A BLAST FROM THE PAST

DOES CALLING THE PRESIDENT A CRIMINAL EVER WORK?

I was listening to Senator Kerry castigate the administration about Abu Ghraib (again) and call for the head of Don Rumsfeld (again) this afternoon. Yesterday, I heard Howard Dean claim three times in one sound byte that the President has broken the law. The other day I heard a protester planning to head to New York next week call President Bush a "war criminal." Then it struck me: we have been this way before.

Cast your mind back with me to the summer of 1987. Does anyone remember the Iran Contra hearings? The Democrats were in high dudgeon, accusing the Reagan administration of violating the Boland Amendment to trade arms for hostages. It was quite the talk of the liberal media, electrifying cocktail party conversation in academia--but to the people, it was all just an attack on the president. It didn't prevent Reagan's number two man, George H.W. Bush, from being elected in 1988--even after former National Security Advisor John Poindexter was indicted in May of that year.

Moreover, there were rumblings in the press prior to President Nixon's re-election, as well. In fact, as the Washington Post reported, the head of the Committee to Re-elect the President (unfortunately abbreviated as, lest we forget, "CREEP"), Jim McCord, had been arrested bugging the Democratic National Headquarters in June of 1972. These facts were not unknown to the public, and many liberals hoped the election would go to McGovern, but instead Nixon was re-elected in a landslide.

Remember, too, that although President Clinton was not yet impeached by 1996, there were plenty of suspicions about him, and the accusations of his mendacity and possible criminality flew. Vince Foster had committed suicide and Whitewater was under investigation (Jim Guy Tucker and the McDougals had been convicted in May of that year and Clinton had given his videotaped testimony in June). The White House Travel Office fiasco remained a sore point with the 40% of Americans that never liked him in the first place. Polls showed that 60% of the American people thought Clinton was hiding something with regard to Whitewater. But none of the attacks that came his way prevented Clinton from being re-elected.

It may well be that the hysterical screams of the left that Bush is a "liar" and a criminal of various stripes will backfire on the Kerry camp. Hollywood celebrities using their professional skills to produce slick anti-Bush commercials could easily have the effect of merely annoying the voters--especially if they really use the slogans they are reportedly thinking about ("He's not on our side" and "Don't get mad, get even.") That remains to be seen.

But before they turn up the volume on the scandal machine, and before they hit full bay callng the president and his administration criminal, they might want to take a trip down memory lane. From history, it looks like the "criminals" are the ones that get re-elected.

Recommended reading:

HOIST BY HIS OWN SWIFT BOAT

WHAT JOHN F. KERRY'S CURRENT CONTROVERSY SAYS ABOUT HIS CHARACTER

When you look at the dispute between the Kerry camp and the Swift Boat vets, don't miss the keys to the Senator's character. (Click here to purchase through Amazon )


The one piece of evidence the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have brought against Kerry that Kerry cannot answer is his supposed Christmas Eve in Cambodia, 1968. This is a story that Kerry has told more than 50 times over the years, but let's look at why he used it in 1986.

His 1986 claim (the memory that was "seared--seared--" into him) came at a moment of particular political context. At the time, Kerry was trying to make political points against then-President Reagan, by comparing him to former President Nixon (this was back in the day when Nixon was the most hated president in history, and the Democrats were trying to put Reagan on that list, too). To make that comparison, he had to find a way to make Reagan's support of the Contras comparable to something Nixon did. The answer was obvious--Nixon secretly invaded Cambodia.

Kerry took to the floor, decrying Reagan's secret war, and citing his own psychic wounds from being a soldier in another secret war, the scars seared into him by hearing his president lie about his presence in Cambodia. He described being shot at by both friends and enemies, celebrating Christmas, and located the events very precisely: Christmas Eve, 1968.

The problem, of course, as recent critics who can read a calendar have noted, is that Richard Nixon was not yet president in 1968, and the notion that President Johnson would have let him sneak into the War Room prematurely to give military orders for a secret invasion of Cambodia is ridiculous. Nor is it plausible that the commanders themselves were engaged in breaking international law by venturing into a forbidden zone just to get shot at by drunken Vietnamese. If the on-ground commanders were calling the shots to move the war to a higher, illegal, level, surely we would have heard of it by now.

Moreover, the most dramatic detail of the story--drunken Vietnamese celebrating (that big Buddhist holiday) Christmas--only works if the events take place at Christmas. To make that happen, it has to be 1968 in order for Kerry to have been there, since he got himself wounded three times in just four months and twelve days (surely some kind of record), and any other Christmas would have found him somewhere else.

