American University June 10, 2006

[William Kelly]

Fellow Researchers,

As we have done for the past six years, those of us who admired JFK will be meeting at the JFK Monument at the West End of the American University Athletic Field at 12 noon on Saturday, June 10th to commemorate JFK's Peace Speech.

The Kennedy family wants to honor JFK for his life, administration and policies, rather than his assassination, so we chose this date because of the influence the speech has even today, and the influence it might have had on his death.

When Gorbachev visited Dealey Plaza, he wrote a note in the 6th Floor memory book that mentions the speech and how we are just now beginning to understand its true meaning.

While our numbers have fluctuated over the years, sometimes a few dozen, other times just a handfull of people, we take turns re-reading the speech and hold a small vigil and then adjurn for lunch.

Anyone who is in the area and would like to join us are welcome.

BILL KELLY

bkjfk3@yahoo.com

*"And We Are All Mortal..."

Annual Commemorative Event on the 38th Anniversary

of President Kennedy's Call for Peace

and an End to the Cold War

Coalition on Political Assassinations

June 10, 2006 - 12:00 pm

American University (Nebraska and Massachusetts Aves. NW, Washington,

DC)

Commemorative Plaque (east end of the football field off New Mexico and

Nebraska Aves, NW)

Lunch and discussion to follow nearby

Open to the public

On June 10, 1963 President John F. Kennedy delivered the commencement

speech to students graduating from American University in Washington,

DC. He used the occasion to outline his plans to stop the nuclear arms

race and end the Cold War and replace them with a realistic but workable

peace. As he so eloquently put it,

"*I have, therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic

on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely

perceived -- yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace.

What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax

Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the

peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about

genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living,

the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build

a better life for their children -- not merely peace for Americans but

peace for all men and women -- not merely peace in our time but peace

for all time. I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total

war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and

relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without

resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single

nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered

by 11 of the Allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no

sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange

would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners

of the globe and to generations yet unborn.

Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons

acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use the is

essential to keeping the peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle

stockpiles -- which can only destroy and never create -- is not the

only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.

I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational

men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the

pursuit of war -- and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf

ears. But we have no more urgent task.

Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or

world disarmament -- and that it will be useless until the leaders of

the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I

believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must

reexamine our own attitude -- as individuals and as a nation -- for our

attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school,

every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace,

should begin by looking inward -- by examining his own attitude toward

the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course

of the cold war and toward freedom and peace here at home...

In short, both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union

and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine

peace and in halting the arms race. Agreements to this end are in the

interests of the Soviet Union as well as ours -- and even the most

hostile nations can be relied upon to accept and keep those treaty

obligations, and only those treaty obligations, which are in their own

interest.

So, let us not be blind to our differences -- but let us also direct

attention to our common interests and to the means by which those

differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences,

at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the

final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this

small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our

children's future. And we are all mortal."

_________________________________________________

These words echo today with great meaning even though the old "threat"

of a Soviet Union is gone. It has been replaced with a new bugaboo,

worldwide terrorism, though it is hard to imagine how even 10,000

terrorists can compare to a continent with nuclear ballistic

capablities even though they were always far short of our own.

These words also tolled a death knell for Kennedy in the offices of the

Joint Chiefs of Staff and in the corporate boardrooms and agencies of

the rising and very profitable "Military-Industial(-Intelligence)

Complex" that President Eisenhower warned of in his last speech from

the White House. By November, Kennedy would be dead and a new war in

Vietnam would add to the continuing Cold War expenditures and militarization

that both Eisenhower and Kennedy had wanted to end.

Every year the Coalition on Political Assassinations commemorates this

speech by gathering at the memorial plaque on the campus of American

University at the east end of the football field and reading from the

text. In a time of perpetually extended warfare and a military

industrial intelligence complex that is out of control, we invite

people from the progressive, peace and research communities to renew a

commitment to the kind of peace JFK wanted to usher in. He also said ,

"War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector

enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today."

