Drudge Smear: Old Crimson Interview Reveals A More Radical John Kerry

[rodbarnett]

<snip>

“I’m an internationalist,” Kerry told The Crimson in 1970. “I’d like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations.”

Kerry said he wanted “to almost eliminate CIA activity. The CIA is fighting its own war in Laos and nobody seems to care.”

The Kerry campaign, celebrating primary victories in Virginia and Tennessee last night, declined to comment on the senator’s remarks.

As a candidate for president, Kerry has said he supports the autonomy of the U.S. military and has never called for a scale-back of CIA operations

http://www.thecrimson.com/today/article357339.html

[Screaming Lord Byron]

1. Well, Drudge, let's see an interview with George W. from 1970

Let's see who holds up better.

[SoFlaJets]

2. I'll take Kerrys'individualism

over Bushs' priveledged stance anyday anyhow-rich kids weren't the ones fighting in Vietnam kids like my brother were.

[Lindsay]

3. I'm waiting for the revelation

of Kerry's first grade report card. Bound to be something scandalous there.

(Of course, they wouldn't want us to see *'s...an F for "plays well with others.")

[Muddleoftheroad]

5. It's legit

Hell, he said those things as a congressional candidate.

[Cannikin]

4. Hey, Drudge, how's the Hollywood bar scene?

Come out of the closet yet?

[Noon_Blue_Apples]

6. As * would say

"that was 34 years ago"

can't play it both ways

B

[Carni]

7. Who gives a shit what someone SAID 34 years ago!

Gee...Do you suppose he also wore bell bottoms, wide belts with large belt buckles and a bad hairdo?

This is truly freaking shocking!

[Muddleoftheroad]

8. What is shocking

He didn't say it at a party. He didn't say it casually. He made a position statement during a congressional campaign. THAT follows you around.

Sure, I have little doubt he has changed his mind, but you have to admit, it's a pretty extreme change.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

9. Fair enough, but remember who the real enemy is here.

I'm ABB and I'll defend any candidate against a hostile media. I can live with the differences between John Kerry's interview in 1970 and his views now.

[Muddleoftheroad]

17. As can I

But it IS fair to bring it up.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Yavin4]

13. If You Were Just Wounded In An Illegitimate War

I'd like to read your comments. Put things into perspective. The man had every right to be angry as hell to his government that sent him to fight a war over nothing.

[markus]

14. In the context of the times, a perfectly reasonble statement

I'm still not sure any nation should be able to move its troops overseas without U.N. approval, except in self-defense.

And as for the 1970s CIA, it was primarily a criminal organization. How do you feel about the operations of the Cali drug cartel? Or the us operations to undermine the duly elected government of Venezuala (or 1980s Nicaragua, for that matter).

[Muddleoftheroad]

18. The UN doesn't decide what is self defense

That's why.

[markus]

25. No, but if the it can decide who is outside of international law

and sanction them appropriately.

I don't see where agreeing to abide by established standards of international law (largely established by teh U.S.) is a problem, unles you Bush* or Halliburton.

[Muddleoftheroad]

30. International law

Is neither international, nor law. It is a hope, a dream perhaps that ignores the realities of the world.

[woo me with science]

19. i agree

i think it is a problem. the media has been so stuck on GWB's record from years ago....it only makes sense that they'd start pulling up what kerry was doing 30 years ago, too. IMHO if that's fair game, so is this.

i wish everyone would focus on the here and now.

[hyphenate]

24. It shouldn't matter!

It was 34 years ago, for god's sake! Even if I believed in the Easter Bunny 34 years ago, chances are I don't anymore. 34 years ago, GWB was a stupid, moromic alky with a cocaine problem. Does the RW hold THAT against him anymore?

[Muddleoftheroad]

32. It was a congressional race

That does put it into play.

[nolabels]

20. They didn't put a lot of stock what a lot presidents had to put forward.

Mostly because no one ever said boo about the secret underbelly of the US government and its machinations. JFK was the one that spoke up, after experiencing several activities that were undermining his presidency and the country he represented, he became very angry with them. He stated was going to smash the ugly thing into a thousand pieces. They took to his life to make an example of him and under the assumption he might try.

Frankly I don't care if Kerry or any other person wants to turn tail and run like a coward, that's their choice(btw I don't think Kerry would especialy with the support of a large majority of people).

In the end though, one must realize that sooner or later there is no place to hide and you have to do for yourself before others can lend a hand. I wasn't born under a rock and don't intend to be hiding under one anytime soon. Look to yourself for your own courage, nobody else can give it to you anyway.

