Oliphant Agrees that the Speech Sucked

Thomas Oliphant also gives The Speech a bad grade in today's Globe. He makes the good point that the time constraint was well known in advance, but was not dealt with.

"For reasons he might like to explain, John Kerry last night raced through an acceptance speech that was way too long for a time slot he knew about for weeks.

Desperate to stay within the broadcast networks' paltry 60 minutes, Kerry stepped on his best thoughts and lines and blurred important proposals and distinctions, committing the sin of interfering with his own ability to communicate with an electorate eager to learn much more about President Bush's opponent."

If Oliphant is critical of Kerry's speech in print, I shudder to know how he really feels; Let me guess what he DIDN'T write....

"Jeez! You guys can't rework your stump speech into what you know is a 55 minute slot with weeks to write it, and practice it, and hone the delivery.  You can't even do a speech, despite all that down-time on Nantucket to relax and get ready, yet you expect to convince people that this team is ready to run the country?"

Who let the candidate out?

JFK's acceptance speech is by far the most uncontrolled moment of the whole convention in Boston and, sadly for the Dems, the most unpersuasive moment as well. Kerry's performance gives Bush some reason for hope, and little else at this very, very well-managed convention did.

The speech was poorly architected, poorly constructed, and poorly delivered. Give it a "C-" or maybe a "C" on the outside, but no better than that. I am frankly surprised.

Tout your weakness as a strength

For all the mentioning of Vietnam from the DNC podium in Boston, you might think it is 1968 again, but the national security rhetoric inside the Fleet center sounds more like that of the 1968 Republican convention. Jeff Jacoby (sorry to quote him, but even a stopped clock is right sometimes) has a good explanation for why these unlikely flagwavers  mention so much about JFK's  4  months in Nam and so little about his 20+  years in office:

"Kerry would make a strong president in the 2000s because he was a good swift boat skipper in the 1960s? It isn't exactly a logical argument. But it's the argument the Democrats are going with because the nation is at war and because nothing else in Kerry's long and ambiguous public record gives any hint that he would make an effective commander in chief."

Tout your weakness as a strength.  This is a well known and sometimes effective sales strategy.  As someone who has had to sell things with flaws, I am too familiar with the ploy.  Four months between now and November (yes, only 4 months...not a long time) can produce some serious tests of this, but it seems to be working so far.

A Little Gem Below the Fold

Here is a gem story from the bottom of page 1 of the July 28 Globe. Israel is buying the cement for its much-protested wall from Egypt via a Palestinian cement company with palms greased all around and all the way up to Arafat's thug-Cabinet. What could be a more perfect story to illustrate the Palestinian Authority as little more than a crime cartel masquerading as a country-in-waiting (with heavy UN sponsorship of course)?

Now if somebody will write a story like this about Israel's wall, there ought to be plenty of material in the Oil-for-Kickbacks program to find even better illustrations of how the UN has been serving poor Iraqis and all of humanity.  Or does only Claudia Rosett care about that?

And why would Israel buy the concrete from a Palestinian? Well, Israel better not be too quick to cast stones, because:

"The deal also apparently produced a major windfall for the Israeli-Egyptian partnership, as the market price for cement in Israel, where one company holds a virtual monopoly, is around $57 a ton."

So the cement business in Israel is also run by a cartel.

A Republican convention, but with better music

Today's Boston Globe reported on the first day of The Big Event and the Globe was as much an utter bore as the event itself. Maybe tomorrow something interesting will happen in Boston, but I doubt it. This event is so sequestered and so tightly scripted! And the script is targeting only that 10% of the electorate that is undecided, not any of the folks in the hall. It is really just like a Republican convention, but with better music and dancing.

Honestly now, at which convention would you expect to find Teresa HEINZ Kerry quoting Lincoln's plea for national unity?

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

One might ask "couldn't they find a Democrat to quote?", but that would miss the point. The Kerry Plan is to control the middle of the field. Well executed, that strategy usually works, at least in sports.