This recent op-ed in the Washington Post by former Kennedy adviser

Arthur Schlesinger makes the parallels as does the new book by Senator

Ted Kennedy, "America Back on Track," which challenges Bush for the use

of both regime change in Iraq and pre-emptive strikes, policies his

brother was pushed to use against Castro and others during much more

severe crises but wisely refused to carry out.*

*

*Bush's Thousand Days*

<>By Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

Washington Post

Monday, April 24, 2006; A17

The Hundred Days is indelibly associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt,

and the Thousand Days with John F. Kennedy. But as of this week, a thousand

days remain of President Bush's last term -- days filled with ominous

preparations for and dark rumors of a preventive war against Iran.

The issue of preventive war as a presidential prerogative is hardly

new. In February 1848 Rep. Abraham Lincoln explained his opposition to the

Mexican War: "Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation,

whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion and you allow

him to do so /whenever he may choose to say/ he deems it necessary for

such purpose -- and you allow him to make war at pleasure [emphasis

added]. . . . If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary

to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you

stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British

invading us'; but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you

don't.' "

This is precisely how George W. Bush sees his presidential prerogative:

/Be silent; I see it, if you don't/ . However, both Presidents Harry S.

Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, veterans of the First World War,

explicitly ruled out preventive war against Joseph Stalin's attempt to

dominate Europe. And in the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962,

President Kennedy, himself a hero of the Second World War, rejected the

recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for a preventive strike

against the Soviet Union in Cuba.

It was lucky that JFK was determined to get the missiles out

peacefully, because only decades later did we discover that the Soviet forces in

Cuba had tactical nuclear weapons and orders to use them to repel a

U.S. invasion. This would have meant a nuclear exchange. Instead, JFK used

his own thousand days to give the American University speech, a

powerful plea to Americans as well as to Russians to reexamine "our own attitude

-- as individuals and as a nation -- for our attitude is as essential

as theirs." This was followed by the limited test ban treaty. It was

compatible with the George Kennan formula -- containment plus

deterrence -- that worked effectively to avoid a nuclear clash.

The Cuban missile crisis was not only the most dangerous moment of the

Cold War. It was the most dangerous moment in all human history. Never

before had two contending powers possessed between them the technical

capacity to destroy the planet. Had there been exponents of preventive

war in the White House, there probably would have been nuclear war. It

is certain that nuclear weapons will be used again. Henry Adams, the

most brilliant of American historians, wrote during our Civil War,

"Some day science shall have the existence of mankind in its power, and the

human race shall commit suicide by blowing up the world."

But our Cold War presidents kept to the Kennan formula of containment

plus deterrence, and we won the Cold War without escalating it into a

nuclear war. Enter George W. Bush as the great exponent of preventive

war. In 2003, owing to the collapse of the Democratic opposition, Bush

shifted the base of American foreign policy from containment-deterrence

to presidential preventive war: /Be silent; I see it, if you don't./

Observers describe Bush as "messianic" in his conviction that he is

fulfilling the divine purpose. But, as Lincoln observed in his second

inaugural address, "The Almighty has His own purposes."

There stretch ahead for Bush a thousand days of his own. He might use

them to start the third Bush war: the Afghan war (justified), the Iraq

war (based on fantasy, deception and self-deception), the Iran war

(also fantasy, deception and self-deception). There is no more dangerous

thing for a democracy than a foreign policy based on presidential preventive

war.

Maybe President Bush, who seems a humane man, might be moved by daily

sorrows of death and destruction to forgo solo preventive war and

return to cooperation with other countries in the interest of collective

security. Abraham Lincoln would rejoice.

/The writer, a historian, served as an adviser to President John F.

Kennedy./

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

*Correction to This Article*

Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s April 24 op-ed described presidents Harry S.

Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower as "veterans of the First World War."

Eisenhower, although he was in the Army during World War I, did not

serve in Europe.

