Kerry & BJU
It seems that John Kerry is interested in visting and speaking at Bob Jones University. You may remember Bob Jones U. as the bigoted, anti-catholic and deeply homophobic college in South Carolina that candidate Bush spoke at in an attempt to win the votes of the neo-confederate crowd. After the visit W. was roundly criticized for going to the University and thereby implicitly condoning the viscious intolerance of BJU. Among those who attacked George W. Bush for his visit was, oddly enough, Senator John Kerry. Now it appears that Kerry wants to speak at Bob Jones as part of his South Carolina Primary campaign. I'm sure he'll try to show how "courageous" he is by chastising the University for its prejudice and so forth. I'm not sure what to think about this, but I think the whole business is really kind of disgusting and seems like just a slimey publicity stunt more than anything else. Its also politically unsound, I doubt that many born agains vote in the Democratic primaries, the visit would be likely to turn off minority voters and there is little doubt that the GOP would make much hay out of the trip in the general election (probably not so much from the bigotry angle as the hypocircy angle, which I think they will use relentessly against Kerry, who is already being seen by the press as an unprincipled opportunist). All around, this is a pretty bad idea, but then again I don't like John Kerry.