John Kerry on Larry King Live

by Mulan 29 Replies latest social current

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  Mulan

  Last night John Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, were on Larry King Live. She is very bright and I was so impressed with her intelligence and candor. Hadn't ever heard her speak before, so it was enlightening. John said the following that I thought was a really good attitude for the President of the US to have. I am not for abortion, by the way, but I dislike any politician pushing off their religious views and trying to make them the law.

  KING: Are you also Catholic?
  
  HEINZ KERRY: Yes, absolutely. Nuns, convents, from five to 18.
  
  KING: OK, what part does your faith play in your governance?
  
  KERRY: It guides you. It's your rock. It's the bedrock of your sense of place, of where it all fits.
  
  KING: Are you given Communion?

  KERRY: Absolutely.
  
  KING: But there were some bishops who would deny that to you. (because of his views on choice in abortion)
  
  KERRY: Well, there are some bishops who have spoken out, but they -- but that's not the position of the Church, and as you know, we have a separation in America of Church and state. My obligation as a Catholic is to examine my conscience, under the freedom of conscience under Vatican II, Pope John XXIII, and Pope Paul, and I do that.
  
  And -- but as President Kennedy said, when confronted with this same question, said, you know, I'm running to be a president who happens to be Catholic, not a Catholic president.
  KING: Is abortion a great moral issue to you?
  
  KERRY: Sure it is. Absolutely. And I think it's far more complicated than public life allows the discussion for. I mean, being for choice does not mean you are for abortion. Neither Teresa nor I are for abortion. Abortion should be rare, but safe and legal, as President Clinton said so often, and I think appropriately.
  
  I think that it's really a question of who should make this decision, and how do arrive at it. But there is morality. Of course there's morality involved. And we should be talking to people in America about responsibility, about adoption, about other choices. And I want to have a better conversation than I think we've had on it. But it doesn't change my position on who chooses. And I will protect that right of choice.
  
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  Richie

  The Befuddled Mr. Kerry

  Phil Brennan
  Wednesday, July 7, 2004

  The Bush team has been hammering away at the theme that John Kerry is a flip-flopper, a demagogue who tries to be on both sides of an issue. After his assertion Sunday that life begins at conception it has become clear that he is simply befuddled, thrashing around in a vain attempt to cope with reality which seems to be ever eluding him.
  After joining with his fellow apostate and abortion supporter Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack in attending Mass last Sunday and defying his church's ban on those embedded in serious sin receiving Communion, Kerry stumbled into this sliver of reality: "I oppose abortion, personally. I don't like abortion. I believe life does begin at conception."

  Now that's befuddlement in spades. Kerry opposes abortion personally but he has consistently supported abortion. He dislikes abortion so much that he opposes any attempts to restrict any form of baby killing including banning partial birth abortion which is nothing less than infanticide. (He says that he opposed the ban because it didn't include a provision allowing this grisly procedure when a woman's health is at risk, an eventuality that medical science dismisses as never - that's never - being the case.)

  "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 an interview with the Dubuque, Iowa, Telegraph Herald... "We have separation of church and state in the United States of America."

  His article of faith? Isn't it one of the Church's articles of faith that supporting abortion is a grave sin punishable by eternal damnation? Isn't it an article of faith that reception of Holy Communion - the Body, Blood Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ - when in a state of such mortal sin is another grave sin also punishable by eternal damnation?

  If he can't understand this he is either seriously befuddled or a prevaricator in the same mold as another lapsed Catholic and supporter of his, the odious Michael Moore. It's really quite simple to the non-befuddled. If human life begins at conception, as medical science insists, then taking human life is murder, a capital crime. To claim, as John Kerry does, that he can't impose his religious beliefs concerning what fits the definition of murder on non-Catholics is absurd on the face of it. He revises the commandment to "Thou shalt kill as long as thou killest the unborn and are not a Catholic."

  What he is saying is that even though human life begins at conception, taking that human life is a matter of personal choice even though it is the murder of a living human being. In other words, committing murder is also a matter of personal choice, therefore he cannot oppose this form of homicide - that would be imposing his beliefs on those who do not share his faith. It's that simple.

  Senator John Kerry thinks that it would violate the First Amendment's separation of church and state to oppose a form of murder because his church opposes that form of murder. A form of homicide becomes in his view a right guaranteed by the First Amendment.

  Kerry can't have it both ways. He can't admit that the unborn at any stage is human and still endorse by his legislative actions the killing of the unborn - human beings - at any stage, or persist in endorsing by his legislative acts what is by any honest definition, murder. That is if he isn't befuddled, or like Michael Moore, is convinced that the American people are too stupid to understand his slick evasions. I vote for befuddlement and the thought of a befuddled president sitting in the White House during a war to the death with international terrorism terrifies me and ought to scare the hell out of you.

  Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist who writes for NewsMax.com. He is editor & publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com) and was Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He also served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska Statehood Committee which won statehood for Alaska. He is also a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.He can be reached at [email protected]
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  Yerusalyim

  Kerry is an idiot...it IS the position of the church that he be denied communion...some bishops just aren't following that.
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  Mulan

  I think what he was saying is that while he believes it is wrong personally, he doesn't feel it is his place to make that decision for others.

  I like that, having come from a religion where your freedom to make a personal choice is taken from you, if you want to stay in that religion. I just like the way he sounds.
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  Elsewhere

  I think what he was saying is that while he believes it is wrong personally, he doesn't feel it is his place to make that decision for others.

  I couldn't have said it better myself.
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  Sirius Dogma

  Darn, I wanted to see it and missed it.

  Mulan - Thanks for posting those comments, I didn't know he was catholic. The bush camp are such idiots for calling him a flip-flopper for being able to separate his personal beliefs and the personal rights of citizens.
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  Mulan

  They are on again tomorrow night (rerun) but the transcript of last night is here http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0407/08/lkl.00.html
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  poppers

  My brother, his wife, and his son saw him speak in person this last week in Wisconsin. They were all very impressed, unexpectedly, and say he comes off really well in person.
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  hawkaw

  I think what he was saying is that while he believes it is wrong personally, he doesn't feel it is his place to make that decision for others.

  I like that, having come from a religion where your freedom to make a personal choice is taken from you, if you want to stay in that religion. I just like the way he sounds.

  I agree with Mulan's comments on this one. The comment last night about the intelligence community wanting to brief him last week on the terror front and him stating that he did not have time to be briefed on the intelligence information while is was going to a fund raiser ... did though ... cause me to seriously pause. hawk
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  Mulan

  him stating that he did not have time to be briefed on the intelligence information while is was going to a fund raiser ... did though ... cause me to seriously pause.

  But he said he was being briefed today.............he wasn't able to get to the one the Senate had yesterday, or the day before. No biggie, to me.