I hope you will join us - John Judge

Upcoming Event:

"Acts of State: Assassination as a Political Tool"

12th Anual Regional Researchers Meeting

Coalition on Political Assassinations

November 17-19

Moment of Silence, Grassy Knoll, November 22, 12:30 pm

Hotel Lawrence, 302 S. Houston (off Dealey Plaza)

Dallas, Texas

Hotel discounts being arrranged

$45 registration fee due at the events

DeleteReplyForwardSpamMove...

Previous | Next | Back to Messages Save Message Text | Full Headers

Edited June 9, 2006 by William Kelly

[JL Allen]

"Observers describe Bush as "messianic" in his conviction that he is fulfilling the divine purpose."

Slaughtering each other over perceived and magnified, distorted differences has nothing to do with any "divine purpose". If there is a Lord-God-Creator, nothing could be more devastatingly heart-breaking to him than to see the crown of his creation behave so savagely and murderously towards one another on such a massive scale. It is a thoroughly twisted misinterpretation by mankind - revealing the depth and degree of the overall insanity of the planet.

Courage is elsewhere.

"I knew God... and you are no God..."

[Dawn Meredith]

Fellow Researchers,

BILL KELLY

Thanx Bill. This speech always brings tears to my eyes. Imagine today the present occupant of the WH giving such a speech???

I wonder if we will ever again have a president like this. One who will stand up to the powers that

be in favor of we the people, not the war machine and the corporate profiteers.

I used to like Clinton, but now seein him hang out with Popa Bush all the time I am inclined to

believe that, even tho he did accomplish a lot for this nation- and left office with a surplus and

balanced budget- politically he is no different than the Bushes. He did/does what the ultimate powers order him to do. JFK told them to go to hell and it got him killed. I bet that every incoming president, especially those who may be inclined to ask "who killed JFK? (Carter, and Clinton) are shown a copy of the Zapruder film and told: "don't ask."

Tho I cannot be in DC today, I plan to make the COPA conference in Dallas this year. (So thanx to JOhn Judge for the reminder).

Dawn

[John Geraghty]

I'm pleased to say that I made it to this congregation last Saturday. We had a good discussion at the site of the speech and then moved on for some intelligent debate in a local chicken house!

I had the good fortune of meeting a few very nice and well informed people, who I'm sure would find this forum quite useful.

Dan Alcorn spoke about JFK's legacy of peace and that although we should not seek to make a saint of him, we must realise his true aims for the United States and the world.

Perhaps we could get Dan ( a former COPA lawyer) to discuss his sentiments here on the forum.

It was a most enjoyable day even though I had a bit of trouble getting there.

All the best,

John

[Michael Hogan]

John,

Glad you made it. It seems you are exactly where you should be at this point in time. I hope you will have the time to give frequent updates of your coming experiences. Even if it has not to do with President Kennedy, I'm sure many, many members would enjoy your accounts of your summer in DC. At least, as much as you felt comfortable sharing. Sort of a journal, if you will.

At any rate, I hope you have a fantastic summer. It goes without saying that you will learn many things.

The smart ones only get smarter.....

Best wishes

Mike

[Dawn Meredith]

John,

Glad you made it. It seems you are exactly where you should be at this point in time. I hope you will have the time to give frequent updates of your coming experiences. Even if it has not to do with President Kennedy, I'm sure many, many members would enjoy your accounts of your summer in DC. At least, as much as you felt comfortable sharing. Sort of a journal, if you will.

At any rate, I hope you have a fantastic summer. It goes without saying that you will learn many things.

The smart ones only get smarter.....

Best wishes

Mike

John:

I agree. DC is full of information, I do hope you take Mike's advice and keep a journal. I have such vivid memories of a few trips there in 1974 and 1975, doing research at the liabrary of Congress. This was pre-internet and I had really gottn very spooked by a lot of stuff I received from Sherman Skolnick- (who sadly passed on recently). So I did as much research as I could as the liabrary of COngress. It felt so exceiting at the time, and scary too. Of course now we can easliy look up just about anything on the net.

Perhaps you could even get to meet some of the members of the House and or Senate, tour the WH...(If W allows such).

Glad you got to go to the conference!

