My very first blog post: courtesy of John Kerry
In yesterday’s comments about Obama’s nomination of John Kerry as Secretary of State, Geoffrey Britain referred to Kerry as a “loathsome type.”
That reminded me that it was that very quality of John Kerry’s that helped drive me to become a blogger way back in 2004, when my posting was intermittent and I had a readership of about three—and two of them were me.
Sure enough, if you go back to posts from the earliest days of this blog (and eliminate “testing,” and two posts I’d written for other venues first and simply republished on the blog) you come to the very first post I wrote expressly for the blog. It appeared on September 30, 2004, and the subject was Democratic nominee John Kerry.
Revisiting it now, after all these long and eventful years (eight, count ’em), I find that not only do I still agree with the description there of Kerry, but that it also is a fairly good fit for Obama.
Odd—but still another reason why Obama might find Kerry so very simpatico:
Kerry is one slick operator, very experienced in this venue [debates] and relatively cool, calm, and collected. But his narcissism (and I mean that in the clinical sense) was on full display last night. The word “I” is not only his favorite word, but his voice caresses it and draws it out in a way that is very telling. He seems to believe that he only has to say that he will do something, and–by virtue of being the very remarkable “I” that he is–he will convince us that it will be done. It is a remarkable and very consistent trait, not a good thing in a leader, and clearly antithetical to any idea of coalition-building.
As for Kerry’s policy statements, others have discussed them better than I (for example, see this and this ). But I must say that Kerry said a few things that literally made my jaw drop: his emphasis on “summits” and the UN (I thought I was back in the early 60s); the giving of nuclear fuel to Iran as some sort of test; and the nixing of the bunker busters, one of the few weapons that have the potential to allow us to destroy nuclear weapons and material stored in underground bunkers by the likes of Iran or North Korea…
I wonder how anyone can credit a person like Kerry who only says, “He, Bush, did it wrong; but I, Kerry, would do it right,” without providing a crumb of evidence as to why that would be so.
And now he’s going to be Obama’s Secretary of State. In retrospect, it seems inevitable.
[NOTE: The subject of John Kerry and Vietnam is so vast that it can be hard to know where to stop. But for those of you unfamiliar with Kerry’s post-Vietnam exploits and why his appointment might especially gall those Vietnam vets who are not on the left, see this about Kerry’s Winter Solder Investigation and whether it was based on truth or not (also see this for a discussion of the more general problem of false witness by fake Vietnam vets). Also, there’s Kerry’s famous 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—a committee of which he is presently chairman, forty-one years later.
I was going to choose some excerpts from that testimony of his. But I can’t. Or rather, I could, but I won’t, because I’d really like you to read the whole thing. I think it needs to be taken in as a whole.
And then afterwards it might be sobering to reflect on the fact that this man—with his “most people didn’t even know the difference between communism and democracy” mentality, is about to become our new Secretary of State. As such he will be instrumental, along with President Obama, in setting and implementing our foreign policy around the world.
I’d also like to direct you to discussions of just a few of the “facts” cited by Kerry in his testimony. One is the quote about destroying the village in order to save it (see this and this for discussions of the veracity of the quote). Another is his assertion that black soldiers had the highest percentage of casualties (see this for some actual statistics, as well as this).
I will add that, strangely enough, back when I was a liberal in the 60s and 70s, something about Kerry almost instantaneously raised my hackles. He seemed a phony, self-aggrandizing, pompous, opportunistic, narcissistic windbag even back then. Or maybe especially back then.]
About the only crumb of comfort that I can take away from this – is at least he has not been nominated as Secretary of Defense, as was rumored earlier. THAT would have been an unbearable insult for Vietnam-era military veterans.
Kerry’s Winter Soldier antics are well documented, but my antipathy is rooted in more prosaic, but equally dishonest actions.
