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Ann is much too kind. John "F-ing" Kerry was on the cruise quite early in life, because his immediate forebearers had the bad judgment to be the "poor" side of the Clan Forbes. Denied his basic birthright, he had no options but to become a soldier of fortune, and volunteered his services to the richest superpower engaged in military operations at the time, recoiling with disbelief when he learned that such service involved swearing allegiance to the sovereignty of that country. How dare they compromise the virtue of a struggling young man, who was only trying to gain the right to live in the manner to which he wished to become accustomed?

Smarting from this disappointment, John retaliated by marrying well above his station, to an heiress with a modest fortune. Because his stud services only provided him with a limited outlet for his energies, he took up the gentlemanly arts of politicking, smooching butt into several minor elective posts, eventually landing in the Senate of the US, the same country which had treated him so badly years earlier. In the heady atmosphere of this rather exclusive club, he widened his circle of friendship to even include some members who were neither of his political party nor his gender. He made the unfortunate choice of comforting a recent widow, who happened to be incredibly more wealthy than the family of the mother of his children, only to learn that current marriages and pre-nuptial agreements tend to limit one's freedom to fully indulge the pursuit of his personal bliss. As a result, he finds himself heavily mortgaged with advancing age, and no clear strategy of how to escape the burden.

One's life, as with one's fortune, is often steered by careful selection of enemies. And the best enemies are those who may have once been friends among your peers. Unfortunately, over time, John has acquired acquaintances, but few friends of note. So it was a little hard to really get into the concept of making enemies of any of that pitiful number. As an alternative, fence-straddling, coming down solidly on both sides of an issue, permitted the illusion of being both in agreement with another, and opposing that same person on the identical policy. This strategy has the disadvantage of making one seem to be of rather ambiguous convictions, but a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.

Perhaps this is what a part of America wants and needs. But in the bigger picture, there is no redeeming social benefit to be gained by selecting this man to be our head of state in dealing with foreign nations.

That, of course, would be dismissed as being parochial thinking, that we are all Citzens of the World, and there is no problem that cannot be resolved in discussions with reasonable men. Unfortunately, in this world, there many unreasonable men, in position to inflict great harm on others, if they are not somehow countered and stopped.

Being a gigolo is probably the least of John Kerry's faults.