Gonna Party Like It's 1984

The DNC has come to Boston. What the effect of the massive traffic experiment will be remains to be seen, but certainly the hallmark of this convention, and likely the Republican convention as well, will be draconian security measures. US Army MPs on patrol met us as we emerged from Park Street Station, and every policeman in Boston was running the time clock. Omnipresent were black steel barriers which channeled pedestrian traffic and secured the perimeter of the "no walk zone" around the convention site, Boston's Fleet Center. There were enough security helicopters overhead to make OJ feel right at home.


Concert at Boston's City Hall Plaza on 25 July 2004

The Mayuh hadda big khancet and pahty in City Hall Plaza and personally welcomed all the delegates. Not a very exciting evening, but what can you do if you don't have Red Sox tickets?

Bush's Dilemma

Tooday's Globe OpEd has a perceptive column by Cathy Young who bemoans the choice that voters will face in November, noting a lack of leadership on the part of both Bush and Kerry. 

Looking at both candidates and both parties, I don't find much to inspire me. I don't believe Bush is evil incarnate, and the fact that Kerry is not Bush is not enough to make me want to vote for him. I do believe that Bush and his team have badly mishandled many aspects of the war on terror. The decision to go to war in Iraq may or may not have been right (in my view, the jury is still out), but it is clear that the administration was catastrophically unprepared to handle the war's aftermath, to win the peace after winning the war. We are now left with a mess in Iraq that is still costing lives -- the lives of Americans, our allies, and innocent Iraqis. We have squandered the considerable sympathy we have had among the Iraqi people -- even though, with no weapons of mass destruction found, the liberation of Iraqis from a brutal regime of state terrorism is the strongest justification left for the war.

Add to this the fact that Al Qaeda has not been neutralized, and the situation in Afghanistan remains chaotic enough that it may well re-emerge as a hotbed of terror. And add to this the fact that Bush has never offered an adequate admission of mistakes and missteps to the American people.

She has a point.  As the election nears, I suspect more and more votes will find themselves unhappy with this choice as well.

Bush 41 proved himself impolitic by leaving Quayle on his ticket and thus carrying more liabilities than he could in order to win the election.  Bush 43 is in a similar situation.  Cheney is no Quayle, but neither does he help the ticket politically as Edwards helps Kerry.  If conservatives like Cathy Young are feeling "blue"  :-)  about Bush's leadership, that is a bad sign for him.  If he wants to win, he'll have to take some action "outside of the box" to add to the 40% of voters who will be reliably Republican.  There is one obvious choice for this; replace Cheney on the 2004 ticket with his National Security Advisor.  Will he?  I doubt it.

On the Kerry Watch

I am in Nantucket and won't blog until late in the week.  Thanks for visiting.

Was St. Paul a Blogger?

Roger Simon has a post concerning how much circulation his blog is getting (one might call that a vanity post...huge circulation is not a problem here). It led Roger to think about the whole "blogosphere" phenom and how it might eventually sustain itself. I had a couple of comments about the phenom myself:

1) The network of blogs quickly "raises" the visibility of good information from an obscure source to a small blog to high-circulation blogs to (very often) the MSM. Here is the chief value of a large network of blogs; it applies Metcalfe's Law to the news, without requiring any help from an unsympathetic news media. However, it needs to be an organism or an ecosphere with many cells, not just a small set of uber-blogs. Excuse me but this reminds me of 1 Corinthians 12.14-26. Think of the networked blogosphere in these terms:

For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single organ, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those parts of the body which we think less honorable we invest with the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part, that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

2) The financial problem for blogs could work out in a variety of ways, depending upon which part of "the body" you are. Lowly blogs, like mine, will have to subsist on volunteer work. Uber-blogs can exist through sponsorship and branding. In between blogs can use some of each.

Who rolled up THAT ladder?

Here is a moment when a bit of truth emerges by quite accident.

