John Kerry's Homes

By now you must know that John Kerry has more homes than most people have televisions. And we're not talking about modest two bedroom bungalows. Kerry's homes are the tv equivalent of 72 inch plasma whatevers.

The right wing is having a heyday with this. Smug, self-righteous talk show hosts lampoon the idea of Kerry as the champion of the common man. They love to point out that his vacation home in Idaho is a five hundred year old farm house from England, meticulously taken apart, piece by piece, and reassembled here in the States. The comparison is between Kerry, the effete, liberal northeastern snob, playing the dude in Idaho, and Bush, the authentic American cowboy from Texas.

Even the New York Times has jumped aboard, running in yesterday's (March 22, 2004) paper a big spread, complete with four color photos, of Kerry's various houses.

One small detail: These aren't Kerry's homes. They are his wife's. And before they belonged to her, they belonged to her former (now deceased) husband. He's the one who bought and paid for them; he's the one who had the English farmhouse deconstructed.

The more interesting point, for all you right wing hypocrisy watchers (and there are increasingly more of us), is that the first husband of Kerry's wife was also a senator. Unlike Kerry, however, the first husband was a Republican. So what we have is the right wing attacking Kerry for living in homes built by a Republican Senator.

Hypocrisy and deceit by the right wing propaganda machine is hardly newsworthy. Actually, I see Kerry's homes as a shining beacon for at least two important Republican principles. The first is the importance of family values. Kerry married the woman he loves, and to prove his love for her, he lives in her former husband's homes, no matter how garish or ostentatious he may find them to be. The second is the issue of the "death" tax. We know that the evil of the inheritance tax is that it destroys our incentive for working hard and accumulating more money and stuff than we could ever use or spend. You've got to believe that Kerry's wife's first husband was powerfully motivated knowing that, after he died, some Democratic Senator would be able to shack up in his homes, with his wife.