Even with a couple of  cheater's steps off the pitcher's rubber working in his favor, John F. Kerry,  in front of a sold—out crowd at Fenway Park, couldn't manage to throw the first pitch of Sunday's Red Sox/Yankees game across home plate. Of course, the junior Senator from Massachusetts, and king of excuses more lame than his throwing arm, had a good reason for bouncing the ball well short of his target. "I held back," stated Mr. Kerry when questioned about his (as Arnold Schwarzenegger might say) girly—man attempt.

Apparently he was concerned about the safety of his catcher, a National Guardsman named Will Pumyea who had just returned to the United States. "I tried to lob it gently," Kerry added, which is certainly understandable considering that Mr. Pumyea is a veteran of both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Heck, you certainly wouldn't want to risk injuring such a man with a baseball thrown with enough velocity to travel a whole 726 inches, would you? I'm sure the 23 year—old vet was grateful to the good Senator for sparing him the pain and humiliation of trying to handle the awe—inspiring force behind one of John's famous split—finger fastballs.

But enough with the sarcasm... John Kerry's denial of so obvious a failing is typical of the way he prefers to deal with uncomfortable questions concerning his own shortcomings. Instead of simply 'fessing up and allowing the electorate to see that he's a human being, capable of imperfections just like the rest of us, he chooses to deny any error on his part, no matter how conspicuous and inconsequential it may be. Either he's an idiot or he takes the average voter for one, and I'm not sure which is worse.

I do know that when a public figure of Mr. Kerry's proportions fails to toss a baseball more than sixty feet, and then implies afterward that he was worried a warrior like Will Pumyea may not be not capable of catching a throw requiring only slightly greater force than he (a 60 year old public official) has mustered, he's lying through his teeth. I also know that John Kerry is capable of throwing that same baseball many times harder and farther than he did on July 26. He underthrew that ball like a wussie, not because he couldn't get it to the plate or because he was concerned with the welfare of a young war veteran who's been trained to eat guts for breakfast and ask for seconds. No, he lame—ducked that pitch because he was afraid to take a chance and put some real backbone behind it!

By the way, it has recently been reported that Senator Kerry seemed to have been rooting for the New York Yankees at one point late in the game this past Sunday, although those claims may prove to be bogus. Still, one has to wonder how he would react if confronted with such an accusation today. Judging from past statements he's made concerning claims of a similar nature, one could opine that he might say something like this: I rooted for the Red Sox... BEFORE I rooted against them.

Edward L. Daley is the owner of the Daley Times—Post