I hope Wretchard is wrong

Commenting on the cowering of the West and now the Phillipine government to Abu Sayyaf and Al Queda, Wretchard's superb blog reaches back to the "peace in our time" that began in the fall of 1938:

"And do not suppose this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in olden time.
-- Churchill on Munich Oct 5, 1938"

Open Secrets, not Open Inquiry

In the Boston Sunday Globe’s optimistically titled Ideas section is a gruesome article about the state of homosexuality in Pakistan. It is written by

“a journalist based in New Delhi. She reports frequently for National Public Radio from across South Asia.”

Unmentioned but revealed through 10 seconds of Googling is that the author also reports frequently for The Nation, but failing to admit that is only a little white lie on the Globe’s part. After all, since so many writers for The American Spectator and The Weekly Standard appear in the Globe Op-Ed pages without attribution, it is only proper editorial balance to trot out a writer from The Nation once in a while ( smiley goes here ).

Her article is disturbing because it insists that sex between older men and teen boys is “the most common form of male homosexuality” in Pakistan, and that most of these situations involve coercion or violence. We in Boston are all too familiar with the term ephebophile and its unhappy results. The author sees this phenomenon as a result of Sharia (typical of The Nation types…they never met an Islamic dictatorship they liked with the exception of Iraq and Afghanistan after being invaded by Bush and company).

The article claims to be based on “dozens of interviews”, but it is a shame that rigorous academic research into human sexual behavior is about the last thing an objective academic would pursue in today’s era, given that the results of such research would be tightly circumscribed by the current limits of political correctness. Just as in decades past homosexuals were always painted as just the products of a failed upbringing, now nothing which is not highly supportive of the behavior can be published without risking their intemperate wrath. For an honest and curious academic it is purely a dead end where the results of research are constrained by an intolerant political climate.

Isn’t the steady march of human enlightenment a grand thing?

Read the whole article, but here are a few direct quotes:

In villages throughout the country, young boys are often forcibly "taken" by older men, starting a cycle of abuse and revenge that social activists and observers say is the common pattern of homosexual sex in Pakistan. Often these boys move to the cities and become prostitutes...

Further complicating matters, the most common form of male homosexuality in Pakistan, according to Murray, is pederasty, where an older man entices or coerces (sometimes forcibly) a younger boy into sex...

Among the many obstacles facing men who have sex with men in Pakistan is this close association, in the eyes of many Pakistanis, between homosexuality and exploitation. But they face their own psychological barriers as well. Of the dozens of men interviewed for this article, almost none who admitted to having homosexual sex identified themselves as "gay." ...

According to many people interviewed in Peshawar, there's a strict code of behavior in these relationships. The boy is always the passive partner in sex and has often been coerced into the relationship; he is given food and clothes by his partner, and is in may cases forbidden to leave the relationship or marry. (In theory, the boys could marry when they're grown, but they are generally considered damaged, and end up wandering the streets as outcasts.)...

Here, more than anywhere else in Pakistan, the situation resembles that found among prison inmates, where sex is mostly about availability and dominance rather than preference...

The politics of personal destruction?

Today's Globe story on the bruhaha over the verbal abuse heaped on George W Bush at Kerry's NYC fundraiser has a couple of candid tidbits. Speaking of the event:

"It also followed a pattern in which the Kerry campaign has allowed supporters to level attacks at the administration while maintaining an ability to deny direct involvement. Throughout the year, organizations such as MoveOn.org and The Media Fund have targeted Bush with critical ads that dovetail with the critique Kerry has delivered on the campaign trail. But these groups typically have been much harsher in their attacks than the Kerry campaign has been.

So remind me again which party runs the well-funded political attack machine that the junior senator from New York is always talking about?

Another speaker, actress Meryl Streep, criticized Bush's frequent invocation of religion and said, 'I wondered to myself through the shock and awe, I wondered which of the megaton bombs Jesus, our president's personal savior, would have personally dropped on the sleeping families in Baghdad.'

It's OK (I guess) to mock your opponent's religious beliefs at a Democratic fundraiser, as long as they are evangelicals.

