Kerry, Girlie-Man

John Kerry, Girlie-Man

We expect our politicians to fight for what they believe in, even when we don’t believe in the same things. We don’t want them to be “girlie-men”, afraid to “stand up to the special interests”.

John Kerry, like most politicians, is always promising to “fight for” this or that. It’s a big part of the image he is trying to build. Google finds nearly 500 hits of him declaring “I’m a fighter”.

But Kerry’s no extremist on the image thing. In early July he told an interviewer for the Dubuque, Iowa, Telegraph Herald, "I oppose abortion, personally. I don't like abortion. I believe life does begin at conception."
But he won’t fight for that belief. He’s too nuanced for that.

"I can't take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an atheist," he continued in the interview. "We have separation of church and state in the United States of America."

Politically and theologically, this is incoherent. It is phrased like considered action based on principle, except the action belies the principle and the principle has nothing to do with the facts of the situation. (See Mark Steyn for more.)

Kerry hasn’t just refrained from imposing his views on those who disagree with him. He has vigorously and consistently opposed every attempt to restrict abortion and has enthusiastically courted the abortion industry’s political support--"sucked up to" is a fair characterization. He thinks abortion is homicide, but declares that opposition to homicide is just one of those crazy quirks of Catholic doctrine that Protestants, Jew, and atheists couldn’t possibly share, despite the fact that murder has been on the books everywhere since, oh, since forever. Apparently, he has forgotten that no longer ago than today the "Protestant fundamentalists" of the "Christian Right" oppose abortion.

Two things are possible here: either Kerry is abysmally ignorant of basic Catholic teaching—-among other things, that murder is contrary to human nature, that is, against natural law, and not an article of faith—-and of basic principles of American democracy, and further, is incapable of thinking coherently about those principles, or he is being deliberately distorting and misleading. Either way, it is one more indication that he is a hollow man, an empty suit inside a crispy shell of ambition, a girlie-man, who believes only in getting elected.

Back in Dubuque, the Post reported, Kerry had a "photo opportunity on the spot where the 1989 movie 'Field of Dreams' was filmed. Kerry took a turn at bat, fielded ground balls at second base and pitched to an assortment of kids."

But he didn’t do so well in the big leagues. Yesterday he slipped into Boston for the Yankee-Red Sox game, where he threw out the first pitch. As NPR reported, he threw the ball in a slow arch that bounced on the ground well short of the plate. The NPR reporter got the reaction of a couple of pre-teen fans in the front row: “He threw like a girl”.

John Kerry, girlie-man.