Restless intellect drives Kerry's positions-"Kerry: The Complete Biography

[papau]

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/articles/2004/04/25/restless_intellect_drives_kerrys_positions/


This article was reported by Michael Kranish, Brian C. Mooney, and Nina J. Easton and is based on "John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography" (Public Affairs, 2004).http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/kerry/book/

Restless intellect drives Kerry's positions
April 25, 2004

When John Forbes Kerry was chosen to deliver the class oration at his Yale graduation ceremony in 1966, he didn't intend to offer his fellow students "any eternal truth." His purpose, he wrote in his draft, was "to challenge and not to preach, to question and not to answer." But then Kerry switched course, threw out the speech, and delivered a prescient critique of US foreign policy in Vietnam.

Kerry's layers of complexity were more evident by his subsequent action: He volunteered to serve in the war he was already questioning.

Today, the words of that 22-year-old college student define the political life of the 60-year-old Massachusetts senator and Democratic presidential candidate he came to be. As Kerry makes his case to voters that he is better suited than George W. Bush to lead the nation, he is bedeviled by accusations that he lacks a clear vision, that he drowns his positions in nuance, and that he frequently contradicts himself. On the campaign trail, protesters chide him by applauding with flip-flop sandals.

As detailed in a forthcoming Globe biography, "John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography," Kerry is a man with a strong but restless intellect, a political figure who is at his best when probing rather than presenting. Just as North Carolina Senator John Edwards was the consummate trial attorney on the campaign trail, charming voters as he once charmed juries, Kerry remains the prosecutor he once was, with a keen eye for the vulnerabilities of his opponents but a lawyerly ability to argue more than one side of an issue.

As a senator, Kerry's experience in Vietnam drove him to ferret out government misdeeds, but not always with success or political acuity. Ironically, in the course of one Senate investigation (his "last" Vietnam mission, he said), he concluded the government he once protested was not involved in lies and coverups; there were no mass prisons of US soldiers secretly being held in Indochina, as many families and conspiracy theorists insisted. His efforts helped move the country toward normalized relations with Vietnam.<snip>

[dkf]

1. You call it complexity, I call it permanently conflicted

He's got what I've got in that I constantly search for info but have a hard time reaching a decision.

But decisionmaking is the main thing a leader does!

I don't see how this personality type sells as President.

[papau]

2. Easy WRONGdecisions if you don't think - I'd prefer Kerry and his Thinking

:-)

[lovedems]

3. When you are making decisons that effect our country, you need

to constantly search for info and reaching a decision should not neccessarily be easy.

Look at the 700 dead because of lack of information, lack of plan and lack of decision making skills. Kerry's well thought and well informed decision making is exactly what sells a President if you ask me.