I gave JFK a pass on the shotgun thing because, while I wouldn’t use one

myself , they are legal for deer hunting here in New Hampshire and I

believe (though I’ve never hunted down there) that Massachusetts

actually has a “shotgun season” for deer. I wouldn’t use a 12-gauge

because, in most scenarios, you’d likely only wound the beast and he’d

have scampered off so fast that, even if you weren’t crawling around on

your stomach, you’d never catch up with him. Maybe it’s different for

Kerry. Maybe he has beaters drive the bucks directly into his line of

fire on the beach at Martha’s Vineyard.

At any rate, the shotgun thing is within the bounds of legal

possibility. As with his foreign policy, it reflects his preference for

inadequate means that won’t finish the job properly. However, the

crawling-around stuff is pure bunk.