“In a word, I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others; this, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home.” –George Washington

Article III, Section 3 of the United States Constitution notes: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”

In recent months, this column has set about to distinguish manifestly between President George W. Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry in regard to character, policy matters and competing visions for our nation’s future.

After George Bush’s razor-thin and highly contested victory over Albert Gore in 2000, many political observers argued (and continue to insist) that there are few distinctions between the Republican and Democrat parties. Indeed, in regard to some seminal issues that once distinguished party lines – most notably central government spending – those lines are now blurred. Additionally, the recent Republican National Convention headlined party moderates like Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who disagree with significant elements of the Republican Platform, while also featuring Democrat Zell Miller, who agrees with most of the GOP Platform. This, understandably, leaves some with the impression that the two parties have all but merged.

To be sure, there is a semblance between the background of the presidential incumbent and his challenger. Bush and Kerry are contemporaries who hail from wealth and privilege, from prestigious prep schools and Ivy League universities, and from political dynasties in their respective home states. During their tenures in national office, both Bush and Kerry have advocated, respectively, for big and bigger central government spending programs.

But are there notable variances in policy matters between George Bush and John Kerry? You bet – which is precisely why this presidential campaign is being bitterly waged, mostly between centrist Republicans and leftist Democrats. While the national party lines may seem fluid, the political lines which separate Bush and Kerry and their respective ranks are cast-iron.

Volumes have been written about the sizeable chasm separating the character of President Bush and John Kerry – the distance between their values as reflected in their disagreement over public policies concerning family and faith, their diametrical selection criteria for federal-bench nominees, and their opposing views on taxation. While these are important distinctions, their most significant policy divergence relates to U.S. national security – the first order of a president’s Constitutional duties, the palladium without which all other duties become meaningless. And it is this critical difference which should be foremost in the minds of voters on 2 November.

Indeed, this difference couldn’t have been any clearer than during the first presidential-candidate debate (see “We will not waver…”). In a discussion about the President’s obligation to protect the country with pre-emptive military action, Kerry insisted that such pre-emption must first pass “the global test.” In other words, any pre-emptive action by a “President Kerry” would first require a thumbs-up from the likes of France, Germany and the perennially hostile United Nations.

For his part, George W. Bush has steadfastly advocated Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy dictum – Si vis Pacem, Para Bellum (to maintain peace, prepare for war), which has deep roots in our national foundation. George Washington, in his first address to the nation (8 January 1790), proclaimed, “To be prepared for war, is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.”

That resolve notwithstanding, on 11 September 2001, after eight years of military-budget depredation, foreign-policy ambiguity and outright appeasement under the Clinton regime (with full collusion from John Kerry), George Bush and our nation were dealt a heretofore-unimaginable blow by a suicidal gang of Islamist cutthroats. As a result, President Bush was forced to demonstrate not only his commitment to military readiness, but also his willingness to use the ultimate instrument of diplomacy, military force, in defense of our nation. Consequently, his proficiency as Commander in Chief is well established.

John Kerry, on the other hand, has spent much of his political career denigrating American military personnel and the nation they defend, while advocating for policies of appeasement – the same policies that made lower Manhattan, Northern Virginia and a field in Pennsylvania the front lines in our war with Jihadistan (see “Jihadistan: A clear and present danger…”).

On its face, Kerry’s endorsement of appeasement resembles the yellow streak of his contemporary Leftist ilk; long gone are the days of robust, hawkish Democrats like Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson. But on closer examination, Kerry’s sordid history of collaboration with Communist regimes for more than three decades, even in times of war, raises much more serious questions about his motives and his fitness for the highest office in the land.

Kerry is, indubitably, the Left’s most “useful idiot” (Western apologists for socialist political and economic agendas – essentially, advocates for Marxist-Leninist-Maoist collectivism. in contemporary politics). Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking intelligence officer ever to defect from the Soviet bloc, said of Kerry’s anti-American activities during the Vietnam War, “KGB priority number one at that time was to damage American power, judgment and credibility. … As a spy chief and a general in the former Soviet satellite of Romania, I produced the very same vitriol Kerry repeated to the U.S. Congress almost word for word and planted it in leftist movements.”

But Kerry’s infamous (and unlawful) coddling of Vietnamese Communists some 35 years ago (see “Aid and comfort to the enemy: The Kerry Record…”) was not his last rendezvous with the Reds. After his election to the Senate in 1984 (as Ted Kennedy’s understudy), Kerry spent years dismissing claims by POW family groups that some Americans were still being held in Vietnam and Cambodia. And he has, since, given aid and comfort to plenty of other Red regimes, including some in this hemisphere.

For example, in 1985 Kerry courted Daniel Ortega and his Communist regime in Nicaragua, even traveling to visit his “Dear Comandante” in Managua. Kerry returned to the U.S., where he advocated a policy of appeasement rather than continued funding of Ortega’s opponents, the anti-Communist Contras. In 1988 Kerry attempted to make political hay of U.S. policy in Central America by using his Senate committee as a launch-pad to accuse George H.W. Bush of sanctioning a Contra drug-smuggling operation that was importing cocaine into California. The unfounded charges were, not surprisingly, timed to coincide with the elder Bush’s campaign against Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, under whom Kerry had served as lieutenant governor.