So, we know that it is utterly impossible for the Cambodia story to be true. Since it isn't true, we must look at Kerry's motivation for inventing it. Clearly, he intended it to score emotional political points against President Reagan. He knew his valiant posture would draw support for him and scorn against President Reagan. In short, what has been claimed to be a defining moment in Lieutenant Kerry's understanding of the war and politics was an invention. His very being as a political actor is artificial.

Why should this matter?

Because character is important in politics. If you don't believe it, ask Jim McGreevey.

Kerry's telling of the Cambodia fairy tale tells us that, for political gain, he will not only spin self-aggrandizing stories of personal derring-do, he also does not care about what those stories, wittingly or unwittingly, accuse others of being and doing. For Kerry to have been where he claims to have been, not only the evil Richard Nixon would have had to have been corruptly complicit. Anyone with him, anyone commanding him, anyone who knew he was there would have been in violation of the law, not to mention in grave personal peril. His story implicates everyone on his boat (we assume he didn't undertake this secret mission all by himself) and potentially everyone in his chain of command.

But Kerry doesn't care.

Just like he didn't care what the prisoners of war languishing in the Hanoi Hilton might have to endure as a result of his claims about their actions. Surely he realized that by professing voluntarily what American POWs were being tortured to elicit he merely reinforced the conviction of the enemy that their cause was just--and ours, corrupt. But his drive was not to preserve American lives on the ground in Vietnam; it was to topple the Nixon administration and undermine the war effort.

No wonder there's a shrine to Kerry in a museum in Vietnam.

The question for today is not the excruciating detail of his lies, but the meaning of them in his character. For a political party that can't scream "Bush lied, kids died!" loud enough (even when the "lies" are exposed as truth), the Democrats seem strangely unmoved by the revelation that at least one of the Senator's stories is clearly a fairy tale. They seem quite happy to let sleeping dogs lie when it comes to the Winter Soldier hearings, and to bury Kerry's entire life between 1969 and the opening of the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

The mainstream media, too, had to be dragged kicking and screaming to this story, which they were only when Kerry himself couldn't stand to sit still any more and started talking about it. At that point they had no choice, since they have a blood-pact with the Democratic National Committee to broadcast every word that comes out of Kerry or Edwards (or their surrogates at the estimated six-trillion 527 groups made up of Hollywood celebrities and rabid Bush-haters)

Now that the issue is in play, it deserves to be watched closely for what it says about Kerry. First, the behavior itself--the smearing of American soldiers during the war--speaks to the type of smarmy political ambition that is extremely unattractive to voters. Second, his inability to defend himself, except by accusing the Bush administration of "coordination," seems suspect, not unlike the kind of misdirection that slick lawyers often use when their clients are losing. Moreover, the charge is a dangerous one to make if he can't prove it, since any such coordination would be a serious violation of the law. In essence, he is responding by calling the president of the United States a criminal. (Of course, compared to what the Kerry-leaning 527s routinely say about the president, "criminal" seems almost friendly.)

Another aspect of the response is Kerry and Edwards' seemingly childish pleading for the president to call off the dogs the Kerry campaign presumes belong to him. This kind of whining doesn't usually play well with voters; it didn't fly when Howard Dean appealed to the DNC to make the other candidates play nice with him during the primary. In fact, that perceived weakness on the part of Dean may have fed his precipitous fall from grace. Kerry never called for help from the DNC to protect him. But now, when the petty primary is over and it's time to play with the big boys, Kerry turns girlie-man, shrieking for help and telling Bush to make them stop.

Except Bush can't make them stop. And he shouldn't try, either.

This is Kerry's fight, not his. The president wasn't in Vietnam (as the Democrats never tire of telling us), so he has no way of knowing whose version is right. He's staying above the fray, accepting Kerry's version at face value, as a gentleman should. The Swifties are the men to whom Kerry must answer, because it's their character and integrity that he impugned all those years ago.

This controversy has shined an important light on the character of John Kerry. For those afraid that John Ashcroft might trample their civil rights for ideological reasons, look well to the behavior of the Senator. His reaction to the free speech of the Swifties has been to summon a cadre of lawyers to try to keep their book from being published or sold, to threaten to sue television stations who run the ad, and to accuse the 200-plus Swift Boat vets (more than 50 of whom have signed affidavits attesting to the veracity of their accounts) of collusion with the Bush administration. Because, of course, they surely couldn't have thought this up on their own. This last is ridiculous, since John O'Neill's objections to the Senator's version of events dates back to the Vietnam era itself.

