Kerry's Past: Some Information and Some Questions

"It is the specter of Western imperialism that causes more fear among Africans and Asians than communism, and thus it is self-defeating".

First, the junior senator from Marriagechusetts does not seem to be a particularly favorite alumnus at Yale — not according to this article by Boris Volodarsky at today's Yale Daily News, anyway.

If you ever wander around campus on Tuesday or Wednesday nights, you may run into a curious spectacle. You are likely to see a bunch of people with seemingly nothing better to do than sit around college common rooms drinking, banging gavels, and discussing some terribly obscure or dreadfully obvious "resolutions." Sadly, I am usually one of those people, and you probably ran into a meeting of one of the parties of the Yale Political Union (YPU). The political union is by no means a "cool" organization. If you ever come to its events you will find that the proportion of people with a fixation with becoming president and those who like to drink on weekdays is abnormally high, even for Yale. Surprisingly, some of the political union people do make it big. The most famous example right now is John Kerry.

If I had to paint a portrait of a typical YPU guy, I would simply take a picture of John Kerry to save time — not today's Senator Kerry, but a young John Kerry when he was still a student at Yale College. Kerry was the quintessential, stereotypical "YPU man." The News' article about Kerry's life at Yale, published on Feb. 14, 2003, provides a lot of insight into his early personality ("Kerry '66: 'He was going to be president'"). Apparently, one of the first things he told his freshman year roommates was that he was going to be president one day. He clearly had nothing better to think about, such as de-bunking his bed or freshman English. Okay, fine, we all did some pretty silly stuff when we arrived at Yale. Kerry's problem was that he apparently never got better during his years at Yale.

Just like many members of the YPU, Kerry was an amazing speaker. In fact he was probably the best. And it seems that at Yale, he was generally disliked.

The Yale Liberal Party, of which I am a member and John Kerry used to be chairman, passes on many unpleasant stories about him. According to Liberal Party lore, Kerry was among the worst chairs in its history. Jorge Dominguez, currently a professor at Harvard and a member of Kerry's Liberal Party Executive Board, reports that under Kerry's leadership the party went on YPU probation. Probation means that the party's leader could not get enough of the party's members to sign a YPU attendance roster. Although getting people to sign in turns out to be a surprisingly arduous job, very few chairmen fail to do it in the end. Not getting enough signatures suggest one of two things: either the chairman faced some unfortunate circumstances or he has some personality problems. According to Dominguez, Kerry's leadership caused his probation.

In order to get back at Kerry, members of the Liberal Party formed the Dixwell Society. By now, the group is largely defunct, although it still officially meets during Liberal Party reunions and its story gets retold for everyone wishing to hear. The society's major point was to include every former chairmen except one who most people disliked. You can guess who. In addition, the News' article reports that due to its conflict with Kerry part of the Liberal Party split off to form the Party of the Left.

But wasn't Kerry later elected YPU president? It is true that he got elected. It proves much less then you think, however. First of all, the YPU presidency is a hard and often thankless job that very few people actually want. A person usually becomes political union president through some mixture of personal desire and Tammany Hall-like backroom deals. In my experience, very few political union officers get elected because they are liked or respected.

Personally, I would not let Kerry circa 1966 run a public toilet, let alone a country. Hopefully, today's Kerry is a different man. Perhaps his service in Vietnam changed him for the better. Perhaps time has changed him. But maybe he has not changed. Recently Kerry mentioned that George Bush remains the same guy he was in college. If Bush didn't change, why would Kerry?

Every time I go to a political union debate, I shudder to think one of those YPU people I see in front of me may one day run the country. It may happen sooner than I expect. Although I certainly do not think a hard-drinking frat boy of the George Bush kind is any better prepared for the presidency. Still, Democrats ought to consider other options. Edwards anyone?

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They formed a club? Specifically so one person could not belong? That individual being John Forbes Kerry?

Second, the article cited above — a much longer and very much more flattering piece — at The Yale Daily News, Feb. 14, 2003.

When Clark Abbott '66 first met classmate John F. Kerry in September 1962, Kerry told his neighbor in Bingham Hall exactly what he was going to do in life.

"He told me he was going to be president," Abbott said.

More than 40 years later, Kerry's aspirations have not changed. Now a Massachusetts senator, Kerry is considered by many in Washington to be the favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination next year. And while his career has not followed a straight path from Jonathan Edwards College to stump speeches in New Hampshire and Iowa, the 2004 campaign is, in many ways, the culmination of four decades of preparation.

