<a href="http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=357" target="_blank">From the New Republic:</a>
This would be a very gutsy move on Kerry's part, and if it worked he would certainly be the candidate to beat in the Dem primary. I don't know how you go make a speech and inform a large group why everything they are doing is wrong but more power to him if he has the sack to do it.
Quote:
| WHY DOES JOHN KERRY WANT TO SPEAK AT BOB JONES UNIVERSITY?: In 2000, while stumping for Al Gore, John Kerry quipped, "The definition of compassionate conservative is Bob Jones III forgiving John Rocker." At that point in the campaign, of course, Bush was struggling to overcome a media firestorm that had erupted after he spoke at Bob Jones University, a virulently anti-Catholic and anti-gay school that then had a ban on interracial dating. Bush, who declined to challenge any of the college's policies during his appearance, made his pilgrimage to the university en route to winning the crucial South Carolina primary. To Democrats, BJU has been a symbol for Republican intolerance ever since. In 2001, when President Bush appointed John Ashcroft attorney general, much of the case against the recently-defeated Missouri senator was his association with BJU. "I also find it hard to understand," Kerry said on CNN, "how someone can be deemed to pull together the country when they have accepted an honorary degree from Bob Jones University and give a commencement address there with its policies that I think have been discredited to the point President-elect Bush had to apologize to the Catholic community." Since then, Bob Jones University has removed its ban on interracial dating, and the Democrats have begun stumping in South Carolina for their own important presidential primary there. Then last weekend Kerry became the first Democrat to say he would visit the controversial school. At a candidate meet-and-greet in Columbia, South Carolina, on May 3, a 53 year-old mother of five asked Kerry if he would come speak at Bob Jones. "I would love to," the senator told her, without missing a beat. When asked by a reporter why she wants Kerry to visit, the woman, who declined to give her name, replied, "I just think it's time for Democrats to come across as Christian." When one senior Kerry advisor who had not heard about the Senator's remark was asked about the exchange, he e-mailed, "Do you really think he would seriously speak at Bob Jones, c'mon." But it turns out Kerry is serious. Press secretary Robert Gibbs says the remark was "completely spontaneous on Kerry's part but very serious." Gibbs explains in an e-mail: "Senator Kerry would love to speak at Bob Jones, challenge the university and tell them everything that George Bush did not have the courage to say in 2000 about views that clearly have no place in our society." So can a candidate who attacked others for speaking at BJU credibly go there himself? On the one hand, with all of the colleges and universities in South Carolina to pick from, why dignify the most intolerant of them with a high-profile visit, no matter what you say once you get there? The Democrats' previous position seemed to be to condemn and shun the school, not engage in dialogue with it. On the other hand, it's true that Ashcroft's and Bush's sins weren't just that they visited BJU, but that they failed to speak out against its reprehensible policies and, in Ashcroft's case, tacitly endorsed racism and bigotry by accepting an honorary degree there. The South Carolinian who started all this agrees: "The problem before was that the candidates didn't question the policies," the woman who queried Kerry told TNR. No word yet on whether Bob Jones III will let Kerry speak. |
