"John Kerry began his political career as an anti-war radical & moved left." That's how I began the discussion of Kerry on Saturday night's "Heartland" program on the Fox News Channel, hosted by John Kasich.

Opposite me was a fellow named Mike Malloy, who promptly went a little crazy & then crazier still when I pointed out that his website referred to the "Bush crime family," a characterization that offended not just me but Kasich as well.

Rather than defend his idiocies, Malloy stomped off the set. Welcome to Campaign 2004, where Democrats are free to make any wild charge they want, but will refuse to defend their candidate against his own well-known record.

John Kerry is an extraordinarily weak candidate because his politics are very far to the left of the center in the U.S. Senate & the US at large. Added to this difficulty is the fact that Kerry began his career as a radical & radicals have to confront their own past & either embrace it or deny it & if the latter, w/clarity as to when & why their thinking changed.

This will be a very difficult process for Kerry as there's no evidence that his thinking about Vietnam, or the larger issues the debate over the war contained, has changed much.

Friendly voices in the media & there's none more friendly to Kerry than the Los Angeles Times – seem to sense that any serious look at Kerry's radicalism will undermine his candidacy, so expect a chorus of "that was 30 years ago" to rise in defense of Kerry's attempt to whiteout his political opinions from the '70's.

That was a possible strategy until Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAullffe branded President Bush as "AWOL" (Absent WithOut Leave) & the press went on its one-week frenzy. But that absurd exercise, note how it was over this last weekend w/ the release of a Guard record showing Bush to have been a skilled pilot & the arrival of first-person testimonies as to Bush's service in the areas disputed by the nuts & paranoids – opened the door to the '70's.

Now the press wants to move on. How transparent. The most risible example of the "move on" chorus is Ronald Brownstein's "Political Battle Over Vietnam-Era Credentials Has No Winners" from Monday's Los Angeles Times.

This is a deeply dishonest column that has the feel of having been ordered up by Kerry campaign central. Brownstein has long been a Democratic coach & that's fine. Al Hunt, Mark Shields, Margaret Carlson, etc. need company.

What's dishonest is Brownstein's characterization of the debate over Kerry's radical past: "But it's reasonable to ask whether Republicans want to encourage a debate about whether Kerry honorably served his country during the Vietnam era."

No one has asked whether Kerry served honorable in combat. Of course he did. But his political career was launched in radicalism & it's fair to ask which parts of that agenda remain part of Kerry's political make-up & which parts have been shed.

Brownstein adopts the Democratic talking point that such a look involves questioning Kerry's war service. That is Orwellian & transparently so. Propagandists for Kerry like Brownstein can argue all day long that Kerry's post-war politics don't matter, but they might. And raising those politics won't question the heroism he displayed in the war at all.

Brownstein follows his dishonest framing of the debate w/ a demand to move on & does so by quoting a couple of big names from the Vietnam era: John McCain & anti-war activist Sam Brown. "But it's a safe bet that most Americans, of all ideologies," Brownstein writes, "will agree w/ McCain & Brown when they say it's long past time to end the war over the war in Vietnam." How convenient, this declaration, coming as it does after the attack-Bush-over-Vietnam-week is over.

In case you don't get Brownstein's point, he repeats it one more time: "If Kerry & Bush face each other this fall, most voters are likely to care far more about the choices they offer today than the choices they made 30 years ago."

While true, this is high-school debate quality writing. So what? In a close election, what will matter are the opinions of the millions of swing voters & the swing voters may very well care about John Kerry's political roots & whether Kerry has outgrown them.

Kerry's radical days are on the table & the collective whining of all his pals in the print media won't take them off, any more than President Bush could get his Air National Guard service off the table until a thorough vetting was had. McAuliffe's rashness guaranteed that Brownstein's ruse won't work.

Nor will the Times' attempt to whitewash Kerry's record as a senator hold up. In fact, this second attempt to help Kerry by the paper of no weight in the West is even more transparent than Brownstein's. Front page on Monday: "Kerry's Got Kennedy's Nod, if Not His Politics." Get it? The Los Angeles Times wants you to know that Kerry isn't Teddy.

The story works overtime to dig up a couple of instances when Kerry & Teddy didn't vote alike & can find a total of three, one of which – the war resolution of Iraq – Kerry is now saying he wished he'd voted against. Most laughably & dishonestly is the paper's graphic citing the rankings of the Americans for Democratic Action showing that, in 2002, Kennedy voted with the ADA – which the paper correctly calls a "liberal advocacy group" – 100 % of the time, while Kerry did so only 85 % of the time.

Of course, the paper doesn't present Sen. John Edwards' 70 % rating for context, but even more glaring is the missing data on lifetime ADA rating: Kerry voted the right way, according to the ADA, 92 % of the time throughout his long Senate career, while Teddy got it right only 90 % of the time! And Kerry's lead in liberal votes was even larger over Kennedy until the votes of 2002 were added into the mix.