As a three-sport athlete, president of the Yale Political Union, and a member of Skull and Bones, Kerry's undergraduate experience was seen by many of his classmates as a grooming for public office. Even his roommate of four years, Daniel Barbiero '66, joked with Kerry about his political hopes.

"I think I once told him if he was president, I wanted to be his secretary of state," Barbiero said.

'A senatorial accent'

Like Kerry, Michael Avery '66 was one of the top members of the Yale debate team. But while Avery was a polished orator, he did not even bother to attend tryouts for the privilege of serving as Class Day speaker.

"To be honest, I fancied myself a good public speaker," Avery said. "But I didn't even go — I knew Kerry was going to go, and there wasn't much point in going against him."

Kerry's selection as class orator surprised no one, since he had spent much of his Yale career speaking to classmates in his distinctive Massachusetts accent.

"I think it was a cultured accent, and it's frankly a senatorial accent," Abbott said. "It just sounded awfully funny to hear this accent out of an 18-year-old kid."

Under the guidance of renowned speaking coach and history professor Rollin Osterweis, Kerry won dozens of competitions against college students from across the nation and even across the Atlantic. In February 1966, Kerry and his partner, William Stanberry, Jr., won a match against a previously undefeated traveling team from Britain. As the closing speaker, Kerry defended the importance of the United Nations, arguing that it had "supplied a meetingplace for harmonizing differences."

And although Kerry was chairman of the Political Union's smallest party — the Liberals — he gained enough support across the political spectrum to win the presidency late in his sophomore year. Presiding over the Political Union during the heated presidential elections of 1964, Kerry even earned the admiration of students on the other side of the aisle, said former Party of the Right chairman John McGonagle Jr. '66.

"John was a person who took the process of politics very seriously and he gave it a great deal of respect," McGonagle said.

But Kerry's YPU presidency was not universally supported. During his tenure, a group of younger students split off from the Liberal Party to create a new Party of the Left. Members of the new party said Kerry's vote against a measure supporting a progressive income tax helped instigate their secession.

Kerry said in an e-mail that the Political Union provided a way to get involved with the prominent issues of the day, like the civil rights movement and President Kennedy's "New Frontier" program. But Kerry, who successfully underwent surgery for prostate cancer Wednesday, said he did not view his political activities in college as a springboard for his future plans.

"I was also caught up in the times and inspired by a lot of things happening which really made me want to get involved in public service, but I never thought of myself as on some kind of career track," he said. "The Political Union was a great way to debate issues and play some small role in what was happening in the country and what Ivy League universities tend to be insulated from, particularly at that time."

A reputation for seriousness

Kerry was, in many ways, a member of the old guard that had dominated Yale until the 1960s. His father graduated from Yale in 1937, and Kerry was one of 18 students to enter Yale from his graduating class at the prestigious St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H.

Kerry had traveled extensively as a child, and he was already fluent in French when he entered Yale. He played soccer, hockey, and lacrosse — sports most commonly played in New England prep schools at the time. While his family was not particularly wealthy, his father was a foreign service officer and his mother was a member of the prominent Forbes family.

"He was kind of preppy," said John King '66, a classmate of Kerry's in Jonathan Edwards. "There was a little of that aristocratic sense that you still get with him."

Many of Kerry's friends at Yale, whether on the soccer team, in the Political Union, or in Fence Club, had attended prep schools. But Barbiero, who was a friend of Kerry's at St. Paul's, said Kerry "came more into his own" in college.

"In prep school, he had a pretty small group of friends — guys who were interested in philosophy and political science," Barbiero said. "In college, he got to know everybody."

Yet in Kerry's day, as Yale President Kingman Brewster began liberalizing the Yale admissions process, a divide remained between prep school graduates and students who attended public schools. To some students who had not attended New England boarding schools, Kerry seemed like the "ultimate preppy," Abbott said.

"At that time, I think he had a bit of a reputation for standoffishness, which I think was a bit well-deserved," said Robin Landis '66, who played with Kerry on the soccer team.

But Kerry's friends say his reputation for aloofness — which led the New Republic to run a cover story last year asking, "Can John Kerry Make People Like Him?" — is inaccurate.

