Kerry's Testimony (LAT)

[struggle4progress]

August 26, 2004

It turns out that the attack on John Kerry's war record was just Act 1. Now the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (and, miraculously, all the right-wing media) have turned to Kerry's antiwar record. After returning from Vietnam, Kerry became a spokesman for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a major force in the antiwar movement. In 1971, he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This famous testimony launched Kerry's political career and the talk of him as a future president. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger can be heard fretting about it on the Watergate tapes.
<snip>

There is some ambiguity, or purposeful confusion, about the precise objection to Kerry's ancient testimony. Is it something in particular that he said? Or is it the very fact that Kerry opposed the Vietnam War and worked to end it?
<snip>

The late 1960s were a moral obstacle course for young Americans, especially young men. Kerry is one of the few who got it right. He served and served bravely, as even President Bush now concedes. Then he came back home and worked to stop the killing and the dying.

George W. Bush, by the way, dodged the second part too.

http://www.latimes.com/la-ed-kerry26aug26,1,2495708.story?coll=la-home-utilities

[A_Possum]

1. No ambiguity here.

Kerry, the Congressional Record, 1971:

"Mr. Kerry: Well, Senator, frankly it does not appeal to me if American men have to continue to die when they don't have to, particularly when it seems the Government of this country is more concerned with the legality of where men sleep than it is with the legality of where they drop bombs. (Applause.)...

...But at the present moment that is not going to happen, so we are talking about men continuing to die for nothing and I think there is a tremendous moral question here which the Congress of the United States is ignoring...

...But I think if we can talk in this legislative body about filibustering for porkbarrel programs, then we should start now to talk about filibustering for the saving of lives and of our country. (Applause.)

And this, Mr. Chairman, is what we are trying to convey."