With his win in Iowa, Sen. John Kerry could be on his way to the White House. But most Americans are unaware of the real Kerry.
Here are facts and quotations that reveal the character of the new Democrat leader.
Denouncing America with 鈥楬anoi Jane鈥? Although Wesley Clark and others have attacked former front-runner Howard Dean as a draft-dodging ski bum, Kerry is far more complex than the simple war hero he portrays himself as.
He became a celebrated organizer for one of America's most extreme appeasement groups, Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He consorted with the likes of 鈥淗anoi鈥?Jane Fonda and Ramsey Clark, Lyndon Johnson鈥檚 radical former attorney general.
He attended a seminar bankrolled by Fonda in Detroit in February 1971. Watching 125 self-proclaimed Vietnam veterans testify at a Howard Johnson鈥檚 about atrocities allegedly committed by U.S. forces, the man who would be president later said he found the accounts shocking and irrefutable.
Dubbed 鈥淭he Winter Soldier Investigation,鈥?the protest attracted minimal media attention, according to the Los Angeles Times, because Fonda insisted it be held in the remote Michigan city rather than the less 鈥渁uthentic鈥?Washington, D.C.
Still, the event gave Kerry an idea for a protest that was sure to be a media smash, and he immediately set out to organize one of the most confrontational protests of the war.
Operation Dewey Canyon III began on April 18, 1971, when nearly 1,000 Vietnam veterans and people claiming to be veterans gathered on Washington鈥檚 Mall for what they called 鈥渁 limited incursion into the country of Congress.鈥?br>
The group staged mock firefights on the steps of the Capitol and Supreme Court and defied U.S. Park Police after the Department of Justice issued an injunction barring it from camping on the Mall.
Those evil American soldiers: Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 23, 1971, Kerry claimed that U.S. soldiers had 鈥渞aped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam.鈥?br>
鈥榃e are not the best鈥? In his testimony, Kerry claimed there was no communist threat and said: 鈥淚n 1970 at West Point Vice President Agnew said 鈥榮ome glamorize the criminal misfits of society while our best men die in Asian rice paddies to preserve the freedom which most of those misfits abuse,鈥?and this was used as a rallying point for our effort in Vietnam. But for us, as boys in Asia whom the country was supposed to support, his statement is a terrible distortion from which we can only draw a very deep sense of revulsion, and hence the anger of some of the men who are here in Washington today. It is a distortion because we in no way consider ourselves the best men of this country 鈥?鈥?br>
U.S. Veteran Dispatch noted in 1996: 鈥淜erry's testimony, it should be noted, occurred while some of his fellow Vietnam veterans were known by the world to be enduring terrible suffering as prisoners of war in North Vietnamese prisons. Kerry was a supporter of the 鈥楶eople's Peace Treaty,鈥?quot; a supposed 鈥榩eople's鈥?declaration to end the war, reportedly drawn up in communist East Germany. It included nine points, all of which were taken from Viet Cong peace proposals at the Paris peace talks as conditions for ending the war.鈥?br>
Throw as I say, not as I do: On that same day he led members of VVAW in a protest during which they threw their medals and ribbons over a fence in front of the U.S. Capitol.
Kerry later admitted the medals he threw were not his. To this day they hang on the wall of his office.
Communist stooge: The communist Daily World delightedly published photos of him speaking to demonstrators and boasted that the marchers displayed a banner depicting a portrait of Communist Party leader Angela Davis, on record stating, 鈥淚 am dedicated to the overthrow of your system of government and your society,鈥?the New American recalled in May 2003.
鈥淏y frequently participating in VVAW鈥檚 demonstrations, Kerry found himself marching alongside what the Boston Herald Traveler identified as 鈥榬evolutionary Communists.鈥?While noting that known Reds had openly organized these events, the December 12, 1971 Herald Traveler reported the presence of an 鈥榓bundance of Vietcong flags, clenched fists raised in the air, and placards plainly bearing legends in support of China, Cuba, the USSR, North Korea and the Hanoi government.鈥?quot;
Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry says: 鈥淎s a national leader of VVAW, Kerry campaigned against the effort of the United States to contain the spread of Communism. He used the blood of servicemen still in the field for his own political advancement by claiming that their blood was being shed unnecessarily or in vain.