Dawn

[John Geraghty]

Hi guys,

Thanks a lot for your encouraging responses. I will in fact be giving tours of capitol hill in a weeks time! People will come from Georgia to Washington to hear an Irishman give a tour of THEIR main political building!

Your right about the journal. I got here last Thursday and have been quite busy ever since, so I might update my journal tonight.

I have so far seen the White house, The Capitol Building (seeing as how I work there), I got to see the pres outside Tom DeLays office on Friday!, Washington monument, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam memorial, ww2 memorial and a few other areas. I have yet to visit the Smithsonian and most crucially of all...The Spy museum.

I met John Judge for the first time today and hes quite a nice guy and I look forward to working with him.

I'm right beside the library of congress, so If anyone thinks it would be a good idea to do some research thereor knows of any books, let me know.

I would love to meet up with anyone in D.C. so please just let me know, its always good to have a good political discussion and I'm here to learn.

I will of course post up a few photos, hopefully including the Watergate building, JFKs grave and possibly Bethesda hospital.

If anyone knows any other good spots please let me know.

Cheers,

John

[Brendan Slattery]

Jeez, you idiots can't commemorate a simple speech without throwing in some sleazy Bush hatred. And is this a Kennedy assassination site or a Kennedy idolatry site? Can't tell the difference sometimes. You do realize your "hero" attempted to overthrow and assassinate foreign heads of state, not to mention wiretapped civil rights leaders, right? I thought only Bush and the eeeeeevil Republicans did those things. Hmmm. Oh, and trotting out senile Schlesinger to sing the praises of his old boss? Priceless.

P.S. Has McKinney been indicted yet?

Edited June 14, 2006 by Brendan Slattery

[William Kelly]

Jeez, you idiots can't commemorate a simple speech without throwing in some sleazy Bush hatred.

YO! SLAT, NOT SO FAST FLATFOOT. I'VE NEVER BEEN CALLED AN IDOT BEFORE.

FIRST OFF, WE WEREN'T COMMEMORATING A SIMPLE SPEECH - THE SPEECH IS NOT SIMPLE; WE WERE, ARE AND WILL CONTINUE TO COMMEMORATE THE DATE, JFK THE MAN, HIS SHORT AND BEHEADED ADMINISTRATION, HIS POLICIES AND VISION, RATHER THAN HIS MURDER.

AND WHERE DID THE SLEEZY BUSH HATRED COME IN?

I THOUGHT JOHN SAID WE HAD A THOUGHTFUL CONVERSATION (AMONG IDIOTS).

WHO HATES BUSH? I THINK HE'S PERFECT FOR THE TIMES - INSTEAD OF SOME PUSSYFOOT LIBERAL IN THERE, I'M GLAD HER HITLER SKULLERS ARE IN POWER AND JFK'S DARK VISION OF A FORCED EVIL EMPIRE PAX AMERICANA HE TALKS ABOUT IN HIS SPEECH IS NOW SOMETHING WE CAN EXPOSE AND OPPOSE.

And is this a Kennedy assassination site or a Kennedy idolatry site?

WE DIDN'T CONDUCT THE COMMEMORATION HERE JERK, AND I'M SURE YOU'VE BEEN CALLED A JERK BEFORE - WE DID IT AT THE JFK MEMORIAL AT THE END OF AU ATHLETIC FIELD, WHICH FEW PEOPLE EVEN KNOW IS THERE AND JOHN SAYS HE HAD A HARD TIME FINDING.

THOUGH YOU SEEM TO BE FROM DC - WE DIDN'T EXPECT YOU TO CONTRIBUTE TO OUR DISCUSSION OF THE SPEECH AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE TODAY.

Can't tell the difference sometimes. You do realize your "hero" attempted to overthrow and assassinate foreign heads of state, not to mention wiretapped civil rights leaders, right? I thought only Bush and the eeeeeevil Republicans did those things. Hmmm.

