After graduating from Yale, John Kerry applied for a deferment so he could study in Paris. He was turned down. Our reluctant hero now hounds President Bush about his attendance in the Guard. Kerry has been AWOL from his Senate duties 75 percent of the time.

After four months in Vietnam and three questionable Purple Hearts, Kerry returns to slander his comrades with accusations of atrocities. I find it incredible that he even accused himself of war crimes but has never been tried in court. Is it still too late?

Now, he demonstrates the greatest display of chutzpah when he bases his fitness to be commander in chief on a skimpy four-month war experience. How can he be so proud now of a war he loathed in 1972? How can he brag about his “band of brothers” when he endangered them, especially the POWs, by his virulent antiwar protests, which gave aid and comfort to our enemies? Is he not now doing the same with the Iraq war?

Kerry’s megalomania rises to a crescendo in his “Catholicism.” He opposes his church’s teachings on all life issues. This liberal is 100 percent pro-death when it comes to killing babies. He knows he should not receive the Eucharist because of his sacrilegious conduct but persists in his scandal. In his battle with the Vatican, Kerry assumes the mantle of infallibility. The Catholic bishops should excommunicate Kerry for his anti-life position.

Patrick A. Lundy, Weld