"I think John as an undergraduate at Yale had some of the same rap that he gets today, that he's overly serious, that he takes himself too seriously," said Frederick Smith '66, a fellow member of Skull and Bones who later founded the FedEx Corporation. "I think that's really a misnomer, because he's actually a lot of fun."

Kerry certainly was serious at Yale. Because he often woke up at 5 a.m., his suitemates gave him a single, Barbiero said. Between his sports teams, his political activities, and his classes, Kerry did not have much time to spare.

"John was just a guy who was very impatient," Barbiero said. "He didn't like lines — he had so much energy, he had no patience to queue up."

Nearly everyone who knew Kerry expected him to enter public office, and he pursued his interests relentlessly. While he never shied away from attention, other members of the debate team and the Political Union said Kerry also worked hard behind the scenes.

"John was much more serious about the things he was interested in than most people," Barbiero said. "He was really dedicated to the things he wanted to do."

On the field and on the road

Kerry was perhaps best known on campus for his political activities, but when asked about his time at Yale, he emphasized his less serious interests.

"Playing hockey, soccer, taking flying lessons out at Tweed my senior year — those seemed to be my areas of focus too often," Kerry said.

Although Kerry played three sports at Yale, he earned his only letter playing soccer his senior year. While he was not a star on the soccer team, he was a talented athlete, and he scored three goals against Harvard in his final game.

As one of the fastest players on the team, Kerry's gawky running style occasionally earned him the nickname "The Camel" from his teammates, said David Thorne '66, one of Kerry's teammates and a fellow Bonesman.

But in contrast to Kerry's other activities, he played more of a supporting role on the field, his teammate Landis said.

"He was not really a leader on the team," Landis said. "Unless you were a really good player, it's hard to be a leader on the team."

Kerry said his time on the playing field was among the most valuable he spent at Yale.

"I loved playing hockey, soccer, and lacrosse, and I still play hockey," Kerry said. "I have such great memories of it, and it taught me some terrific lessons: a team ethic, a sense of competitiveness and drive that is a part of who I am and everything I do."

Off the field, Kerry tended to socialize with a small group of friends. While he was a member of the Fence Club fraternity, Kerry — who was not a heavy drinker — seldom attended the club's weekend parties, Thorne said. Instead, Kerry and his friends would frequently go on road trips.

Kerry was an avid skier and sailor in college, and his roommate Harvey Bundy said he spent much of his free time seeking adventure. After their freshman year, Kerry and Bundy set off for Europe without a definite plan.

In London, Kerry delivered an impromptu speech from the famed Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. And in the Alps, he insisted on climbing a mountain at 5 a.m. — and then ran down the peak, Bundy said.

"He was not a frat boy, and he was not someone who was that sociable, necessarily," Thorne said. "He was adventurous and liked doing interesting things, like flying and skiing and riding a motorcycle, but he didn't like the social scene that much."

Kerry also loved his parakeet, Dodi, whom he had taught to greet visitors in English, French and Italian. So when Dodi flew out Kerry's window and into a tree early one Sunday morning, Kerry was prepared for another adventure, his roommates said.

Kerry found a ladder and climbed into the tree in pursuit of the bird. But while Kerry was in the tree, Yale police officers traveling down York Street became suspicious, Barbiero said.

"It took a good 10, 15 minutes for the police to look and see that there was actually a parakeet," Barbiero said.

A sense of duty

In March 1965, as the war in Vietnam continued to escalate, Kerry won the Ten Eyck prize as the best orator in the junior class for a speech that criticized U.S foreign policy as arrogant and unrealistic.

"It is the specter of Western imperialism that causes more fear among Africans and Asians than communism, and thus it is self-defeating," Kerry said in his speech. "We have grossly overextended ourselves in areas where we have no vital primary interest."

The next year, Kerry discarded his original Class Day oration — which had already been published in the Yale Banner — for a new address echoing many of the sentiments of his prize-winning speech. In a speech that was unusually political for a Class Oration, he criticized the United States for intervening in Asian affairs and isolating itself from the world community.

"I think he was ahead of his time," Smith said about Kerry's attitude towards Vietnam. "I think he felt that the war was much more controversial at an earlier stage than anybody else."

But even before delivering his oration, Kerry had enlisted in the U.S. Navy. Despite his public misgivings about Vietnam, Kerry was preparing to enter the military soon after commencement.