While not so naive as to believe that the military awards system is pristine, and I know for fact that it is far from it, there is one award that should command universal respect. That is the Purple Heart. The astounding corruption that Kerry engaged in by finagling three Purple Hearts without spending a single night in a medical facility is simply disgusting. No one understands to this day how he induced others to support his bogus claims. In some ways this episode is the biggest insult of all, because it has the capacity to tarnish the respect accorded to all generations of truly grievously wounded service persons. Kerry demonstrated that even this straightforward recognition of sacrifice is open to corruption. Most are unaware of this aspect of Kerry’s dishonesty, but the confirmation hearings will no doubt bring it back to the forefront of public consciousness.
I won’t even go into the bogus Silver Star episode.
You meet people along the way who have their eyes set on the Presidency or other high political prize at a very young age. Kerry seems to have been one of those people. Always building a good resume and cover letter without doing anything substantive or meaningful.
I was and continue to be shocked that anyone could fail to see through either Kerry or, a forteriori, Obama. I could see people supporting Clinton, the at least superficially charming rascal, but not the other two.
If Kerry had been a POW, couldn’t you just see him breaking faith with his fellow POWs to cut himself a better deal? That probably would have been the first thing he did in captivity.
Obama is basically a human hologram. There’s just nothing there; he’s a triumph of the (Red) marketers’ art.
I wouldn’t have hired, nor trusted, either one of them.
Neo,
The 2004 presidential election was eye-opening for me as well. First, I volunteered for Wes Clark during the primaries out of my belief we needed an experienced military man as Commander in Chief. It was then I witnessed the vulgarity of Democratic machine politics from the inside – not directed at Republicans, mind you, but against each other. Clark, a neophyte politician, didn’t stand a chance.
Kerry emerged as the Dems presidential candidate, which wasn’t remarkable until he had the gall to highlight his military record. I’m Gen X, but even I had heard about Kerry’s antics protesting the Vietnam War where he prostituted his military background. Touting his military record was an insult to all honorable veterans, especially Vietnam veterans. Years before, during the summer between leaving the Army and starting college, I had by chance web-surfed to the Swiftboat veterans campaign, so I was not surprised when they rose up to dispute Kerry’s touting of his military service.
The vicious counter-attacks by Democrats against honorable veterans responding to a dishonorable veteran exposed me to the unscrupulous depths and no-hold-barred attitude of the Democrats. I learned that the Democrats default strategy is to attack the messenger (ad hominem) and corrupt the message (straw man) rather than a genuine engagement of ideas. They’re Machiavellian, mean, narcissistic, and have no shame, which unfortunately, has helped and not hurt them.
During the 60’s, 70’s and even the 80’s I too was a liberal. And I too had the exact same reaction to Kerry from the very first.
In my case, when Kerry was testifying to the Senate committee, I saw none of it, nor had I ever heard of Kerry until long after his coming to national attention.
In 1971, I was on an aircraft carrier, on a WestPac cruise, off the coast of Vietnam. If not directly, I was one of those accused by Kerry of war crimes.
In 1971 there was no satellite TV or Internet. Unless you subscribed to a newspaper or news magazine, which would be delivered weeks later, news was only available to servicemen at sea, if you read the heavily censored Stars and Stripes, which I did not. Letters were generally concerned with family and friends, so I had no idea what was going on back home. Nor frankly, did I much care being young, dumb and full of ‘oats’.
When years later, I learned of the charges Kerry had made, I immediately knew them to be both untrue and a baldfaced lie. Not just of me but of our military. Incidents like My Lai were aberrations not the norm and Kerry knew it at the time he made those charges. The man has the ethical compunctions of a snake.
So when I first heard Kerry talk, I had no idea who he was but like neo his phony, self-aggrandizing, pompous, opportunistic, narcissism came through loud and clear…even to a liberal.
People like Kerry lie out of personal ambition and then rationalize their lies, as a positive good that serves a ‘higher purpose’. Both the Clinton’s are examples of it as well. And now with Obama it has become both the norm and the modus operandi of the left.
