John Kerry—a violent American cowboy dispensing frontier justice: Kerry says terrorists alone merit execution.

Though he always has opposed the death penalty, Sen. John Kerry said Tuesday that the Sept. 11 attacks made him realize that he would want to “blow Osama bin Laden’s brains out.”

Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, makes an exception for terrorists in his otherwise unflinching opposition to capital punishment. That exception, he said, was sealed by the realization that war had been declared against the United States that balmy autumn morning more than two years ago.

“That status of war led me to find it impossible to suggest I wouldn’t want to blow Osama bin Laden’s brains out and treat him as an enemy,” he said in an interview with the Tribune while visiting the Chicago area for several campaign stops.

“I walked out of the Capitol and said, `We’re at war.”’ said Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran. “That was my instant reaction as I looked in the air for another airplane that was heading toward us. I think you destroy the enemy.”

So Kerry is now exploiting September 11 for political gain?