An Indicative Kerry Quote

I think he summed up his guiding worldview (terrorism is but a law enforcement problem, and perhaps not even the most pressing of such problems facing the nation right now) when he said:

''We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance,'' Kerry said. ''As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.''

Nuisance ? Not threatening the fabric of your life ?

On which planet does Kerry really live ? To demonstrate this lack of understanding of the underlying ideological conflict that spawns terrorism, in a feature interview with the nations' paper of record...... I recoil with disbelief at the insanity of even contemplating a vote for this dude.

Put aside for the moment the fact that his analogy is fatally flawed: illegal gambling and prostitution are more analogous to structural unemployment in the economy than they are to terrorism, in that the former will always exist without specific, identifiable causative factors while the latter invariably springs from an ideological conflict (my religion says we must kill/maim/injure to avenge a particular affront) and are supported by anciliary factors (e.g. autocratic Middle Eastern states providing a ready pool of jihadist warriors).

Even if this is what Kerry really believes, how can he be so tone-deaf to the mood of the electorate as to give this quote to the New York Times ?