鈥淯nder Kerry's leadership, VVAW members mocked the uniform of United States soldiers by wearing tattered fatigues marked with pro-communist graffiti. They dishonored America by marching in demonstrations under the flag of the Viet Cong enemy.鈥?br>
Sen. John McCain revealed that his North Vietnamese captors had used reports of Kerry-led protests to taunt him and his fellow prisoners. Retired General George S. Patton III angrily noted that Kerry鈥檚 actions had 鈥済iven aid and comfort to the enemy.鈥?
In recent years when Kerry has exploited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial for photo opportunities on Veterans Day, some veterans, still outraged by his betrayal, have turned their backs on him.
The book he doesn鈥檛 want you to see: When Kerry ran for election to the U.S. House of Representative in 1972, 鈥渉e found it necessary to suppress reproduction of the cover picture appearing on his own book, The New Soldier. His political opponent pointed out that it depicted several unkempt youths crudely handling an American flag to mock the famous photo of the U.S. Marines at Iwo Jima,鈥?according to Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry.
鈥淪uddenly, copies of the book became unavailable and even disappeared from libraries. But the Lowell (Mass.) Sun said of the type of person shown on its cover: 鈥楾hese people spit on the flag, they burn the flag, they carry the flag upside down, [and] they all but wipe their noses with it in their efforts to show their contempt for everything it still stands for,鈥欌€?the New American reported.
Even today it is hard to find this infamous photo and book.
Friendly with the enemy: Kerry鈥檚 fondness for Vietnam鈥檚 communist dictatorship, one of the most oppressive in the world, continues.
As chairman of the Select Senate Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, created in 1991 to investigate reports that U.S. prisoners of war and soldiers designated missing in action were still alive in Vietnam, Kerry badgered the panel into voting that no American servicemen remained in Vietnam.
鈥淸N]o one in the United States Senate pushed harder to bury the POW/MIA issue, the last obstacle preventing normalization of relations with Hanoi, than John Forbes Kerry,鈥?noted U.S. Veteran Dispatch.
鈥淏ut Kerry's participation in the Committee became controversial in December 1992,鈥?reported the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, 鈥渨hen Hanoi announced that it had awarded Colliers International, a Boston-based real estate company, an exclusive deal to develop its commercial real estate potentially worth billions. Stuart Forbes, the CEO of Colliers, is Kerry's cousin.鈥?br>
The 鈥渙dd coincidence,鈥?according to FrontPageMagazine.com, involved a deal worth $905 million.
Jeff Jacoby, the token conservative columnist at the Boston Globe, notes that Kerry continues his apologia for Vietnam's never-ending atrocities. "Far from taking the lead on the Vietnam Human Rights Bill, he has prevented it from coming to a vote. He claims that making an issue of Hanoi's repression would be counterproductive."
Kerry is also a fan of China鈥檚 communist dictatorship. 鈥淥n May 19, 1994, five years after Tiananmen Square, Kerry spoke on the Senate floor against linking China's Most Favored Nation trade status to its human rights record,鈥?Slate reported.
Kerry said: 鈥淐hina is the strongest military power in Asia. We need China's cooperation. We cannot afford to adopt a cold-war kind of policy that merely excludes and pushes China away.鈥?
Limiting China's MFN status 鈥渨ould make us a bit player in a production of enormous proportions. We possess no stick, including MFN, which can force China to embrace internationally recognized human rights and freedoms.鈥?br>
More extreme than Hillary and Kucinich: Among the White House wannabes, long-shot Rep. Dennis Kucinich has the reputation of holding the most left-wing congressional voting record. In fact, this 鈥渉onor鈥?goes to Kerry.
According to American Conservative Union, Kerry has a lifetime rating of 6 percent, compared to 13 for the demolished Rep. Dick Gephardt, 14 for Sen. John Edwards, 15 for Kucinich and 19 for Sen. Joe Lieberman.
Sens. Hillary Clinton and Tom Daschle score 13 percent. Only the likes of Sens. Teddy Kennedy and Barbara Boxer have more left-wing records than Kerry. In contrast, Sen. John Breaux, one of the upper chamber鈥檚 few remaining moderate Democrats, has a 46.