Thus the Los Angeles Times hides the central point of Kerry's political life – that he is to the left of Teddy Kennedy – in a story about how Kerry is to the right of Teddy Kennedy. Good journalism that, eh?

Manipulation of data to fit a partisan storyline benefiting Democrats is commonplace in the Los Angeles Times – so much so that the paper is no longer credible in California or national politics & its circulation has dropped accordingly.

The paper's disastrous, attempted manipulation of the 2003 recall campaign won't be forgotten by the California electorate for a long time & its reputation will remain in tatters until wholesale replacement of its political staff occurs.

But the paper is still useful for the early warning signals it send to the GOP. The Los Angeles Times, like the over-eager servant it is – always oversteps the message & telegraphs it for all to read. Monday's paper was hilariously open about the coming Democratic themes: It's wrong to probe Kerry's anti-war activism & it's wrong to call him a Teddy Kennedy Massachusetts liberal.

Newswise: People are not drawn to religion just because of a fear of death or any other single reason, according to a new comprehensive, psychological theory of religion.

There are actually 16 basic human psychological needs that motivate people to seek meaning thru religion, said Steven Reiss, author of the new theory & professor of psychology & psychiatry at Ohio State University.

These basic human needs, which include honor, idealism, curiosity & acceptance, can explain why certain people are attracted to religion, why God images express psychologically opposite qualities & the relationship between personality & religious experiences.

“Previous psychologists tried to explain religion in terms of just one or two overarching psychological needs. The most common reason they cite is that people embrace religion because of a fear of death, as expressed in the saying ‘there are no atheists in foxholes,” Reiss said.

“But religion is multi-faceted – it can’t be reduced to just one or two desires.”

Reiss described his new theory, which he said may be the most comprehensive psychological theory of religion since Freud’s work more than a century ago, in the June issue of Zygon, a journal devoted to issues of science & religion.

“I don’t think there has been a comprehensive theory of religion that was scientifically testable,” he said.

The theory is based on his overall theory of human motivation, which he calls sensitivity theory. Sensitivity theory is explained in his 2000 book Who Am I? The 16 Basic Desires that Motivate Our Action & Define Our Personalities (Tarcher Putnam).

Reiss said that each of the 16 basic desires outlined in the book influence the psychological appeal of religious behavior. The desires are power, independence, curiosity, acceptance, order, saving, honor, idealism, social contact, family, status, vengeance, romance, eating, physical exercise & tranquility.

In fact, Reiss has already done some initial research that suggests the desire for independence is a key psychological desire that separates religious & non-religious people. In a study published in 2000, Reiss found that religious people (the study included mostly Christians) expressed a strong desire for interdependence with others. Those who weren't religious, however, showed a stronger need to be self-reliant & independent.

The study also showed that religious people valued honor more than non-religious people, which Reiss said suggests many people embrace religion to show loyalty to parents & ancestors.

In the Zygon paper, Reiss explains that every religious person balances their 16 basic human needs to fit their own personality.

“They embrace those aspects of religious imagery that express their strongest psychological needs & deepest personal values.”

One example is the desire for curiosity, Reiss said. Religious intellectuals, who are high in curiosity, value a God who is knowable thru reason, while doers, who have weak curiosity, may value a God that is knowable only thru revelation.

“People who have a strong need for order should enjoy ritualized religious experiences, whereas those w/ a weak need for order may prefer more spontaneous expression of faith,” he said.

“The prophecy that the weak will inherit the earth should appeal especially to people w/a weak need for status, whereas the teaching that everybody is equal before God should appeal especially to people w/ a strong need for idealism.”

If religion & personality are linked, religion must provide a range of images & symbols sufficiently diverse to appeal to all the different kinds of personalities in the human population, Reiss says. Religious imagery potentially accommodates everybody because in many instances the images & symbols are psychological opposites.

“How we value & balance the 16 psychological needs is what makes us an individual & for every individual there are appealing religious images,” he said.

“The values that guide a personality w/ a strong need for vindication are expressed by a God of wrath, or a war God, while the values that guide a personality with a weak need for vindication are expressed by a God of forgiveness.”

“The values that guide a personality w a strong need to socialize are expressed by religious fellowship & festivals, while the values that guide a personality w/ a weak need to socialize are expressed by religious asceticism.”

The need for acceptance makes meaningful images of God as a savior, while its opposite inspires the concept of original sin, according to Reiss. The need to eat motives some people to value abstinence & others to value sustenance.

“Because this theory can be tested scientifically, we can learn its strengths & weaknesses & gradually improve it,” Reiss said. “Eventually, we may understand better the psychological basis of religion.”

Reiss emphasized that the theory addresses the psychology of religious experiences & has no implications for the validity or invalidity of religious beliefs.