One Busy Guy

CNN.com - Transcripts:

"Interview With John Kerry, Teresa Heinz Kerry
Aired July 8, 2004 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KING: Good evening. Welcome to a special edition of LARRY KING LIVE here in New York with Senator John Kerry, who's frequently appeared on this show, and Teresa Heinz Kerry, her first appearance on this show. We thank you both very much for coming.

Let's get to, first thing's first, news of the day. Tom Ridge warned today about al Qaeda plans of a large-scale attack on the United States, didn't increase the -- do you see any politics in this? What's your reaction?

KERRY: Well, I haven't been briefed yet, Larry. They have offered to brief me; I just haven't had time. But all Americans are united in our efforts to defeat terrorism.

I believe that John Edwards and I can wage a far more effective war on terror than George Bush has. I think we can do a better job of making America safe. But in these days ahead, we all join together no matter what.

KING: So, you don't question the timing of this? Some are.

KERRY: It's not for me to do. I think that what's important is for the terrorists to understand that I and John Edwards will wage, using every tool available to us, the most effective war possible against terrorism.

KING: When do you get...

KERRY: And they -- the American people are going to decide this race, not terrorists. And they need to know that.

KING: When do you -- when do you get your briefing?

KERRY: We're arranging it. It's at the end of the week I'll get it.
KING: Should be pretty soon.

KERRY: I think it's tomorrow or the next day.

Front Page Editor Goes AWOL

The Globe might be forgiven today for having a front page which looks like it was laid out by Terry McAuliffe. After all, Kerry-Edwards is legitimate news today. What goes over the top, though, is a long story that begins on the front page entitled “Law lets Iraqis curb civil rights during violence”. Here is the story in a nutshell: The new Iraqi government, which has been in place for just over 1 week, has created a fairly collaborative process by which they will agree to “suspend some basic civil rights” in times of emergency.

Question: In 64 column inches of story, how many times would you guess this story compares the new government’s policy with the civil rights record (such as it was) of the previous Iraqi regime that held power for the past 25 years?

Answer: Not once. Nada. Nothing. Absolutely no mention is made of the previous government.

I’m sure glad to have such a highly professional media giving perspective to ignorant knuckle-draggers like me.

The Conscience of a Liberal

Eileen McNamara, a dedicated libertarian when it comes to abortion rights, in her column today questions how The Presumptive Nominee could say that he believes “life begins at conception” and at the same time have a 100% perfect voting record on legalized abortion as judged by groups like NARAL.

Over to you, Eileen:

I did not know that Senator John F. Kerry believes that life begins at conception. Now that I do know, I do not understand 20 years of votes supporting a woman's right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

I tend to believe the 20 years of consistent votes more than one interview held during a tour “designed to highlight his his values and cast himself as an acceptable alternative for conservative voters” (that is what the Globe called it last Monday).

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee's explanation over the weekend implied that his civic duty in a pluralistic society required him to ignore his conscience. ''There is something called freedom of conscience in the Catholic Church," Kerry told an Iowa newspaper. ''I oppose abortion, personally. I don't like abortion. I believe life begins at conception. But I don't take my Catholic beliefs, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant, on a Jew, or an atheist who doesn't share it. We have separation of church and state in the United States of America."
So, Kerry's conscience is not at odds with church teaching, just with his voting record? By any measure, that is an odd definition of conscience. Forget church teaching for a moment. Conscience is a moral concept, as well as a religious one, after all.

I agree. Does it follow from this that “character counts”?

If you believe that life begins at conception, doesn't your conscience compel you to vote in concert with that belief? Just as, if your conscience tells you capital punishment is state-sanctioned murder, you would vote against the death penalty? Or if you believe that gay marriage is a fundamental civil right, you would vote against a constitutional amendment to ban it?

“I believe, when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos".”
– Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons

I, and I suspect many others who support legal abortion, had mistakenly assumed that, on this very personal issue, Kerry's conscience was at odds with the teaching of his church. His consistent record in favor of abortion rights, family planning, and reproductive freedom was, I thought, a courageous reflection of an independent mind.

