Kerry finds religion

Jeff Jacoby is not impressed:

As it happens, I have picked this particular bone with Kerry before. During his Senate reelection campaign in 1996, I wrote a column contrasting his denunciation of Republican greed and heartlessness with his own record of charitable giving. During the previous six years, it turned out, Kerry had given less than $5,000 to charity - a minuscule seven-10ths of 1 percent of his gross income for the period. In some years he had given nothing at all; in others, his charitable donations added up to only a few hundred dollars. During the same six years, his Republican opponent, former Governor William Weld, had donated to charity nearly $165,000, or more than 15 percent of his gross income.

''There is something very wrong with a man who makes more than $120,000 a year,'' I wrote then, ''and gives only scraps to help those who are less fortunate than he.''

In the years since that embarrassing revelation, Kerry's charitable donations have increased significantly. On his tax return last year, for example, he reported $43,735 in charitable donations.

Why the sudden change of heart? Oh.