In 1996, Kerry accepted a $10,000 campaign contribution in return for arranging a meeting between Honk Kong businesswoman Liu Chaohying and a senior Securities and Exchange official in order to get Chaohying’s company listed on the U.S. Stock Exchange. Chaohying was a lieutenant colonel in Red China’s People’s Liberation Army. That same year, Kerry traveled to Beijing on a “U.S. trade mission.” Here it’s worth noting that the ChiComs never forget their “useful idiots.”; the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, has endorsed Kerry’s presidential bid.

But Kerry’s fondness for despotic regimes did not subside in the ‘90s. In March of this year, Kerry was asked on a campaign stop in Florida about his affiliation with Cuba’s Fidel Castro and his oppressive regime. Given the number of Cuban expatriates in Florida who fled Castro’s slave island, Kerry answered, “I’m pretty tough on Castro. … I voted for the Helms-Burton legislation to be tough on companies that deal with him.” (Would someone kindly cue the laugh track?)

Helms-Burton, you may recall, strengthened the U.S. embargo against Cuba after Fidel’s fighter jets shot down two single-engine civilian aircraft over international waters, killing four Cuban ex-pats. The small planes belonged to Brothers to the Rescue, an organization of small aircraft owners who volunteered their time flying over the waters between Cuba and the Keys, and alerting the Coast Guard when they came upon Cuban refugees on makeshift rafts who needed rescue.

However, Kerry voted against Helms-Burton, and he later clarified his support for Castro by arguing that the embargo should be lifted. “The only reason [Cuba is treated differently from other Communist nations] is the politics of Florida,” said Kerry. Of course, the ever-opportunistic Kerry wasn’t campaigning in Florida at the time of that “clarification.”

Indeed, John Kerry has a well-documented record of anti-American activities, especially aiding Communist regimes. But the “aid and comfort” he gave to North Vietnamese Communists in 1971 (while still a U.S. naval officer, and while Americans were still fighting, dying, and being held captive by that regime) is the most grievous of these transgressions.

His treasonous actions in 1970-1971 are the subject of an indictment that will be delivered to Senate President Dick Cheney, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Attorney General John Ashcroft on 12 October. The indictment notes both Kerry’s UCMJ and U.S. Code (18 USC 2381) violations, and it calls for his disqualification for public office in accordance with the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3, which states: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President…having previously taken an oath…to support the Constitution of the United States, [who has] engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

Why issue this indictment now? Because John Kerry chose to make his Vietnam war record the centerpiece of his presidential campaign (see “Kerry’s Quagmire…”). In response, more than 160,000 signatories of the aforementioned indictment have made it the centerpiece of their campaign to disqualify him from public office.

Clearly, there will be no determination on these charges until after 2 November, but Kerry will be held to account for his treasonous actions – for there is no statute of limitations on treason.

For those who would argue that Kerry’s anti-American activities in 1971, which clearly cost American lives in Vietnam, do not reflect the nature of the man today, we refer you to this statement from Kerry from the first debate. On the subject of our troops engaged in Iraq, Kerry remarked, “It is vital for us not to confuse the war – ever – with the warriors. That happened before.”

Indeed, it did happen before, and it is happening again today.

Kerry can’t have it both ways. There is a direct correlation between his undermining of U.S. and Allied resolve in the war against terrorism – specifically on the Iraqi warfront with Jihadistan – and American and Allied causalities on that front. Those forces, including countless Iraqis, are being injured and killed in larger numbers because of the political dissent Kerry and his ilk are fomenting.

During Tuesday night’s vice-presidential debate, John Edwards unwittingly provided the evidence for this very correlation: “We lost more troops in September than we lost in August; lost more in August than we lost in July; lost more in July than we lost in June.”

As the hand-wringing of the Kerry/Edwards ticket grows stronger, so too does the spirit of the enemy. And while the net effect can certainly be felt in American and Allied casualties in Iraq, it may also yet be felt more dramatically in al-Qa'ida’s efforts to ensure the election of its useful-idiot appeasers.

Perhaps the most instructive question that can be asked regarding U.S. national security, the protection of Americans and our vital interests, is this: Given the chance, would Saddam Hussein, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, Osama bin Laden, Kim Jong-Il, Mohammad Khatami, Moammar al-Ghadafi and Hu Jingtao vote for a) George Bush, or b) John Kerry? How would Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder and Kofi Annan vote?

Editor’s Note: A Correction, sort of…

In Patriot 04-29, we stated that the Communist Party USA (now there’s an oxymoron) had “endorsed” Comrade Kerry for president. The CPUSA website has since corrected the record by saying, “We do not endorse the candidates of other political parties. We have refrained from fielding our own candidate so as not to distract from the main effort of defeating Bush and the ultra-right extremist agenda.”