So much talk about his courage. Unnecessary hogwash. I say expediency explains the behavior just as well. And saying that voting 4 out of 4 times to support partial-birth abortion is “at odds with the teaching of his church” is some kind of understatement! Furthermore, such votes are also in opposition to the overwhelming public sentiment concerning this repulsive practice, even in Massachusetts. But it is such a voting record that keeps the militant abortion-rights fanatics happy with Senator Kerry and keeps their ire turned elsewhere. Expedience is at work here, not courage or independence.

Now, I don't know what to think. I cannot respectfully disagree with him as I do with an abortion opponent whose conscience prompts her to work to unseat lawmakers like Kerry. I understand her. She is acting on principle, lobbying to change laws antithetical to her conscience. I don't understand him, voting consistently in opposition to what he now tells us is one of his core beliefs.

Eileen, you are being very un-nuanced here!

I believe this is regarded as a skill by some and called “compartmentalization”. Only an un-nuanced simpleton would call it “a lack of integrity”. Many of you in the press admired the 42nd president for his ability to do exactly this. What is your problem here?

Is it perhaps the suspicion that Mr. Kerry’s record suggest that his ultimate core value always concerns his prospects in the next election, and as a result he will now articulate most any cliché which might appeal (pander!) to the Midwestern swing voter? Perhaps he is not really a liberal at all, but rather needed to behave as one in order to advance his political career in Massachusetts. And well so he did, starting with a bang upon his return from Vietnam in 1971.

This really isn't about religion. Catholics have abortions at about the same rate as other women in the United States, just as they use birth control, have premarital sex, and get divorced. Those choices certainly put them at odds with their church, but most, I think, would say their consciences are clear. As much as it objects to such ''cafeteria Catholics," the hierarchy knows that not every Catholic accepts all of its teachings, that if it required that level of conformity, the pews would be empty. What is Kerry saying about his conscience? That it conforms in church, but dissents during roll calls?

Kerry represents what is essentially a 1-party state. This condition allows elected officials to engage in all kinds of misbehavior when they know they may vote without fear of reprisal at the next election. The 2-party system is a vast improvement over this. We should try it some time. Illuminating these misbehaviors would be a good role for an impartial news media.

I wanted to ask Kerry more about this, but he was busy yesterday, trumpeting a vice presidential pick that the NARAL Pro-Choice America, the lobbying arm of the abortion rights movement, called ''a dream ticket for a woman's right to choose." Betsy Cavendish, interim president of NARAL Pro Choice America, was offended that I wanted to discuss Kerry's abortion comments on ''such a great day." Why, she asked, would I spin a ''minor comment" into a ''minicyclone" when abortion rights supporters should be keeping our ''eye on the prize, defeating Public Enemy Number One, George Bush." For all we know, she said, Kerry sees life as a continuum, with conception the acorn and childbirth the oak. Shouldn't she ask him, I wondered. ''Why?" she asked. ''Our job is to get Bush out."

Offended that you should question the Party? Indeed! It is not surprising that a dissent from conformity provokes hostility among such true believers in a Sole Progressive World View as NARAL.

NARAL's response reminds me of stories in “The Gulag Archipelago” about Soviet Party members who personally questioned how long the Gulag camps would be needed. They were shocked when dissenters received 10-year sentences in the 1920s; believing that in less than a decade they would finish creating the Worker’s State and thus would no longer have need of a huge complex of forced labor camps. Their Party's fanatic leaders were not pleased to have the wisdom of the Party questioned, especially concerning its view of the inevitable progress of history. Those who continued to question found out much more than they ever wanted about the Gulag.

So, Eileen, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, lest you incur more wrath and spoil the Party.

It is that kind of talk that makes me despair that the electoral process can ever be a useful means to debate divisive issues in America. Abortion remains so contentious, in part, because each side is so intent on holding its ground that neither acknowledges how difficult this issue is for many Americans.