Living a life and believing it's okay to be part of an assumed illusion is are two incompatible concepts

[Debi]

26. Oh...But what Howard Dean said ten

years ago is relevant to his candidacy....Yum, cake...and I can eat it too!!! :party:

[DemNoir]

10. Who cares

Plus its not LBN

[enki23]

11. it's just too bad

he isn't still saying that. he was right, back then. more right, anyway. of course, if he were he probably wouldn't be democratic frontrunner.

[billhos]

15. This is not good

If this campaign focus's on what the candidates said and did thirty some years ago as young men, then theDemocrats will loose. No body cares much! What the campaign needs to focus on is what they will do over the next four years. People will not vote out an incumbent unless the opposition can come up with a coherant alternative. remember what happened in the 2002 elections.

[Karmadillo]

16. What Bush said at about the same time

"You take Sally
And I'll take Sue
There ain't no difference
Between the two
Cocaine
Running all around my brain"

[gauguin57]

21. everything's fair game ...

and Kerry can take each statement/revelation/old vote and deal with them as they arise. Explain himself, explain his thinking. Drudge is a sensationalist. Screaming headlines over nothing are his stock in trade. When he finds incontrovertible evidence that Kerry was devil-worshipping in his back yard last week, I'll worry. Till then, I'll just roll my eyes at the Drudgester.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

22. Personal account of Kerry losing his ideals in 1983. very sad...

This is a personal account from a member of the American Friends Service Committee that my father sent to me to warn me not to expect much from Kerry by way of policy change.

"...what Kerry did and told me in 1983 (not to mention two decades of compromised behavior since) it has little to do with him as a presidential candidate. Back then, as Lieutenant Governor, Kerry played an important role in Senator Kennedy’s effort to convince the Reagan Administration to choose Boston as the Homeport for the planned Battleship Iowa naval flotilla. The central weapons system of that flotilla was to be the nuclear-armed Tomahawk cruise missile. That the deployment of these weapons was a violation of the Nuclear Weapons Freeze which Kerry and Kennedy ostensibly supported, that these weapons made war with the Soviet Union more likely, that the Navy has a long history of nuclear weapons accidents, and that the homeport was to be located at the end of a busy runway at Boston’s Logan Airport (and thus carried the danger of a catastrophic nuclear weapons accident,) were of no consequence for Kerry as he made his political calculations.

Along with Tony Palomba of Mobilization for Survival, I led the successful opposition to the Homeporting campaign. At one point I had a one on four meeting with Kerry, two of his aides, and one of (then) Governor Dukaukis’ aides. During that meeting, every time I asked Kerry a question about the dangers and roles of the nuclear armed Tomahawks and the flotilla itself, he answered by saying “As an old Navy hand…” you have nothing to fear, or “As an old Navy hand…” it’s not a problem.

Seeing that he was hardly about to give an inch, I explained that I remembered what he had said and had done as he organized and worked with Vietnam Vets Against the War, and I asked him how what he was telling me squared with what he had said then. A long and excruciating silence followed, during which it seemed that we could hear dust fall on the floor boards of his State House office.


Finally, he broke the painful silence and said “The name of the game is different now.”



That my friends is the Senator Kerry that many of us here in Massachusetts have come to know over the past two decades.



In addition to needing hard and clear statements of policy from Kerry now as a candidate, we also need to be educating and organizing so that if we are fortunate enough not to be saddled with the imperial Texas Mafia beginning in 2005, that we are ready to confront and move a Democratic Administration which would come to power in the tradition of those that have launched imperial wars, refused to implement the NPT, and practiced “coercive diplomacy” with nuclear threats and blackmail, and urged funding for so-called “missile defenses” and the militarization of space.

Sorry to be an iconoclast, but illusions will kill us…and many others."

[hyphenate]

23. NONE of us are the people

We were 20, 30 years ago. Except if you're Arnold, and you like groping women.

Let's face it: the RW can only disperse materials on Kerry which are older than Bush's DUI and cokehead days. If that's the best they can do, they need to be sent to their corner and not be allowed to play until after we whoop their master's ass in November.

[shanti]

27. good!

then i'll be HAPPY to vote for him should he get the nomination!

[ramapo]

28. Did he inhale?

Can he claim that when he was young and foolish he did young and foolish things?

[Sean Reynolds]

29. I really miss the old Kerry.

Remember, the new Kerry said if Howard Dean were elected he'd have to get permission from the UN to wage war.

[DU GrovelBot]

31. ## Support Democratic Underground! ##

RUN C:\GROVELBOT.EXE
 
This week is our first quarter 2004 fund drive.
Please take a moment to donate to DU. Thank you
for your support.
 
- An automated message from the DU GrovelBot

Click here to donate.

[truthisfreedom]

33. yeah, well try drudging up some old bush interviews for a good laugh.