Drive as I say, not as I do: Like Al Gore and other self-described environmentalists, Kerry has a radical agenda that would devastate the U.S. economy in favor of the likes of communist China, yet he enjoys the gas-guzzling modern conveniences that greens denounce. Kerry, a delegate to the environment-destroying Earth Summit in 1992 (where he met his future wife, left-wing activist Teresa Heinz, the multimillionaire widow of GOP Sen. John Heinz), the Kyoto climate talks in 1997 and the Hague Conference of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2000, has attacked President Bush for withdrawing from the anti-U.S. Kyoto Protocol. This treaty, which then-President Bill Clinton had signed, would impose severe restrictions on the United States but not Third World polluters that already enjoy huge trade surpluses with the U.S.
However, although Kerry spouts the party line on anti-U.S. ecopolicy, he doesn鈥檛 like to practice what he preaches. Kerry was humiliated in April 2002 when photographed attending a rally against energy independence and then heading back to his SUV, the symbol of all that is evil to self-described greens.
Bone to pick: Bush-hating conspiracy theorists find it alarming that the president, like his father, was a member of the secretive Skull and Bones society at Yale University. Another alum of this club: John Kerry.
Get out your wallets: One reason Kerry and Edwards did well in Iowa: Losers Dean and Gephardt admitted they'd repeal all of the president's tax relief. However, although Kerry has taken credit for middle-class tax cuts, child tax credit and relief of the marriage penalty, he voted against them, GOP.com disclosed.
"Kerry will have to expend an awful lot of time and money to convince people that he's not the classic Massachusetts liberal," Larry Sabato, a respected political analyst at the University of Virginia, told the Associated Press in December 2002. "And that's going to be tough, because mainly he is."
Waffling on Iraq: Kerry has the tough job of wooing Howard Dean鈥檚 anti-war Democrats despite his support of the war in Iraq. His favorite tactic, claiming the president outfoxed him, doesn鈥檛 hold up to scrutiny.
On 鈥淢eet the Press鈥?in late August, Tim Russert played a tape of Kerry addressing the Senate in October 2002 with a hard-line speech declaring Iraq 鈥渃apable of quickly producing weaponizing鈥?of biological weapons that could be delivered against 鈥渢he United States itself.鈥?
Kerry insisted: 鈥淭hat is exactly the point I鈥檓 making. We were given this information by our intelligence community.鈥?br>
However, as columnist Robert Novak noted, 鈥渁s a senator, Kerry had access to the National Intelligence Estimate that was skeptical of Iraqi capability. Being tricky may no longer be as effective politically as it once was.鈥?
No doubt Dean, Lieberman, Clark and other rivals will now use these and other details to do to Kerry what the Democrats did to Dean. These things, many of which are highly suspect, have been repeated many many times, so why do you pretend that no one has heard of these things? sorry liberals,these are all facts,you can whine and name call all you want,it doesn't change the truth. Report It
I happen to be a democrat, and I voted against Kerry because of his lies,, much bigger than anything bush has done.
Bush is stupid, but nowhere near as stupid as Kerry.
Kerry would have pulled out, and like the coward he is, cut&run litterally...because thats all he is capable of. Report It
Wow - this is not the place or the time to campaign as far as I am concerned; how rude. The usual lies... why? Are you worried about this Kerry guy? Shrugg. I guess that old record is still in the play by the trolls. wake up, WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, he's a great guy isn't he. I didn't know he's going for 2008. If he had won the last one, its unlikely that we would still be in Iraq where we don't belong. I'd rather see him on the ticket than hillary. Thanks for the propaganda, neocon. Good grief, you right wing crackpots just don't know when to stop, do you? You went after a war hero and tried to destroy him. Well , congratulations. Now you have a dry drunk Draft Dodger in Chief in the White House who has no brain cells left after years of drug and alcohol abuse. Let's not forget Deadeye Dick Cheney either. He got 5 draft deferments. The 2 of them have all but ruined our country.
The best defense against logic is ignorance. And you have bought into the ignorance of the right willingly. What a bunch of losers. ummm, whats the point of this??? as far as i know, the presidential election has been over for a year and a half now...and its too early to tell if he is going to make a serious run in 2008. this article is extrememly old, and really has no use now but to bring up old grudges that nobody cares about anymore. Hey Pampers boy. You must craped yourself like five times writing that. So how is the bed wetting thing going? |