In part true, but only in part. The largest reason this debate remains divisive is that the key decisions were not made by the elected representatives of the people (many of whom were wrestling with this issue in 1973). Rather, the most important decision was imposed by a court judgment and maintained by what can only be called fanatics. They view every question through the abortion prism. The abortion-rights activists who pursued the original 1973 decision have fought tooth-and-nail for 30 years against any federal legislation that restricts the practice of abortion in any way, and against the advancement of any judge who might threaten that 1973 ruling. No holds barred and no quarter given. Ask Clarence Thomas. Or see how much helpful support a rape victim received from NOW when she made charges against a prominent Democrat who supported abortion rights.

And John Kerry is the poster child of these fanatics. A catholic US Senator voting for unrestricted abortion – the very model of a “courageous” (your word) abortion-rights Catholic.

It is not surprising that Kerry leaves his conscience in the Senate cloakroom, Eileen. Such lack of integrity (there I go again!) is unseemly in a senator, but a tragedy for a nation when practiced by a president who possesses no core values that actually impact his behavior as a legislator or a leader. Again I refer to the superb example set by the 42nd president.

I, for one, would like to know more about how difficult an issue it is for John F. Kerry and his curious conscience.

So would I. You are welcome to ask as far as I am concerned, Eileen. But in the weeks to come if the mainstream press by some remote chance gives The Presumptive Nominee a pass on this question, would you excuse me for suspecting their impartiality?

Visiting a Graveyard at Foxboro State Hospital

Tonight I visited two graveyards near the State Hospital in Foxboro, Massachusetts. The 2 graveyards that I saw were not in great shape, but neither were they in complete neglect. I am suspicious that many graves in one of them might be unmarked. One was located in the woods, and was in generally worse shape than the photos below. All featured numbered markers with a 4-digit and a 3-digit number. It was quite buggy, so I did not try to decipher the code represented by the numbering.


A graveyard near Foxboro State Hospital


A flush gravestone with a 4-digit and 3-digit number


A headstone with numbers on both sides

Departmental

Here is a very interesting story in today's Boston Globe about a group that has restored a formerly abandoned graveyard in the closed Tewksbury Massachusetts State Hospital. The group is trying to force the State of Massachusetts to restore and maintain all such graveyards, which are found at most state hospital sites and contains the graves of many thousands of former patients. All were wards of the state. These are paupers' graves. The graves are marked only with numbered metal plates. The graves and the practice of marking them with numbers are not new. The practice since the 19th century was to bury patients who died under numbered metal plates. Of course in those days having a family member in such an institution was considered shameful. But do you bet this form of dehumanizing neglect was also blamed on tight state budgets (no budget could be found in more than a century???)? My spouse reports that she has visited one such cemetery in a neighboring town and found its condition of utter neglect "creepy".

It couldn’t be called ungentle.
But how thoroughly departmental.

These hospitals have now largely been abandoned as their patients have been de-institutionalized. The neglect of these graves is exactly on par with the more visible neglect of the many magnificent 19th century buildings at every site I have seen. These buildings are now so long completely unmaintained (since the 1960s in some cases) that they are far beyond any hope of restoration. Suburban growth has wildly increased the value of the property on which some of these abandoned institutions lie, and the state, (with budgets ever tight, of course) is now taking steps to privatize, and to some extent monetize, these properties.

In my own town there is a state hospital that is still occupied, and has restored its own graveyard, but this institution is run by a different state agency. This sad story of decade after decade of neglect is food for thought about the way citizens are treated when they become wards of a Nanny State, even one full of good intentions.

A slideshow created by the group that is working for restoration of these graves, the Danvers State Memorial Committee, is here.

A Brief Explanation

I apologize for the obscurity of the post below. Several readers have been confused rather than amused by it. Read THIS and my strange idea of humor may become more apparent.

