All Hail the Royal He

We Americans are so lucky. Now that John Forbes Kerry is about to contend for the highest office in the land, we find out that he has royal blood in his veins, and was a cousin to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And he is not only royal by blood, but he was a friend of the previous American royal, and former owner of the sobriquet JFK, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

According to an article published last week,

Senator Kerry's mother was a Forbes whose ancestor, Rev. John Forbes (died 1783), was a noted Anglican clergyman and magistrate in East Florida. Rev. Forbes' wife was Dorothy Murray, daughter of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's matrilineal immigrant ancestors, James Murray of North Carolina and Massachusetts and Barbara Bennet of North Carolina. (Thus Kerry and FDR are fourth cousins twice removed.) The Forbeses, Murrays and Bennets were all of royal descent.

Senator Kerry's mother's mother was Margaret Pyndal Winthrop of the family that founded Massachusetts Bay, a granddaughter of Robert Charles Winthrop, Speaker of the US House of Representatives and a great-grandson himself of Revolutionary statesman James Bowdoin, for whom the college is named. The wife of R.C. Winthrop, Speaker of the House, was the daughter of a Cabot and great- granddaughter of a Higginson and a Pickering of the Boston Brahmin families of those surnames.

Now, isn't that special?

And lest we lose sight of the real John Forbes Kerry in all this talk of ancestors long dead, let us remember something of the current JFK. This is the man, when defending B.J.Clinton's (lack of) service record, said: "We do not need to divide America over who served and how." Yet now John Forbes Kerry is viciously attacking President Bush's service record, who, after all, did serve in the Texas Air National Guard. This attack, it seems to me, opens the door to an examination of JFK's own record on military and national security issues.

John "Benedict" Kerry is an essay that reprises the Career of Benedict Arnold, noted American General in the Revolution, and noted traitor in that same conflict, and compares Arnold to J.F.Kerry, who also was an American officer in war who subsequently took political actions that undermined American policy, and contributed in some small way to the deaths of thousands of America's allies.

Kerry's record on national security issues is definitely an issue that bears some scrutiny.

The campaign has not truly begun, and we will have many months to explore this man, and it is proper that we examine his history, and attempt to discover his fitness to serve in the highest office in the land. Even though the democrats have not had their convention yet, it is becoming crystal clear that john Forbes Kerry will be the nominee. Therefore, let the games begin!


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