Kerry dodges thorny issues but Irish ancestry is a load of blarney

WITH a surname straight from the heartland of Ireland, most Americans could have been forgiven for thinking that Senator John Forbes Kerry of Massachusetts is another in a long line of Irish-American politicians who have made it big in Boston.

He has an apparently Irish last name and he wears it proudly along with the shamrock he sports every year at Boston's St Patrick's Day parade. He resembles another famously Irish Democrat from Massachusetts who was elected president in 1960. He even shares JFK's initials.

Backed by the Kennedy clan, the senator, whose wife Theresa is part of the Heinz ketchup empire, also has the support on this side of the water from Tony O'Reilly, Heinz's former boss.