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Dogging the goat

Diana West: "'John Kerry is not the type who will sit and read 'My Pet Goat' to a group of second-graders while America is under attack,' Kerry campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter declared last week, by all accounts with a straight face. Ms. Cutter, Ted Kennedy's former press secretary, was referring to the kiddie book Mr. Bush continued reading with schoolchildren for several minutes after learning that the second tower of the World Trade Center had been attacked.

Them may be fightin' words in a 'more sensitive' war on terror, but I'm guessing that Thomas E. Dewey, FDR's fourth and final presidential opponent, never even thought to hit Roosevelt for 18 minutes of inaction at the onset of World War II. Let's just say that John Kerry is no Tom Dewey. 'Had I been reading to children and had my top aide whisper in my ear that America is under attack,' Mr. Kerry intoned this month, 'I would have told those kids very nicely and politely that the president of the United States has something that he needed to attend to. And I would have attended to it.'

Really? As an article in The Washington Times points out, Mr. Kerry's reaction to the attacks of Sept. 11 wasn't exactly the stuff of the Minutemen. Mr. Kerry told 'Larry King Live' that on the morning of Sept. 11 nearly three years ago, he 'sat stunned and unable to think for more than 30 minutes in the Capitol until he and other senators were whisked out of the building to safety,' the Times reports. 'By that time, Mr. Bush already had addressed the nation, vowed to capture those responsible and begun discussions with Vice President Dick Cheney and other top aides about whether to shoot down any civilian aircraft violating the administration's order that all planes be grounded.' And finished reading 'My Pet Goat.'"

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