Second, note how he reacts to an aggressive action by an opponent. Rather than answer the charges, he is hiding behind his surrogates, sending his spokesmen out with talking points, making them make assertions about historical truths they actually know nothing about. And he's calling for help from the President, who he knows can't help him without looking complicit in the attack. Would a President Kerry react to international aggression the way President Bush has, by taking the fight to the attacker? Or would he barricade himself in the White House while he calls for help and cover from his buddies at the UN?

Candidate Kerry has shown his colors. President Bush has shown his. Whether the Swifties have truth on their side or not, they have clearly thrown Kerry off his game. If candidate Kerry can't handle American patriots when they blow a hole in the side of his rhetorical boat, how will President Kerry keep his hand steady when Islamofascists try to blow a hole in the side of his real White House?

SHOWDOWN

WHY A BIG PART OF THE CULTURE WAR WILL BE DECIDED IN THIS ELECTION

This election is not only about the war in Iraq, as we have recently discovered. It is also about the war in Vietnam, how we feel about it as a nation, who was right about it, and what it means for our future.

Barack Obama notwithstanding, this nation is severely divided, and that division reflects a cultural segmentation that truly began in the very questions that the Swift Boat controversy raises. In 1971, Kerry and his Winter Soldier compatriots shoved their rhetorical bayonets into the heart of the nation, claiming that American soldiers were engaged in widespread atrocities in Vietnam. Their contention was that the nation was entrapped in an illegitimate war, a quagmire of incredible proportions, and the only moral thing to do was to leave Vietnam to the Vietnamese.

Other Americans--notably his current nemesis, John O'Neill--disagreed and maintained that the soldiers were serving honorably, that the war was, yes, messy, but important, and that America herself was a great nation, worthy of honor, reverence, and respect. The Kerry/Jane Fonda contingent (never, by the way, a majority of public opinion during the War) held that the United States was a corrupt and tyrannical nation, bent on world conquest of the weak and the foreign, and that we deserved to lose.

Since the end of the war, the three primary architectural forces of Democratic Party policy--elite academics, mainstream media, and Hollywood celebrities--have labored mightily to ensure that the Winter Soldier version of Vietnam was the one pounded into the heads of the American people, particularly college students. It is fair to say that, until the Reagan revolution, the academics were essentially holding the fort alone. But once the war-mongering, hyper-patriotic Reagan had appeared on the scene, legions of journalism students tutored in the evilness of America jumped into the pot to enhance the flavor. Particularly on the social issues that traditionalists held dear--abortion, gun control, gay rights--US journalists carried the water for the Democratic party, making clear that those who stood with the Reagans were backward Neanderthal morons, while those who fell into the camp with Mondale and then Dukakis were the intellectual elite. Patriotism, American flags, and armies were "out." Peace coalitions, flag burning, and abortion were "in."

But the Democrats lost anyway.

At the same time, we can see now that the entertainment media was trending left, and television scripts in particular were echoing the prejudices of their pals in the National Organization for Women, the National Abortion Rights Action League, and People for the American Way. (Norman Lear, producer of multiple television shows, founded PFAW in response to Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority.) The same people who were "hard-hats" supporting the Vietnam War in the 70s moved over to the Republican side in the 1980s (remember, it was a Democratic president who first articulated the American interest in Vietnam, though it is now erroneously seen as a "Republican" war) and became "Reagan Democrats."

Before the advent of the Clinton administration, only hippies, tenured radicals, and Hollywood celebrities were still worried about American "hegemony" or "Western imperialism." They had a lot to say, but few voters paid any attention to them. Every March for Choice every year featured information tables with literature from the Communist Party of America (CPUSA) and various types of Socialists, but for the most part, even in friendly territory, such arguments were downplayed by rational people on both sides of the issues.

With the defeat of George H.W. Bush, the Democrats smelled blood in the water, though their man only won by a plurality of the vote, in a split election in which his incumbent opponent had broken the "no new taxes" pledge and angered economic conservatives (and his "New World Order" language had scared away cultural conservatives). For eight years, they plighted their troth to the Clintons with impunity, though the people themselves were somewhat taken aback during the impeachment period. In fact, though the media seems to have missed it, the whole Monica Lewinsky affair left (you'll excuse the expression) a bad taste in the mouth of Americans, who took the next opportunity to reject Clinton's vice president and rid themselves of the moral morass of the 90s. In fact, Gore may well have lost because he was not conservative enough for the "red" states and not liberal enough for the "blue" states. In other words, he was too Clinton for the right, and not enough Clinton for the left.