Could it have been that he looks French? Or just that his voice, delivery, and mannerisms just absolutely grate on your nerves?
The Purple Heart: Why the Dems got so upset by Purple Heart Band-Aids.
It’s truly astounding that someone who has a place of honor in a war museum in Vietnam for helping win the war for the other side could be nominated for President or Secretaru of State. This man should have been in prison for treason for the last 40 years. Considering his generous helping of psychopathic character traits, some one should double check the cause of death of his wife’s first husband.
When all things are considered, that Kerry has a place of honor in a war museum in Vietnam for helping win the war for the other side seems entirely appropriate. More eloquent condemnation might be difficult to achieve.
And yes, in spirit if not (perhaps) in provable fact, the man is a traitor. It does not speak well of McCain that he can even stand to be in the same room with him. Spitting in Kerry’s face every time McCain meets him, would be an appropriate greeting. Or randomly, so that Kerry never knows when its coming.
When all is said and done however, Kerry as Obama’s SecState is entirely in keeping with Obama’s malfeasance and dereliction of duty.
The Swift Boat veterans’ campaign in 2004 was one of the first instances where I thought “the media are not even pretending anymore.” I’d always known they were biased and agenda-driven, but this was so very open. It was clear that their mission was to disprove the vets’ allegations and discredit the vets themselves. Whereas if it had been the other way around, with a veterans’ group attacking Bush, they would have been working to publicize and support the charges. Instead of “hey, here are some serious charges, let’s see if there’s anything to them” it was “hey, here’s some nuts attacking our guy, let’s investigate *them*.”
I was following the Swiftboat veterans actions with regard to Kerry in the 2004 campaign, and I also was absolutely boggled at the clear favoritism displayed by the mainstream media. Many of the other milbloggers were also following the matter closely – and many of them (like myself) were of an age to have been in the military on active service in the 1970s and 1980s – when there were still a lot of Vietnam-era veterans around. The military is a very … closed place, with a culture of memory of times and traditions and people; my daughter served as a Marine for eight years after 1998, and she tells me that Jane Fonda is still a presence in USMC lore. 18-year old Marines know about and despise her still, in spite of the fact that they were born years after her notoriety as an anti-war protestor was established.
I also live in a military town (San Antonio) which is stiff with retired veterans of all services, and during 2004 I couldn’t find a one of them who did not despise John Kerry with an intensity which rendered them practically incoherent. He was the Swiftboat Service’s version of Eddie Haskell or Frank Burns – and hey, it’s not a crime to be a total jerk – but what he did after his service in calumniating other Vietnam veterans put him beyond the pale as far as they are concerned.
He is a loathsome POS, and he will fit into the Obama cabinet very well. Birds of a vile feather, and all of that.
Don’t forget the “irregularities” about his military discharge; issued about four years later than it should have been, and by the Board for the Correction of Naval Records.
The logical conclusion was that Kerry got a OTH or DD discharge because of his anti-war antics while he should have still been in the reserves, and that he was saved by Jimmy Carter’s blanket pardon of draft dodgers.
Barack Obama as President, and John Kerry as Sec State. The Republic has truly fallen, and America is dead.
We see Kerry for what he is (or, to be scrupulously fair, what we for good reason think he is), but it’s remarkable that others don’t simply do a consistency check on the man’s views.
Kerry made his reputation (such as it was) by sliming the military, accusing his fellow servicemen of war crimes, throwing his medals over the White House fence, undercutting the war effort, and treating with the enemy, and then ran for President as a war hero??? WTF?
Which is it – whistleblower disgusted by the military, its culture and conduct, or war hero? Surely someone who had firsthand knowledge of the atrocities Kerry related would be ashamed to be associated with the military in any capacity.
That he not only is willing to be associated with the military, but talked incessantly about the operative three months of his life during his campaign demonstrates beyond doubt that either
1) his allegations were rubbish, or
2) he has no principles whatsoever, or
3) both. (My choice.)
