More Excuses

I’m almost finished reading “No Excuses”. A couple more stories stand out. They were at a university and wanted to use the computers in a secretaries office to rewrite some of a speech. The secretary wouldn’t let them use the computers for political purposes so they simply locked her out of her office until they were done.

In another incident, John Kerry was talking about how much his Dad meant to him, and how his Dad had bought him his first sailboat. Because they were trying to pray down Kerry’s reputation as an elitist and because most fathers are not in a position to buy a real sailboat for their sons, they simply changed the story so that Kerry was saying his Dad bought him his first baseball mitt.

Towards the end of the book, Shrum has a warning for the Roman Catholic Church. Kerry, a practicing Catholic, was criticized by the Catholic Church for being pro-choice. Shrum warns the church that since the Democratic candidate for President will always be pro-choice, they run the risk of making sure that Catholics cannot ever be the Democratic candidate. I’m not sure if Shrum understands the irony of what he is saying. Because the Democratic Party has made this the litmus test for its candidates, the Catholic Church must remain silent on moral issues. Wow!

Once again we must remind ourselves that political liberals cast themselves as the good guys, fighting against the devious conservatives who will do anything to win (or steal) an election. While conservatives feel that liberals are simply wrong (or perhaps naive), liberals in general feel free to turn up the rhetoric and lambaste conservatives as dangerous, unprincipled, untrustworthy and dishonest. I have the feeling after reading more than 400 pages of “No Excuses” that reality is somewhat different.