With the advent of George W. Bush, it seemed that tradition might have won after all. But--with the brief exception of a moment of political silence and moral sanity that followed 9/11--the blue people never stopped caterwauling about having lost the election. The president, they maintained (and still do) was not really "elected;" he was "selected" by the Supreme Court, in some kind of conspiracy orchestrated between FoxNews Channel and Jeb Bush (and, of course, the Zionists). Although prayer meetings sprouted at the White House and patriotism flourished throughout the nation, the culture war still remained at an impasse.

But this year something has changed. This year, the Kerry campaign has made what might be a fatal mistake: the elites were so full of their own possibility that they launched what is essentially a two-front war. Now, while trying to fight the electoral battle of today, John Kerry, Vietnam hero, is also mired in the roots of the culture war. At the same time that he has to defend himself against the slings and arrows of outrageous attacks on his peacenik voting record (or, in the terminology of the Democrats, "his patriotism"), he has to use his other hand to fire on the traditionalists. Unfortunately for Kerry and his team, they have underestimated the number of Americans who have never accepted the propaganda of the academy, the snotty arrogance of Hollywood, or the brainwashing of the mainstream media. And now he has to contend as well with the legions of veterans he slandered on Capitol Hill in the 1970s and libeled in his now out-of-print book, "The New Soldier."

What no one on the Kerry team counted on--not Moveon.org,, not The Media Fund, not Americans Coming Together, not even Michael Moore or EMILY's List--was that there would be people who would not wait for the president to take up their concerns. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were not going to let this man become president, would not sit on their hands and hope that the Bush campaign would hit the right notes. No, they decided to stand and fight the last battle for Vietnam all on their own, and without concern for any other issue.

As a matter of fact, as far as issue-oriented groups go, this has to be the most single minded we've seen in a long time. No one on the Swiftie team has a single word to say about Iraq or Afghanistan, the economy, gay marriage, or any other issue that Americans supposedly care about. They've not staked a position on health care, welfare, education, or the environment. Their only concern is that Kerry not be allowed to become commander-in-chief, and their only reason is that they claim to know him for who he really is. One gets the distinct impression that even the current wars aren't the impetus for their concern; they simply believe him unfit to be commander-in-chief, regardless of the circumstances. (Click here to purchase through Amazon: )


And so, unexpectedly and against our will, America has come to its final reckoning on Vietnam. For if the Kerry forces prevail, it will send the implicit message to the anti-American left that they have won. They were right, and they will have a president to prove it. If the patriots and the Bush camp win the day, with their love of God and country, it will be a repudiation of the Hollywood-academy-press troika that has sought to finish the job of the Winter Soldier investigations lo these many years.

If the hippies prevail, they will bring with them the full pantheon of their religion. Moral relativism, secularism, and pacifism will have won the day. Moral traditionalism, the rule of law, and patriotism will be defeated. As we pull the electoral lever, we open doors to the future. The possible outcomes of the election carry specific, predictable, and vastly different sets of consequences.

John Kerry and the antiwar left have chosen this electoral hill to die on. It falls to the people to decide who will win the war.

A TRUTH OF NOVEL PROPORTIONS

JOHN KERRY AND JOHN O'NEILL'S LIFELONG ANIMOSITY IS THE STUFF OF A CHEAP PAPERBACK NOVEL

It is an amazing thing to see. It's so dramatic it seems almost surreal.

We are in the midst of a political drama worthy of a 1970s novel or television miniseries. When it first opened, we didn't know it was happening, but now we are hundreds of pages into it--nearing the end, in fact--and its trajectory seems quite clear.

In March of 1969, after young John Kerry had seen his fill of Vietnam, with 3 purple hearts, a bronze star and a silver star under his belt (or on his chest, at any rate), he left "country" to return "stateside," denounce his fellow soldiers, and begin his long trek toward the White House. Later, in 1971, he squared off on the Dick Cavett show with Navy man John O'Neill, who, no coincidence, had taken command of Kerry's boat after his short stint in it and was mightily perturbed at the things Kerry had been saying about his friends.

The exchange has recently been replayed a few times on C-SPAN, and I highly recommend it to all. It not only offers a window into the souls of the two men, it tells us something shameful about the current state of American discourse. The level of debate on the Cavett show is so far beyond anything we could expect today, it seems almost antique.