Life Begins Before Cocktail Hour, Kerry Says

INDEPENDENCE, Iowa -- Amid a three-day bus tour in which he highlighted his values and cast himself as an acceptable alternative for conservative voters, John F. Kerry was quoted yesterday as saying he believes in abstinence from alcohol, but continues to favor unlimited drinking rights.

The Roman Catholic Church, of which Kerry is a member, teaches that drunkeness is evil, and thus should be opposed. Kerry's refusal to adhere to the latter portion of the teachings has prompted some conservative prelates to declare they would deny him Communion. Yesterday, President Bush's reelection committee cast Kerry's most recent comments as an attempt to appease critics at a time when he is trying to broaden his support among moderate and Independent voters.

The Supreme Court in 1973 overturned all state laws restricting alcohol, and since then advocates have resisted all attempts in Congress to pass laws restricting access to alcohol. While Jesus himself said nothing about alcohol, and reportedly attended weddings where large amounts of wine were served, the Catholic Church has opposed drunkeness, citing texts such as Paul’s letter to the Ephesians which says “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery.” Studies have shown that many Catholics do not follow Church teaching on this point.

''Vatican II is very clear. There is something called freedom of conscience in the Catholic Church," Kerry told the Telegraph Herald of Dubuque in a story in its Sunday editions. ''I oppose drunkeness, personally. I don't like drunkeness. I believe in abstinence from alcohol. But I can't take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an atheist . . . who doesn't share it. We have separation of church and state in the United States of America."

While Kerry, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, has previously mentioned his personal discomfort with drunkeness, a database search of newspaper stories failed to find any previous reference to him saying that he believed in abstaining from alcohol. A campaign spokeswoman said she also was unaware of him making the comment previously.

It is that belief among conservatives both in and out of his church that leads them to oppose not only drunkenness, but also drinking in moderation -- which Kerry has said he favors and which the Bush Administration supports only in a limited fashion.

''John Kerry's ridiculous claim to hold 'conservative values,' and his willingness to change his beliefs to fit his audience, betrays a startling lack of conviction on important issues like drunkeness that will make it difficult for voters to give him their trust," said Bush-Cheney spokesman Steve Schmidt.

See no story. Hear no story. Speak no story.

Opening this morning's Boston Globe I was hoping to read of Mayor Menino's startling remarks concerning the Kerry campaign. The mayor, in an interview with a Boston newspaper called the Kerry campaign "small minded and incompetent”. Since the paper that broke this story for some strange reason was not the Boston Globe, it took a while to find it. This story reported that Democrats were "buzzing" around the country about a feud yet somehow the same story was banished to page B5 in the leading newspaper of the city where it originated. Go figure. Here is the Globe story, and here is the real story.

In another item, it is getting harder to tell who is a greater embarrassment to the Democratic Party, Mayor Menino for feuding with police unions and Kerry, or Joan Vennochi for reporting truthfully on the op-ed page facts that are equally embarrassing because they illustrate the close harmony between high Democratic party apparatchiks and their like-minded counterparts in the media. Joan’s column today entitled “Old wrinkles on New Boston's face" concerns the media perception of Boston given the ongoing feuds in town. However she digresses in the middle to cover a media walk-through at the Fleet Center" that includes quotes from the chair and co-chair of the Democratic National Committee who are coaching the press on how important they are to the success of the party (and of The Sole Progressive World View). Here is a paragraph from Joan’s column.

At a media walk-through at the Fleet Center on Tuesday, Alice Huffman, cochair of the Democratic National Committee, bluntly told the gathered press they have "as much to do with the success of this convention as anyone else. Your role is so critical." Huffman went on to link "objectivity," "what is best for America" and the Democratic Party agenda.

Her message was an insult to any independent-thinking journalist, since she suggested that journalists are either on the DNC team or they are not. "Do your best for what is best for America, and we will do our best for you," she said.

Not an insult to many in today's media. Thanks to you for taking offense, Joan.

That sentiment was echoed by other top Democrats. "Everything is on the table. We want this to work for you," DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe told the press.

What Liberal Media?