Questions For Kerry
George F. Will, Nationally Syndicated Columnist

Mr. Kerry, in your convention speech you threw caution to the wind and endorsed what you called "one of the oldest Commandments: 'Honor thy father and thy mother.' " Oldest? Were they not all published together?

Here are some other questions:

You invoke the Commandment to explain why you "will not cut" Social Security benefits. Does that include raising the retirement age, which Congress set at 65 in 1935, when the life expectancy of an American male was 62?

Regarding military action, your platform says "we will never wait for a green light from abroad when our safety is at stake." But the platform's preceding paragraph denounces President Bush's "doctrine of unilateral preemption." If unilateralism is wrong, are you not committed to some sort of "green light from abroad"?

Are you glad that in 1981 Israel set back Iraq's nuclear weapons program with a unilateral preemptive attack on the reactor near Baghdad?

Your platform says: "A nuclear-armed Iran is an unacceptable risk." But Iran's radical Islamist regime is undeterred by diplomatic hand-wringing about its acquisition of nuclear weapons, which may be imminent. Is preemptive military action against Iran feasible, or are its nuclear facilities too dispersed and hardened? What would you do other than accept Iran as a nuclear power?...

You say, "I stood up and fought against Richard Nixon's war in Vietnam." Nixon's war? Did it start after John Kennedy put U.S. combat troops there, and after Lyndon Johnson increased the number to 500,000?

When the pope said Catholic legislators have a duty to oppose gay marriage, you said he had "crossed the line" because "it is important not to have the church instructing politicians." Have you felt that way even when the church has instructed politicians to take liberal positions regarding economic justice, race and other matters?...

Do you advocate new laws to discourage the kind of people who are choosing to participate in politics through financial contributions on your behalf?

You and other supporters of increased government regulation of political spending say this does not abridge freedom of speech. What does most of your spending pay for?

Throwing caution to the wind, your platform insists that "small towns are at the heart of America." Your sense of America's small-town heartbeat comes from where -- Sun Valley?