Not only is Kerry his usual articulate self--with an insufferable Boston accent that has somehow mellowed over the years--but O'Neill, too, is quick and clever. Both men have the command of the facts over which they dispute, and their disagreements, though sharp, remain on the high ground of two gentlemen debating serious matters of public policy. At that point, either of them could have been in Congress, though Kerry had tried and failed to be, and O'Neill never was.

But more than the style of the confrontation, the substance of their meeting is of vital interest now, as well. They parry and thrust over the actions of America and her soldiers in Vietnam, and both are clearly agonized over the loss of life and the seeming intransigence of the situation itself. O'Neill, then with a group called "Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace," holds firmly to the "stay the course" position, while Kerry seems--though not entirely clearly--to favor (you'll excuse the pun) swift withdrawal of American forces and ceding of the region to the Communists. In fact, Kerry says at one point (I'm paraphrasing here) that we can't stop Vietnam from becoming communist, and we might as well let them do it. Something like that.

O'Neill is clearly in the anti-Communist camp, while Kerry has just as obviously made his bed with Jane Fonda. It is fascinating to watch the back-and-forth with the twenty-twenty hindsight to know whose position turned out to be correct. Particularly telling is the interchange in which Cavett notes that no one has suggested that there would be "a bloodbath" if we were to pull out and asks both whether they think there would be. Kerry hedges a bit, but contends that "history" tells him that it is unlikely that there would be a bloodbath, while O'Neill states that the prior actions of the Vietnamese regime strongly indicate that a bloodbath would likely result from premature withdrawal of American forces.

Today, of course, we know who was right, and it was not the idealistic young Kerry. He admits on the show that there might be acts of revenge, but he seems to dismiss it as too small a matter to worry over in the zeal to bring the boys home.

What did happen after Saigon fell?

For one thing, it is estimated that as many as 65,000 South Vietnamese may have been executed. Tens of thousands were "internally exiled" in re-education camps. And, under the Communists' tutelage, the Cambodian Khmer Rouge slaughtered between 1.5 and 3 million people, depending on whom you talk to, and "re-educated" millions more.

Would you call that a "bloodbath," Senator Kerry? It certainly wasn't the land of bread and roses the Kerry/Fonda crowd was expecting to emerge from the ejection of American forces from Southeast Asia.

Now, our novel has opened with the riveting confrontation between the two men in 1971. An uneasy truce is made, as both move on into their lives--Kerry to public service for the people of Massachusetts, an undistinguished Senator making few waves but plenty of friends in high places, O'Neill to obscurity as a lawyer somewhere.

The book could plod on for hundreds of pages, chronicling Kerry's legendary place in the anti-war myth, his rejection of his medals/ribbons (whatever), his failed first marriage, his "interstitial" period of wild dating in the company of Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd, and his marriage 8 years ago to the megarich Teresa Heinz (later to be known as "Teresa Heinz Kerry.") O'Neill's part in the book would be to disappear. Perhaps from time to time the narrator might tell us in what proximity the two men were, perhaps not. It matters little, for the sudden explosion of O'Neill back on the scene at the height of Kerry's march to the White House should come as a shock to all.

As he is recovering from surgery (he donated an organ to his own wife), John O'Neill sees John Kerry on television and is horrified to realize that the man might well be on the way to becoming president. Out of obscurity, after years of silence, the man in the white suit from the Cavett show begins to contact other veterans and feel his way toward becoming a political force.

And, in the final pages of the book, lo and behold, he appears! Just as the Great Man has taken his place in the pantheon of war heroes, anointed by the Democratic National Convention, just as he can almost catch sight of the Rose Garden as his own--here comes the long-forgotten interloper to throw down the gauntlet of war. The unwelcome adversary, flanked by 250-plus Swift Boat veterans, 60 of whom provide eyewitness testimony to an unheroic, even manipulative, John Kerry, barrels toward him, unheeding of his hysterical shrieks for lawyers, help, and cover. In a riveting, (but lucky for Kerry, buried by the friendly media) press conference, the band of unloving brothers stands, one by one, to denounce the man who would be president.

At this point, Kerry's tragic flaw--an unrealistic conviction that the presidency "belongs" to him--raises its ugly head, and his campaign begins to unravel. Like the grizzled veteran Gore (who makes a few small appearances, but plays no major role), Kerry's very being is bound up in his quest for the presidency. He believes, to the depths of his soul, that it is his turn, his time. After all, did he not bow to the demands of the pollsters and choose the vice-president the party wanted him to? Did he not obediently learn to love the little puppy? And has he not even gone so far as to consume boatloads of horrid ethnic and regional food (though much of it wound up in dumpsters, quickly replaced by catered French cuisine) to satisfy the requirement of being a "regular guy?"