HE ALSO APPARANTLY GOT LAID MORE OFTEN THAN BUSH AS HE WASN'T SO SPASTIC AND INCLINED TO VIOLENCE AND STUPID REMARKS

Oh, and trotting out senile Schlesinger to sing the praises of his old boss? Priceless.

THANKS FOR CALLING ATTENTION ONCE AGAIN TO ARTY SCHLES'S VERY INTELLIGENCE OP ED PIECE IN THE WSJ THAT MENITONS JFK'S JUNE 10 SPEECH AND WHY PREEMPTIVE WARS ARE WRONG.

COMPARE SCHLESINGER'S REMARKS TO YOUR OWN POSTS AND TELL ME WHOSE THE IDIOT.

P.S. Has McKinney been indicted yet?

CYNTHIA IS TOUGH ON SECURITY. THAT'S HER NEW SLOGAN. SHE'S ALSO TOUGH ON THE HOUSE ARMS SERVICES COMMITTEE AND STILL HAS A QUESTION OR TWO FOR RUMMY WHEN HE GETS TO TESTIFY BEFORE HER COM AGAIN, IF HE HAS THE BALLS TO GO BACK; AND THOUGH SHE COULD BE INDICTED BY THE DC GRAND JURY, I DON'T THINK SO, EVEN THOUGH THE COP AND PROSECUTOR ARE IMPOSING OFFICIAL WHITE GUYS - THE 26 GRAND JURORS ARE TYPICAL DC CITIZENS - MAINLY UNEDUCATED BLACKS WHO REALLY UNDERSTAND HOW GOVERNMENT WORKS. OH, AND THERE'S A LAW PASSED BY CONGRESS THAT PREVENTS A MEMBER OF CONGRESS FROM BEING ARRESTED ENROUTE TO CONGRESS, JUST SO THEY CAN'T BE HARRASSED, AS MCKINNEY HAS BEEN.

THE FACT THAT MCKINNEY'S CASE IS EVEN BEFORE A GRAND JURY SHOWS YOU HOW EASY IT IS TO GET A CASE BEFORE A GRAND JURY IN DC - NOW WATCH US GET THE JFK CASE BEFORE A GRAND JURY AND WE'LL SEE SOME PEOPLE WONDERING WHOSE GOING TO BE INDICTED.

AND WE'LL KNOW WHO THE IDIOTS ARE.

BILL KELLY

BKJFK3@YAHOO.COM

[Duke Lane]

Fellow Researchers,

As we have done for the past six years, those of us who admired JFK will be meeting at the JFK Monument at the West End of the American University Athletic Field at 12 noon on Saturday, June 10th to commemorate JFK's Peace Speech.

The Kennedy family wants to honor JFK for his life, administration and policies, rather than his assassination, so we chose this date because of the influence the speech has even today, and the influence it might have had on his death. ....

I've heard it said (and never disputed) that JFK is the only President who is remembered more (among those who are remembered at all) on the date of his death rather than on the date of his birth.

In fact, it doesn't appear anyone here - myself included - happened to call attention to May 29. Jack Kennedy would have just turned 89.

This thread is almost QED except that rather than either date, it is another even more obscure date selected. While an inspired speech (weren't most, by today's standards anyway?), does it rank higher than his inauguration speech, that exhorting a moon landing before the decade was out, his (ungrammatical) Berlin Wall speech ...? What dates were those (other than the first), anyway?

Come to think of it, when was the Gettysburg Address and why isn't Lincoln commemorated on that date rather than his birth date ... y'know, the moment when all that he did became possible?

So when might we have a "JFK Day" be if one were ever to be had in our lifetimes?

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Fellow Researchers,

In fact, it doesn't appear anyone here - myself included - happened to call attention to May 29. Jack Kennedy would have just turned 89.

And his birthday party would have been ruined by this report in the International Herald Tribune which shows America's standing in the world at an all time low

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/13/news/pew1.php

[John Geraghty]

Jeez, you idiots can't commemorate a simple speech without throwing in some sleazy Bush hatred. And is this a Kennedy assassination site or a Kennedy idolatry site? Can't tell the difference sometimes. You do realize your "hero" attempted to overthrow and assassinate foreign heads of state, not to mention wiretapped civil rights leaders, right? I thought only Bush and the eeeeeevil Republicans did those things. Hmmm. Oh, and trotting out senile Schlesinger to sing the praises of his old boss? Priceless.

