Senator from Massachusetts, meet Mr. Mudd.

Good Lord, this is most mumbly-bumbly-jumbly piece of mealy-mouthed crap I've ever read.

"Jennings: Could you explain again to me what do you mean when you say "life begins at conception"?

Kerry: Well, that's what the Supreme Court has established is a test of viability as to whether or not you're permitted to terminate a pregnancy, and I support that.That is my test. And I, you know, you have all kinds of different evolutions of life, as we know, and very different beliefs about birth, the process of the development of a fetus. That's the standard that's been established in Roe v. Wade. And I adhere to that standard."

WTF??? Once again, Senator Lockjaw, the original question was "what do you mean by 'life begins at conception.'" Not "Senator, would you please blather convincingly for a few moments."

This man is an idiot. I know all the media people like to talk about how intelligent and nuanced and subtle he is, but he's not.

He's a buffoon, a blithering, dithering, straddling buffoon, someone who puts his mouth in gear before he starts his brain.

No sensible politican would have allowed himself to be backed into this sort corner, one which can only be escaped by the squirting of a thick cloud of inky rhetoric.

Jennings: If you believe that life begins at conception, is even a first-trimester abortion not murder?

Kerry: No, because it's not the form of life that takes personhood in the terms that we have judged it to be in the past. It's the beginning of life. Does life begin? Yes, it begins.

Is it at the point where I would say that you apply those penalties? The answer is, no, and I believe in choice. I believe in the right to choose, and the government should not involve itself in that choice, beyond where it has in the context of Roe v. Wade.

The obvious follow-up here would have been to ask his opinion on third trimester abortions, since modern medicine has made premature infants delivered as early as 26 weeks viable to live normal lives. But given who the questioner is, we should just be thankful Jennings got this far with the senator.

Actually, we're at 22 or so these days.

I understand that the feminist movement is in thrall to the Democratic Party and will give Kerry a pass just as they did Clinton. But if I believed in abortion rights with the ferver they do, I'd be a little nervous about a candidate who seems to think that after viability, a fetus becomes a person entitled to the protection of the state.

Kerry: No, because it's not the form of life that takes personhood in the terms that we have judged it to be in the past. It's the beginning of life. Does life begin? Yes, it begins.

boils down to Life begins before it doesn't begin.

Kerry uses the same lame excuse for all his waffles.

Teddy's junior partner in the Senate is for abortion before life begins after it has begun, but personally, he is against it before it began to begin, which was after it actually started.

David - Don't you mean "seems to say"? "Seems to think" is a bit too generous to Sen. Kerry.

Peter,

You have the nuanced responses down perfectly. The MSM should contract you to explain Kerry's speaches at the DNC convention, assuming he's on the schedule, and following the coming debate.

pj: I stand corrected.

"Sen. Kerry: My personal belief about what happens in the fertilization process is a human being is first formed and created, and that's when life begins. Something begins to happen. There's a transformation. There's an evolution. Within weeks, you look and see the development of it, but that's not a person yet, and it's certainly not what somebody, in my judgment, ought to have the government of the United States intervening in."

The fetus is a human being but not a person. I guess that is a good argument. Slaves fit the category nicely don't you think? Maybe our condemnation of slavery is mere conservative right-wing ravings. There is no reason to ban owning human property as long as they are not persons. The UN could probably certify when that happens.

Genecis,

I'll still have to practice a little, though. I didn't manage to slip in a thorough discussion of the meaning of the word "begin", nor the question whether it is a word anyway.

Oh, sorry, wrong Democrat with strange hair.