It's not fair.

The question is where we go from here. The usual form of the novel would speed toward the final confrontation--a moment of reckoning, where old lies are revealed, and the future is awarded to truth and destiny. Such moments in real life are few and far between, but stranger things have happened. The final conclusion of the novel can only be determined by whose side its author is on, and, in some sense, it closes a chapter in America's own understanding of Vietnam.

Will the story end with the vindication of the veterans who "stayed the course," who still maintain that their service--and their war--was right, and good, and honorable? Will the nation finally decide that the worst thing that happened in Vietnam was that we failed to give these brave men the resources they needed to win?

Or will the Kerry character be triumphant, and with him the Hollywood celebrities, academics, and 60s holdover hippies that believe and teach that the Vietnam War was wrong from the outset, that the Vietnamese were destined to become Communists, and we should have let them do it, regardless of what they eventually did to their own people and other Southeast Asians?

The Kerry campaign is now pointing fingers at the Bush campaign, rather a dicey move in a world in which no less than three 527s are run by overt Democratic operatives. But the fundamental problem with Kerry's FEC filing and his insistence in blaming his troubles on Bush is that he is misreading the plot. The presidential campaign is between Bush and Kerry. But Kerry and the DNC made the Kerry campaign a chapter in this novel--a riveting potboiler that has been spooling out for more than thirty years, and whose central conflicts should have been settled before he began a second one.

If Senator Kerry wanted to wrap himself in the flag of his Swift Boat unit, he should have checked to be sure no one else was holding the end of it.

The final chapter of this novel has yet to be written, but when we finally see it, it will almost certainly shape our future attitude about war and about the Iraq war in particular.

The Democrats want to make Iraq "another Vietnam," while at the same time reinforcing their interpretation of Vietnam itself. If Kerry is elected, he will take to the White House with him an attitude about war that cannot but undermine our positions in Afghanistan and Iraq--and, indeed, throughout the Middle East. Should the President retain his seat, however, it will represent the final triumph of patriotism over the hippie generation, sending a message to our adversaries around the world that not only do we have free speech, but the free market of ideas leads to the failure of fringe dissent.

There are few messages more needed in the international arena these days than a clear statement that America is both strong enough to vanquish our adversaries and strong enough to permit dissent. And few more potentially incendiary than a signal to the world that America admits fault in Vietnam and is willing to negotiate its vision of the Middle East with terrorists and Europeans.

Stay tuned for the conclusion of this exciting epic drama.

I'LL TAKE KEYES, PLEASE!

WHY ALAN KEYES COULD BRING POLITICAL DEBATE BACK TO ILLINOIS

The entry of former UN ambassador Alan Keyes into the Illinois Senate race sets up a unique situation in American politics. For once, we have a race in which at least one of the candidates is not desperately thirsting to gain office--and can therefore feel free to speak his mind and heart. The Obama-Keyes matchup will be well worth watching this year, particularly for those wondering what religious conservatives REALLY think. Because Alan Keyes will be telling us the brutal, unmediated, unvarnished truth.

While Obama was eager to debate erstwhile candidate Jack Ryan as many as 6 times (Ryan was said to be contemplating two or three), suddenly he has now run out of time to discuss the issues with the silver-tongued Keyes. As well he should. There is not time enough in what's left of history for Obama to master either the language or the oratory Alan Keyes has at the tip of his tongue. In short, the more Obama tries to debate Keyes, the more voters will move out of the "D" column and into the "R."

Keyes is, in this race at any rate, precisely what the electorate always claims to want--an honest man, telling it like it is, who isn't being paid off by anybody and doesn't owe any favors. He may in fact be the only man in Illinois politics who doesn't have a corrupt connection to Illinois politics--a feat that can only be achieved by coming from somewhere else. Indeed, it is the rare politician that isn't related to some other politician--to a Ryan or a Daley or a Madigan--and all the eligible folks that aren't claim not to be interested.

Keyes will be more than interesting to watch. Because if the nosy press finds out something about his personal life that carries a whiff of scandal, he'll just say, "That's my business. Get over it." Whereas most politicians would have a healthy fear of dropping in the polls, Keyes is checked by no such hesitation. He is as likely to tell an interviewer to shut up as he is to say Barack Obama has a "slaveholder mentality" (he's already done the latter.)

