FAITH BASE:

John Kerry's Foreign Friends: Why cowards, appeaseniks, Communists and Jew-haters love the senator from Massachusetts. (Mark Landsbaum, 4/21/04, Front Page)

if these are the stripe of foreigners attracted to John Kerry, who then is repulsed by him? In Kerry's 1997 book The New War, he even referred to Yasser Arafat as a "statesman."

All this calls into question Kerryís moral authority, and how others would perceive it. In short, if Kerry is admired by those who retreat from evil, those who threaten the U.S. with nuclear weapons and those who hate Jews, can Kerry be right for America? As columnist Joel Mowbray has noted, "Kerry expresses a sincere belief that terrorists can change their stripes, if only they have a positive role model."

Kerry's view of reality is consistent with that which has steered the Democratic Party since at least the presidency of Jimmy Carter. It is a worldview that refuses to acknowledge the existence of evil in the world, preferring instead to imagine there are only people and nations with differing interests. Consequently, Kerry and his ilk opt for the Rodney King approach to international relations: "Can't we all just get along?"

The danger in this is that evildoers recognize it for what it is: appeasement. The even greater danger is that terrorists will interpret it for what it often signals: weakness. Enemies of the United States always will be attracted to Americans who make their job easier. Terrorists, Communists and anti-Semites are never won over by negotiation or by feeling their pain. They correctly interpret such naive olive branches as signs of weakness, and can be counted on to press for more of what they want. As Chamberlain learned the hard way with Nazi Germany, going wobbly in the face of evil is no solution.

It is not possible to imagine another Western nation in which the contest for leadership of the nation would be so clearly between Faith and Reason as the one between President Bush and Mr. Kerry.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 21, 2004 10:30 AM