Kerry Goes to Westminster College
At the invitation of the president of Westminster College (the site of Churchill's famous "Iron Curtain" Speech), Senator John Kerry will go there Friday to make a speech in rebuttal to that of Vice President Dick Cheney, who spoke there Monday.

President Fletcher Lamkin has expressed his "disappointment" that Cheney's speech somehow disintegrated into a partisan attack on Kerry's fitness to lead our country in a time of war. He has invited Kerry to make his own case because he wishes to provide a forum for all views to be aired.

This is fine. But Lamkin should have just scheduled a speech for both men in advance and left his personal views out of it altogether. He claims to be a neutral party, but to go pencilling in Kerry for the explicit purpose of rebutting Cheney hardly qualifies as a neutral decision. Moreover, it is just about stupid to have expected no partisan observations from a Vice President in the heat of a campaign when there is a crucial decision to be made with respect to who will be leading our country through the wartime and diplomatic challenges we'll face in the months and years to come.

Lamkin is a dope. Apologizing to the student body for Cheney's speech? Get out of here! Cheney's speech was very well-received. He doesn't need some lame-assed gristlehead making "excuses" for the defense of our cause for peace in the Middle East.

At any rate, when Kerry makes his speech, he will have nothing to say because he has no relevant or practicable alternatives to the Administration's policies in Iraq. Does anyone really expect Kerry's Westminster Declaration? Will there be a new or memorable way to say that we need France's approval and assistance? Kerry screwed himself beyond redemption when he cast a "protest vote" against the $87 billion supplemental for our military in Iraq after having cast his vote in favor of the war itself. The only conceivable reason why he did so is because he was trying to prove his bona fides to the Dean crowd. What a sucker. Kerry's got no game. Forget him.