I'm glad to be in Indiana, not far from Chicago, where I will get to hear all this. I feel sorry for the rest of the country, who will not. Because, while the national press will tell you that Keyes is running, will ridicule him for jumping into the race after objecting to Hillary's carpet-bagging, and will shout the word "extremist" from the housetops on the rare occasion that they absolutely must talk about him, there is one thing they simply will not do. They will never let the nation see Alan Keyes talk. They will never allow an unmediated view of an unapologetic black pro-life conservative.

One would have to be a C-SPAN junkie to know who Keyes is. He once ran for president as a Republican, a bruising experience, but an enlightening one. Now a backer of the president, then he held himself out as the true candidate of conservatism, compassionate or otherwise. He does not suffer fools gladly, if at all, and his grasp of the Founders' intentions and the meaning of the Declaration and the Constitution knows no living peer.

With two black candidates in the race, we may finally get a real discussion of things like the effects of the welfare dependency system on the black family. With a true conservative and a liberal in disguise, we will get at least two positions on things like gay marriage, abortion, and gun control. And if they start to talk about taxes, the citizens of Illinois will soon hear some ideas they've never been allowed to hear before.

So, sit back and watch the Illinois Senate race if you can. Mr. Obama may well win, simply because Illinois is largely controlled by the Democratic elites in Chicago. But he may not. And, whichever way it turns out, Ambassador Keyes will definitely give Mr. Obama a heck of a ride to November.

POLITICIANS: KEEP YOUR SEXUALITY OUT OF THE PEOPLE'S BUSINESS!

JIM MCGREEVEY IS REASON NUMBER ONE WHY THE PERSONAL SHOULD STAY OUT OF THE POLITICAL

All right, that's enough.

It was irritating enough that former President Clinton felt the need to exercise his sexual proclivities in the people's Oval Office, by preying on Monica Lewinsky. He thought so little of the space that we, the people, granted him as a perk of working for us as the president that he abused our time and our space to pursue his personal entertainment.

Then, as the election approached, I kept hearing about how Kerry and Edwards are "metrosexuals," which appears to be some kind of politically correct word invented recently to describe what we used to call "sissies"-- a man who is less than a manly man, but not gay. This is the kind of primping prima donna that flies in a hairdresser of his own to give him a "touch up." A real man would just go to a barber. Dick Cheney just runs his hand through his receding hair and pushes into the wind.

Now, we have (you'll excuse the expression) a full-blown sexuality scandal in an executive office. The governor of New Jersey, Jim McGreevey, turns out to be as "queer" (hey, if the fab five can use it, so can I) as he is corrupt. New Jersey, being the maggot-infested carcass in the field of American politics, has managed to produce yet again a scandal of Herculean proportions, one which has the added media draw of the entire panoply of the Scott Peterson/Michael Jackson/Kobe Bryant trifecta--lies, seduction, and denial.

Mr. McGreevey, a now self-proclaimed "gay American" (is there a hyphen in that, by the way?}, recently resigned due to the embarrassing facts that 1) he is gay; 2) although married, he has been having an affair with a man; and 3) he is about to be sued by his alleged former boyfriend. Jersey being Jersey, however, after the news media stopped reeling from his "courageous" announcement of his gayhood, they began to clue-in to the fact that there was more to the story than he was letting on.

Indeed, there was much more.

McGreevey, as it happens, hasn't really gotten to his "unique truth." There is nothing "unique" about Americans believing themselves to be gay. There is nothing "unique" about such persons having affairs, either. McGreevey's truly "unique" truth is that he is one of the most corrupt politicians any state has managed to produce in American history, a feat made much more impressive by his Olympic-level competition in New Jersey history.

Now his alleged lover, an Israeli poet and sailor named Golan Cipel, claims that he himself is not gay. Rather, he contends that the Governor fell in love with him and pursued him to the point that he first left his employ and then threatened to sue him for--depending on whom you believe--either five or fifty million dollars (or perhaps something in between.) To be fair, Cipel's story is almost as bizarre as McGreevey's claim that he is leaving so that his sexuality and affair won't interfere with the smooth functioning of Jersey politics.

Cipel, one is asked to believe, a heterosexual with no qualifications for the job, was tapped by McGreevey to be homeland security chief for New Jersey (a state that, we read in the 911 report, does indeed have something to worry about in the terrorism department.) He claims at this point not to have known that the governor was gay; after all, he was happily married. It was not until the governor began making aggressive advances on him that he realized the whole job thing might have been a ruse to get closer to the young man.