While Kerry criticized the war and its goals, he was committed in his decision to serve. In contrast to Yale students two or three years later who more frequently tried to avoid the service at all costs, many members of the Class of '66 volunteered, Smith said.

"I was very proud of my decision to go into the Navy and I still am," Kerry said. "But keep in mind, when I joined the Navy, the first draft card hadn't been burned. Vietnam was nebulous. It wasn't yet the war it would become."

By volunteering, students could avoid the draft and enter the officer corps. But for the Class of '66, graduate school deferments were still available. If Kerry had not wanted to serve, he could have entered law school immediately after graduation.

Yet for a class that grew up in the wake of World War II and the Korean War, military service seemed a patriotic duty that few of Kerry's classmates questioned despite growing ambivalence concerning the war itself, said his classmate Peter Day '66.

"There was a much larger sense of obligation, that it was your turn just as the generations before had done it," Day said.

So when William Bundy — assistant secretary of state and uncle of Harvey Bundy — visited Kerry and his suitemates and said the country needed them to enlist in the officer corps, Kerry listened.

"I think that — it would have been almost five times harder for him not to have gone than to go," Smith said. "The predilection of our class was much more old-school."

Although Kerry could have avoided more dangerous combat as a naval officer, he volunteered to captain river boats in Vietnam. He was wounded three times in only four months and awarded the Silver Star for significant acts of courage.

But it was Kerry's actions after he returned home that eventually thrust him into the national limelight. By 1971, Kerry was the spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He spoke at protest rallies and led a group of veterans in throwing their medals at the Capitol steps.

Thorne, who also served in the Navy and remained close friends with Kerry after the war, said Kerry's military experience profoundly affected him.

"Anyone confronted by the actuality of combat is deeply changed forever," Thorne said. "It's terrifying — people are hurt badly and killed. It makes you grow up, and most of us began to deeply question what we were doing."

At the age of only 27, Kerry was already a national celebrity. He was featured in Time magazine, and he denounced the war before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. After two unsuccessful runs for the House of Representatives, Kerry attended Boston College Law School. In 1982, he won his first statewide election; two years later, Kerry was a U.S. senator.

Facing the Kennedy legacy

It is by historical accident that John Forbes Kerry shares his initials with the most influential politician of his youth. But since before Kerry entered Yale, he has shared more than a monogram with President John F. Kennedy.

Like Kennedy, Kerry is a handsome Massachusetts Democrat with an Ivy League pedigree. Like Kennedy, Kerry is a decorated veteran who gained national recognition shortly after returning home from military service.

"He came of age in a time when many of us were inspired by the visionary aspects of the Kennedy administration," said Duncan Campbell '66, one of Kerry's fellow debaters. "He was in a way very much influenced by the Kennedy government and the Kennedy era."

Kerry also spoke with an accent and certain rhetorical flourishes that evoked Kennedy's oratorical style, Campbell said. Whether intentionally or not, both Kerry's manner of speaking and his political views invited comparisons to President Kennedy.

He had met Kennedy personally, and he had sailed with the president at a Kennedy family retreat in Newport, R.I., Thorne said. Kerry first met Thorne at the retreat, where both were interested in the same woman — Janet Auschincloss, Jacqueline Kennedy's half-sister.

Kerry and Auschincloss dated while he attended Yale, and his personal interactions with Kennedy led him to view the president as "larger than life," Bundy said.

But in the fall of Kerry's sophomore year, Kennedy was assassinated. Kerry and Thorne were playing in a soccer game against Princeton when they heard the news. Kerry went straight from the game to church, Thorne said.

Bundy, who first met Kerry at a Kennedy rally on the New Haven Green during their freshman year, said Nov. 22, 1963, was one of the most difficult days of the young Kerry's life.

"I remember John lying on the floor of the room focusing on this little black-and-white TV," Bundy said. "He didn't take his eyes off of it."

Forty years later, Kerry still invites comparisons to Kennedy — not merely because of his mannerisms and personal biography, but also because Kennedy was the last New Englander to win a presidential election. And of course, the senior senator from Massachusetts is Ted Kennedy, one of Kerry's most ardent supporters for the Democratic nomination.

On the campaign trail, Kerry frequently invokes President Kennedy's name and accomplishments, and he said politicians need to return to the idealism that made Kennedy a compelling leader.

