U.S.: John Kerry, not ready for prime time

John F'fin Kerry has lived up to his middle name once again by using his middle finger. Here's the story:

Democratic senator - and certain presidential nominee - John F. Kerry gave the middle finger to a Vietnam veteran at the Vietnam Memorial Wall on Memorial Day morning, NewsMax.com has learned.

Ted Sampley, a former Green Beret who served two full tours in Vietnam, spotted Kerry and his Secret Service detail at about 9:00 a.m. Monday morning at the Wall. Sampley walked up to Kerry, extended his hand and said, "Senator, I am Ted Sampley, the head of Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry, and I am here to escort you away from the Wall because you do not belong here."

At that point a Secret Service officer told Sampley to back away from Kerry. Sampley moved about 6 feet away and opened his jacket to reveal a HANOI JOHN T-shirt.

Kerry then began talking to a group of schoolchildren. Sampley then showed the T-shirt to the children and said, "Kerry does not belong at the Wall because he betrayed the brave soldiers who fought in Vietnam."

Just then Kerry - in front of the school children, other visitors and Secret Service agents - brazenly 'flashed the bird' at Sampley and then yelled out to everyone, "Sampley is a felon!"

Kerry was referring to an incident 12 years ago when Sampley confronted Sen. John McCain's chief aide, Mark Salter, in a Senate stairwell after McCain repeatedly offended POW families at a Senate POW hearing. Sampley, whose father-in-law at that time was MIA in Laos, followed Salter into the stairwell and, when they emerged, Salter had a bloody lip and a broken nose.

Sampley's group, Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry, has garnered huge national attention and has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post and on MSNBC's "Scarborough Country." Tens of thousands of Vietnam vets have registered their opposition to Kerry through Sampley's group.

Totally déclassé of F'fin Kerry to flip Sampley the bird. When you take yourself too seriously, stuff like this happens.

The appropriate response for Kerry to make would have been some verbal riposte that would've set Sampley back on his heels. However, the nuanced one, brilliant, articulate, the un-Bush, was at a total loss for words in the encounter with Sampley.

In the manner of many with an inadequate vocabulary, Kerry resorted to obscenity. That he used a universally understood symbol rather than language is immaterial since symbols are accepted as speech. Kerry should have had regard to his audience -- school children and others -- and avoided using gestures that parents surely frown upon. As it stands, Kerry has taught school children that when under pressure respond with gutter language.

So much for nuance, sophistication, and complexity.