Reply #20: Could it have been 911 and the fact that we were at war?

[karynnj]

Though that should not have led to the personal attacks on John Kerry. Reading the earlier comments, which showed real respect and as much as you can tell, friendliness towards John Kerry.

The only thing I think of is that he is from a generation when you said nothing against the President and did not criticize how he was fighting a war. This is alien to me, a child of the sixties, but I was stunned to hear my parents, who are swing voters, take that point of view. I heard about it only years after 2004, when I asked my mom why she so strongly disliked John Kerry. From what I knew of Kerry, he should have been a candidate that she should really have liked - both for his character and the work he did in the Senate. The reason was that she felt it was wrong that he said it was not a war of last resort - meaning to my Catholic mom that it was not a just war and that he spoke against how it was being run - even though she agreed that he was right that much was done wrong.

Now, to most here the idea that Kerry was too outspoken against the war is a pretty rare opinion. I mentioned that the dominant feeling on the left was that Kerry should have gone further - which stunned her.