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What his literary icons have in common. JOHN KERRY has written the introduction to Let America Be America Again, a new but very slim selection of verse by the famous black poet Langston Hughes. In the preface, Kerry insists he was "drawn to incorporate the words" of the title--taken from a poem Hughes wrote in the 1930s--into his presidential run because America is "always in the process of becoming." That's one way of looking at it. Here's another. Kerry has a special affinity for left-wing literary icons, with Hughes the most conspicuous. Hughes's poem describes America as a place where...

Last month, Chatterbox urged John Kerry to drop the campaign slogan, "Let America be America again." Instead, Kerry has wrapped his arms more tightly around the slogan's regrettable source. ... He has written (or allowed to be written under his name) the preface to a thin volume titled Let America Be America Again, which includes that poem along with eight other (much better) Hughes poems. ... Kerry's preface makes it much harder for him to claim that he is ignorant of the circumstances under which Hughes wrote this poem. He notes that it came out of the Great Depression, which...

E-mail to Candidate Kerry #10 From James (Cooter) Thompson re: Campaign Strategy and Tactics Dear Senator kerry: Cooter Thompson here, Senator, writing to you again on behalf of the folks down to Daryl's Bait Shop. We think we can do you a world of good by pointing out certain matters of strategy and tactics we've been observing on TV and the Internet. Senator, you really missed the boat—the dock, too—the way you handled the Sandy Berger adventure. Sandy was caught stuffing his pants and his briefcase with topmost secret classified documents from the National Archive. There is no chance of...

It turns out "Let America be America again" isn't the Kedwards campaign's only communist-inspired slogan. John Edwards's claim that we are "two Americas" echoes a speech given by James P. Cannon to the 1948 convention of the Socialist Workers Party, a Trotskyite outfit: "There are two Americas--and millions of the people already distinguish between them. One is the America of the imperialists--of the little clique of capitalists, landlords, and militarists who are threatening and terrifying the world. This is the America the people of the world hate and fear."

Goodbye, Christ Jesus Lord God Jehova, Beat it on away from here now. Make way for a new guy with no religion at all— A real guy named Marx Communist Lenin Peasant Stalin Worker ME— I said, ME!

Even though Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) has been criticized for a dearth of minorities among the top advisers to his presidential campaign, he can point to the fact that his campaign slogan was inspired by the late African-American poet and writer Langston Hughes. In fact, Kerry wrote the preface to a new collection of Hughes’s poems that will be published by Vintage this month, just in time for the Democratic National Convention. The paperback edition will feature nine Hughes poems “about freedom, brotherhood and the American dream.” In May, Kerry invoked the first two lines of Hughes’s poem “Let America...

<p>John Kerry's campaign has been a font of slogans and catch phrases, but few of them have caught on - even with him.</p> <p>Early on he offered a "better set of choices," then said he would make America "safer, stronger, more secure." Last September he found the "courage to do what's right for America." In November he declared himself "the real deal" and dared President George W. Bush to "bring it on." In March he promised "change starts here," in April he vowed to "build a stronger America," and in early May he touted his "lifetime of service and strength."</p>

Insiders say John Kerry has settled on "Let America Be America Again" as the motto and theme of his presidential campaign. The line comes from a Langston Hughes poem Kerry quoted at an NAACP event in Kansas. Apparently the pedantic St. Paul's and Yale graduate didn't bother to note that it was written for an International Workers Order (IWO) pamphlet called A New Song. The IWO was an officially cited affiliate of the Communist Party, and Hughes was so committed a Stalinist that he formally endorsed the Bolshevik purges. Then there is Langston Hughes' poem "Goodbye Christ," written for the...

Insiders say John Kerry has settled on "Let America Be America Again" as the motto and theme of his presidential campaign. The line comes from a Langston Hughes poem Kerry quoted at an NAACP event in Kansas. Apparently the pedantic St. Paul's and Yale graduate didn't bother to note that it was written for an International Workers Order (IWO) pamphlet called A New Song. The IWO was an officially cited affiliate of the Communist Party, and Hughes was so committed a Stalinist that he formally endorsed the Bolshevik purges. Then there is Langston Hughes' poem "Goodbye Christ," written for the...

The Kerry campaign sure is starting to look like the Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight. According to the Drudge Report today, John Kerry's campaign has settle on the words "Let America be America Again" as their campaign theme. There's only one problem. Kerry plagiarized the phrase from a poem written by black writer Langston Hughes. The punchline that follows Kerry's line reads, "America never was America to me."Even worse for the embattled presidential candidate is the fact that Langston Hughes was a well-known Communist. Langston Hughes is a man who once added an extra S to USA in a poem....