P.S. Has McKinney been indicted yet?

Brendan,

I think that you have demonstrated in this post better than any other how closed minded you really are. I don't doubt that you are an intelligent man, this is why I have such trouble with the fact that you prefer to degrade the tone of the conversation. Why must you do so?

I can accept that you don't like the Deomcrats or that you have differing beliefs to myself, but why must you be so confrontational about it?

I suppose some people just go out looking for a fight.

John

[J. Raymond Carroll]

But the American University speech was a major part of that campaign to get the Partial Test Ban Treaty adopted---the first ever nuclear arms control treaty. (And I managed to respond without saying anything bad about President Bush.....)

Dan

Quite true, but even the Test Ban was just the first step in JFK's larger goal of General and Complete Nuclear Disarmament. He liked to quote the Chinese proverb that the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

Could JFK have accomplished this goal if he had another five years as President?

I do not know, but I have a feeling that if a lesser man had proposed a moon landing, no one would have believed him

[Brendan Slattery]

Jeez, you idiots can't commemorate a simple speech without throwing in some sleazy Bush hatred. And is this a Kennedy assassination site or a Kennedy idolatry site? Can't tell the difference sometimes. You do realize your "hero" attempted to overthrow and assassinate foreign heads of state, not to mention wiretapped civil rights leaders, right? I thought only Bush and the eeeeeevil Republicans did those things. Hmmm. Oh, and trotting out senile Schlesinger to sing the praises of his old boss? Priceless.

P.S. Has McKinney been indicted yet?

Brendan,

I think that you have demonstrated in this post better than any other how closed minded you really are. I don't doubt that you are an intelligent man, this is why I have such trouble with the fact that you prefer to degrade the tone of the conversation. Why must you do so?

I can accept that you don't like the Deomcrats or that you have differing beliefs to myself, but why must you be so confrontational about it?

I suppose some people just go out looking for a fight.

John

John, I'm no more rude than the original poster. I just don't like it when opportunists piggyback on a speech anniversary to take a cheap shot at the President. It's off-topic, childish, and decidely unfair. In any event, welcome to DC.

[Mark Knight]

QUOTE(Brendan Slattery @ Jun 14 2006, 03:32 AM)

Jeez, you idiots can't commemorate a simple speech without throwing in some sleazy Bush hatred. And is this a Kennedy assassination site or a Kennedy idolatry site? Can't tell the difference sometimes. You do realize your "hero" attempted to overthrow and assassinate foreign heads of state, not to mention wiretapped civil rights leaders, right? I thought only Bush and the eeeeeevil Republicans did those things. Hmmm. Oh, and trotting out senile Schlesinger to sing the praises of his old boss? Priceless.

It appears that some folks cannot refrain from becoming disagreeable when they disagree. Where, in any SANE training for the public-relations biz, do they instruct you to ATTACK the very folks you're allegedly trying to convince of your viewpoint?

I would be curious to know whether Mr. Slattery's apparent hatred of JFK stems from what he saw during Kennedy's life, or whether it sprung from what he has read and heard since...i.e, whether his impressions are from someone else's impressions or whether he formed them from watching the events as they unfolded. If they are from secondary sources, they are only as unbiased as the sources themselves.

I don't find any "Bush hatred" in a simple comparison of Mr. Kennedy's speech with the actions of Mr. Bush. If Mr. Bush fares poorly by comparison, does the fault not lie with Mr. Bush's actions? And in all fairness, if Mr. Kennedy's philandering ways compare poorly with Mr. Bush's conduct of his own personal life, is that, too, not the fault of Mr. Kennedy? You can't have it both ways. Each man is equally responsible for his own actions, and those who point out these failures are NOT the enemy of EITHER man if what they state is factual.