The man is a turd. How anyone could possibly avoid that conclusion baffles me.
“Surely someone who had firsthand knowledge of the atrocities Kerry related would be ashamed to be associated with the military in any capacity.”
Kerry captained a riverboat and was in Vietnam a grand total of less than 4 months. His fraudulently obtained Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts were secured under false pretenses with assistance from political and military individuals who were opposed to the war and in a position to facilitate the awarding of those citations and constitute a crime in and of itself.
He had absolutely no personal knowledge of any atrocities. Just one of the many lies he’s told.
Under any circumstance this man is a collaborator, a traitor and an embarrassment to the entire human race. Truly an example of “a waste of skin”.
Kerry said one of the first things he would do when elected President was to introduce legislation that would save Social Security from bankruptcy. I wondered why he never introduced this legislation before nor since. It must be a “secret” plan.
Occam’s Beard
This unprincipled attempt to be all things to all people was also shown with his “I voted before it before I voted against it” remark.
Oldflyer:
Some years back on this blog, a veteran commented that there is never a perfect correspondence between getting a medal and deserving one. Some people who deserve a medal don’t get one. Some people [such as JFKerry] get a medal without deserving one.
In that sense, there would be no point in debating whether or not Kerry deserved his medals.
His getting the medals and getting out of combat after four months for “wounds” that would be laughed at in a sandlot athletic contest can be looked at from another perspective.
During the 2004 campaign, many Demos claimed that Kerry did his duty, while Dubya gamed the system by getting into the National Guard. Most of us of draft age during the Vietnam War era- myself included- gamed the system in one form or another. If Dubya gamed the system, he was no worse than most of us.
Anyone who gets out of Vietnam eight months early for “wounds” which would be laughed at in a sandlot athletic contest has also gamed the system.
Gringo, I readily acknowledged that the military awards system is not pristine. I have a couple of awards myself that were a complete stretch in my mind. I have a friend who earned the same Silver Star that Kerry earned–for shooting down a MIG over Kep–when it was a close call whether to court martial him, or decorate him. Another friend was awarded that medal–which Kerry got for shooting a wounded Viet Cong in the back–after he attacked two MIGs to chase them off of a Buddy’s tail; he didn’t have any ammunition, he went after them unarmed and faked them out. So, there is certainly room for variance in most awards.
But, I maintained that there is one award that should be exempt from subjective, or political, bias. That is the Purple Heart. I also tried to make it clear that the reason it bothers me so is that his actions create room in the future for the skepticism you expressed about this award, which is presented solely for suffering and sacrifice in service to the country.
A hypothetical scenario: A youngster who has lost a limb, or other permanent impairment, proudly wears a Purple Heart. An anti-military POS looks at it, and says “so what, John Kerry earned three of those”.
Maybe I am stretching things, but personally that situation bothers the hell out of me.
Not that I for one minute excuse the other excrable actions by Kerry.
}}} As such he will be instrumental, along with President Obama, in setting and implementing our foreign policy around the world.
Hence the need for both a strong military and an armed citizenry.
Yet another sickening choice in an administration replete with them.
Four years from now, when these people are done with it, will we even recognize our own country?
One of the reasons why I consider the Left evil and have special feelings for them in my heart, is because they don’t go away when you ignore them, they don’t stop choosing the evil option whenever they have the power and authority to choose otherwise, and they just keep coming back.
Every time, the cancer kills more men, women, and kids. Every single time.
Meanwhile, those on the side of Light and Reason, get things like Alzheimer’s, heart attacks, early deaths, and other “coincidental deaths”.
One might wish to consider if that is truly the result of the world’s unfair misfortune, or if the alignment of evil looks out for their own one way or another. And the reason we fail, if for any cause, is because we don’t do the same for those enslaved by the Left every single day in the United States of America. As the Left’s power grows, our wanes, as they take more people from us and turn them into mindless zombies obedient to the Leftist dogmatic death cult Utopia.