Now, we have seen such relationships in the past--powerful politicians giving jobs to comely young interns or otherwise unqualified women, such as Fanne Foxe or Monica Lewinsky. But one hardly ever believes that the recipient of Daddy's sugar is unwitting as to the quid pro quo involved. In this case, Mr. Cipel asks us to believe that he knew nothink, (nothink!) about the governor's intentions. Moreover, I would be willing to bet that, as this pornographic tale unspools, the governor will ask us to believe that he didn't give his "boyfriend" employment in exchange for sexual favors (because he knows that "bribery" is a much less welcome unique American truth than "an adult consensual affair.")

And, yet, I wonder.

Imagine being a young Israeli poet and sailor, a straight man, seeking only to come to America and get a job for which you are totally unqualified. Is it such a stretch to think that you might lead yourself to believe that it is merely your boyish charm, charisma, and natural leadership qualities that persuade the heterosexual governor to take a chance on you and give you that job? Would you not expect to be desired for your "unique truth" of being an untested talent, a diamond in the rough--to be valued for what's in your mind, not your pants?

In this scenario, had the governor been a woman, eyebrows would indeed have been raised. But there is a cultural "truth" operating here, as well. The fact is that we do not ask that question of a same-sex power relationship that we would of a heterosexual one. The "who did she sleep with" question is usually aimed at women climbing the ladder--and often unfairly to those who are in fact not sleeping with the boss. Not only do we not question whether the young male intern is sleeping with the boss, but to ask the question would be seen as prima facie evidence of homophobia.

So it could be as Mr. Cipel claims. Perhaps he was blinded by his ambition to the designs Mr. McGreevey had on his body.

More damaging, Mr. McGreevey's story is patently ridiculous. The notion that he could have been somehow wronged by his lover, after having a "consensual" relationship with him, does not pass the laugh test. Were the boy a woman, there would be no question that McGreevey was the predatory party. He was the one with the power. He was the one with the job to give. He was the one receiving sexual favors. Under the theory of sexual harassment, you can't have a consensual relationship with an underling of any kind; I'm not sure if starting with the relationship and then bestowing the job makes it better or worse.

Although we may be tempted to see Mr. Cipel as a con man, preying on a powerful man in order to extort money from him, the shiny suit does not fit. The fact is that Mr. Cipel had no economic power in the relationship, and therefore is the de facto victim. Mr. McGreevey is married with a child. It is his responsibility morally to resist the wiles of even the most romantic of Israeli poets. Mr. McGreevey is a governor. It is his responsibility to resist the desire to stuff his administration with close friends and incompetent non-citizen aliens. Mr. McGreevey was an employer. It was his responsibility to resist even the most comely of young things seeking to draw him to dip his pen in the company ink. But McGreevey did not take any of his roles seriously enough to serve them well. He did not resist any of the temptations to which he was put.

For McGreevey is more than just an adulterer. He is a case in point of why our politicians should be (as the boy scouts say) morally straight in every way. As the dust settles from his sexual identity announcement, a cascade of other problems will be coming to light. It is already beginning, with the national media digging back into the Jersey papers to see the scandals it has missed.

During the Clinton administration, it was popular to pretend that a politician's sexuality was none of our business. It was said that we were obsessed with sex, and that one could be an adulterer and a liar and still a good president.

No, in fact, one cannot. Because a good president (not necessarily, please note, a "successful" or "competent" one) is also a good person. And one cannot be an adulterer (gay or straight), a liar--or, for that matter, a pederast, a murderer, or a wife-beater--and still be a good person.

It would be nice if we did not need to worry about the sexuality of politicians. Indeed, it would be nice if we did not have to worry about any of their appetites. But the fact is that their character--which includes their sexuality--has an impact on how they will do their job.

Bill Clinton's rampant predatory lust interfered with his performance as president, though many would like to deny it. As a result of his affair and his marital problems, for a year 8 hours of his day each week were taken by his therapy. As a result of his lies we spent 40 million dollars chasing a perjurer who could have just admitted guilt and be done with it.

Whether the Kerry/Edwards hair obsession and metrosexual proclivities would distract them from presidential duties is a matter of speculation. A man who makes home movies of himself pretending to be in combat, apparently for future political use, might well be overly concerned about appearances. It is clear now, though, that a gay corrupt politician is no less sleazy than a straight one--and that sexuality, whatever its form, should be separated from the people's business.