"We must be ready to refuse the course of least resistance — confront the seemingly popular — and offer a vision that looks beyond the next poll to the next decade and the next generation," Kerry said. "That means not just quoting the words of Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, but matching their leadership with our own, with daring and commitment, with new thinking equal to a new and different time."

Next, Gary Aldrich wants to know the kind of information about John Kerry's past that hundreds and thousands of mainstream-media journalists demand about George W. Bush's past.

I experienced something akin to humiliation when the President of the United States ordered subordinates to release his dental records to the public. President Bush acted in hopes of ending the ridiculous argument surrounding his National Guard service.

Nothing is sacred in today’s politics of personal destruction – invented and perfected by the Democrats. Not even the number of fillings in George Bush’s teeth.

Thus, Senator John Kerry and his followers “opened the door.” It’s only fair that many will now choose to walk through that door. No competent attorney would ever open a line of inquiry in the courtroom unless he knew how the same issue would impact his own client.

Democrats should not complain now if certain similar questions are asked of the good Senator.

In the debate about which man has given more to his country, no evidence has been more emotionally persuasive than Senator Kerry’s own claims of war heroism. One basis for this assertion is that while serving in Vietnam, Kerry showed great courage in leaping off his boat to attack and kill a wounded North Vietnamese soldier.

Evidence suggests the Vietnamese soldier had previously been wounded by a 50-caliber round. Veteran friends of mine tell me if a person is hit by a 50-caliber round, it is highly unlikely they could continue to be a threat, because of the hydro-shock associated with the impact of the round. I am assured this is true regardless of where the enemy was hit.

I know from my own FBI training that certain high-powered rounds can destroy vital organs and blow away entire limbs – due to this same hydro-shock factor. Kerry’s claims that he saved his fellow soldier’s lives by taking the life of the wounded Vietnamese fighter now lie in reasonable doubt.

Also, Kerry’s ardent fans clamor over the Purple Hearts he received for each of his several wounds. What is not widely known is that even a minor wound can qualify for a Purple Heart, and a combination of Purple Hearts can be the basis for reassignment to a safer post. Kerry did, in fact, take a safer post after accepting his war medals.

Other veterans tell me they didn’t even put in for Purple Hearts, because they did not want to be transferred home unless they were seriously wounded. These veterans didn’t want to leave their buddies behind just to seek the safety of distance from the battle.

In total, it appears Kerry was in-country less than five months. Yet some prisoners of war served more than seven years and had many serious wounds.

Today, Senator Kerry likes the political attention his medals afford him. However, during one protest, Kerry was seen tossing his precious medals over the White House fence.

Except now he says those were not actually his medals, but somebody else’s medals he discarded. Another version has him tossing over just the ribbons. Which is it?

Anyone visiting his Senate office can see medals hung in a display case on the wall. Well, whose medals are in the display case? Are these Kerry’s, or did he or a member of his staff buy a few similar medals at a local pawn shop?

Finally – in the biggest controversy of all – Senator John Kerry says he is a hero for standing up to power while protesting against the War in Vietnam. According to news reports, Kerry was protesting the war even as he served as a full-time member of the armed forces.

Did Kerry take leave-time to attend these rallies, or was he AWOL from his post while he traveled around protesting the war?

Did he only participate in peaceful war protests, or did he join the Hard-Left, anti-US, pro-Communistic cabal of Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda and other well-known Hard-Left, anti-US radicals?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do know where to find them. Every significant leader of any anti-war, anti-US protest from the 1960’s has a large file sitting in a file drawer over at the FBI Headquarters.

The Bureau’s headquarters is located at 9th street and Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown Washington, D.C. To get a copy of the FBI file, which would clear up this entire thing, Senator Kerry merely has to file a form. But HE must be the one to do it. Nobody else can get a copy – only John F. Kerry.

And, because it’s a U.S. Senator asking, I am sure the FBI would find and copy the file in a hurry. Then, like President Bush, Senator Kerry could release his FBI file to the media. All questions would be answered. We could put the matter behind us and, as the Democrats are fond to say, “move on to real issues.” Like what Kerry would do as president if we were attacked by terrorists.

Senator Kerry can also get a copy of his service records from the US Navy using the same kind of form. These naval records would clear up a lot of good questions about his military service in Vietnam.

