Kerry as Hostage

Thomas Lifson, in today's American Thinker column, contrasts Kerry's self-proclaimed courage and leadership in Vietnam with his current lack of political courage - expressed in a willingness to be held hostage.

But his own candidacy, indeed his very lifestyle, betrays a pattern of entering into voluntary hostage status, unable to confront threats directly, instead allowing those who might harm him to dictate the limits on his actions.
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He will sell out a natural ally, the Democrat mayor of the town where he ostensibly resides, and where he expects to receive the nomination. Just because he was mildly threatened.
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A man who marries the person who signs the checks supporting his taste for luxury is a man who is accustomed to practicing deference to powerful others.

The question facing Americans is whether these habits are appropriate for a wartime president. Thanks to the global reach of the electronic media, our foes in the Islamicist terror movement are quite aware of Kerry’s pattern of behavior. They can only draw the conclusion that further outrages will produce a compliant President Kerry, anxious to avoid further trouble with them. Just the sort of man Osama bin Laden can work with.

Leaders by definition take risks, and are unafraid to identify obstacles and address them boldly. Kerry’s approach to problems is just the opposite: palliation of those who hold threats over his head, caving-in rather than confronting, learning to accommodate the limits they impose.

For a nation at war with terrorists who dream of carrying-out horrific threats, such a leader would be an absolute catastrophe. The Islamists recognize compromise and accommodation as signs of weakness, and speak only of temporary truces in a longer run plan to establish a global Caliphate. And we all know what they do to hostages.