Today I am announcing the formation of an exploratory committee to encourage and assist Senator John F. Kerry in the acquisition and distribution of these two files. In due course, we will send the appropriate forms to Senator Kerry to be filled out. Soon, following President Bush’s lead, Senator Kerry can reveal to the mainstream media the various documents establishing the truth about his conduct.

Vietnam veterans and former FBI and intelligence bureau agents are invited to join our exploratory committee. These individuals have a real sense of the truth about Senator John F. Kerry, and the Vietnam veterans have a large stake in the argument.

We’re calling our exploratory committee, “Americans for Truth About Kerry.”

Gary Aldrich is president and founder of The Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty, a Townhall.com member group.

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Last, an op-ed by Tony Blankley at WaTi today.

I disagree with those who believe that George Bush's National Guard record, or John Kerry's 1970s antiwar statements, should not be considered by voters in 2004. In fact, voters should know about drunk-driving records, marital relations, college cheating,war records, old resume enhancements and all the other bric-a-brac of a life about two-thirds lived — if the man is running for president of the United States.

Intelligence, judgment, character and personality — as well as political philosophy and policy positions — are all needed predictors of how a man will perform as president. American voters have a right to know — and a duty to find out — as much as they can about the man they would elect to the office; because an American president is not only the most powerful man in the world — he is potentially the most dangerous.

All people, but politicians especially, try to hide their weaknesses and shortcomings from public view. Thus, an election is not only a contest between two candidates, but a contest between each candidate and the public over a search for the full truth of the candidate's nature. Each piece of information, positive and negative, is probative (but not necessarily dispositive ) of determining that true nature.

While self-consciously high-minded people condemn even honest negative campaigning, it is only through such efforts that hidden and embarrassing facts or conditions are revealed that may well be needed to properly understand the nature of the man and his fitness for the presidency.

While we will surely find out more, we already know a lot about George W. Bush. As a well-born son of a famous family, he performed adequately, but not exceptionally, in his youth and early adulthood. He fell away from his faith, came to drink and party too much and drifted from one job or venture to another. Then, his life all changed. He sought out and re-found his faith, gave up his sybaritic ways, returned to the fold and focused his energies and abilities. We know this story well — it is the parable of the prodigal son. And he ended up as president and headstrong leader of a great nation at war.

But what is John Kerry's story? It has not yet come into public focus. We need to find out what makes Mr. Kerry tick. I have a suspicion that we will not truly know him until we understand what happened to him in the jungles of the Mekong Delta. Did the jungle, and what happened there, creep permanently into his psyche?

Grass and vines quickly reclaim ground despoiled by human warfare. Slower to heal are the bodies, and sometimes the minds, of the warriors. Somemenareactually strengthened and made more wise by battle. Others leave the traumas of warfare on the battlefield. Yet others hide it deep in their minds and, upon returning home, go on about a regular peacetime life — seemingly neither worse nor better for wear.

Then there are those for whom war becomes the great, personally defining event of their lives. It not only shapes, but distorts, their perception of the world. Often this sort of man entered combat as an idealistic youth. Shocked by the brutality of war, they spend the rest of their lives failing to come to intellectual and psychological terms with the disparity between their youthful expectations and grim battle. These were good men, once. But they become spiritually damaged. Sometimes the more intelligent of these traumatized former soldiers turn to ideas, rather than liquor or opiates, to numb their troubled souls from their painful memories. World War I produced many such examples — from the pacifist poets like Siegfred Sasoon and Wilfred Owen to the sensitive cultural scholar and novelist Robert Graves all the way to the demented ideologue Hitler.

Is Mr. Kerry one of these types? Certainly he is not a Hitler. But is he one of the others? Did his experience with the horrors of war breed in him not a healthy caution before turning to military force, but an irrational obsession to never use force — even when it is necessary for our national security?

Certainly Vietnam never seems far from his lips or his mind. Of course he is not the first politician to take advantage of a good war record. Other than being a little unseemly, if his constant references to Vietnam are merely a pragmatic exploitation of a political asset, so be it.

But if his experience in Vietnam has deranged his capacity to make rational judgments about the use of military force on behalf of national security, then, while he was an excellent junior officer 30 years ago, he would be unfit to be commander in chief today. Mr. Kerry should help us better understand his true nature by permitting the government to release his full military files. We can't afford to elect a pacifist president in a time of war.

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Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 02/25/04 08:42:09 PM
Categorized as John Kerry & Political.