Bob Kerrey on Lieberman: "I wanted to endorse him on the spot."

[dolstein]

Hold the Applause!
(September 4, 2003)
Sen. Bob Kerrey in the Wall St. Journal


. . .

I have not yet endorsed any of the candidates partly because I call most of them friends and because I am watching the campaigns and the way the candidates are conducting themselves. Among the characteristics I look for is the courage and independence to stand up and tell us something we don't want to hear. I want a leader who will tell us that sometimes we may be part of the problem. It's easy for politicians to say what people want to hear. My vote goes with the candidate who is willing to tolerate a round of boos to say what he thinks is right.

One notable example of that was Joe Lieberman's recent performance before a national gathering of labor leaders. Knowing that some of his views would be unpopular, Mr. Lieberman stood his ground and reaffirmed his support for open markets and free trade and for private school voucher experiments for poor children. He was loudly booed, and in response Mr. Lieberman said, "I'm going to speak the truth; I'm going say what I think is best for America regardless." I wanted to endorse him on the spot. He understands that America has always performed at its best when leaders know how to lead.

. . .

http://www.joe2004.com/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5773&JServSessionIdr012=a3tc0rkkh5.app20a&news_iv_ctrl=1021

[StopTheMorans]

1. Lieberman is a leader

"He understands that America has always performed at its best when leaders know how to lead." Yeah, he could lead us alright, lead the democratic party even further to the right :eyes:

[ShaneGR]

53. I don't agree with him on Lieberman BUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You took it out of context:

One of my biggest complaints about President Bush is that he is too preoccupied with getting applause from those with extreme views on economic and social issues. This is not a problem because these Americans are always wrong. It is a problem because they are not always right. Like most of us, they are sometimes right and sometimes wrong. The problem is that they threaten to withhold their political support from anyone who isn't "with them" 100% of the time.

Take the issues of tax cuts as an example. In order to please a relatively small number of Americans who believe that tax cuts are good no matter what the consequences, President Bush has undone a decade of Republican-inspired fiscal stewardship that placed the highest value on endowing posterity with savings, investment, and less debt. This stewardship began in 1991 with his father's decision to reject "voodoo economics" and culminated six years later when a Republican House and Senate partnered with a Democratic White House to pass legislation that balanced the federal budget leading to projected surpluses. When George W. Bush was sworn into office in 2001, we were paying down the federal debt with a surplus that he had promised to use to fix Social Security. Much has changed in just two-and-a-half years.

Trouble is, a promise to maintain fiscal discipline doesn't make anyone stand up and cheer. Tax cuts, on the other hand, make millions stand up and cheer and hundreds of thousands so happy they'll write millions of dollars in checks to fund a re-election campaign. The political calculus was simple, ruthless, and irresponsible.

As a former practicing elected representative, let me let you in on a little secret. It is easy for a politician to write and deliver a line that will bring most audiences to their feet. Applause lines have a specific structure that consists of three short sentences delivered sequentially. The first sentence makes an observation: Something is happening in America. The second sentence is a judgment: That something is wrong or it is right. The third sentence is a promise: To pass a law eliminating the wrong or expanding the right. Usually the speaker knows the audience, and plays to it.

[JI7]

2. shit

i wanted him to endorse john kerry. but they were on different sides in 2000 with bob kerrey supporting bill bradley and john kerry supporting al gore so it's not too much of a surprise. good for lieberman though, even if he doesn't get outright endorsement, the words are nice.

[Terwilliger]

3. Bob Kerrey: The War Criminal endorsement

woooo hooooo! :eyes:

[TheYellowDog]

13. That's terrible

Bob Kerrey was a great senator, and a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient. He is not a "war criminal."

[Terwilliger]

15. sorry

I don't get behind people that kill civilians

he shouldn't have been there...none of us should have

[StandWatie]

22. I don't get that..

the man led My Lai and he gets a pass here because he has a D behind his name but Powell is the devil for covering the thing up.

[JI7]

25. don't think kerrey was involved in my lai

i don't think bob kerrey was involved in my lai.

[Aidoneus]

27. ?

thought Kerrey's claim to fame was Thanh Phong, was there something else?

[StandWatie]

29. my bad..

You are correct.

[ButterflyBlood]

32. yep

http://www.counterpunch.org/valentine.html

[DemocratSinceBirth]

54. Lieutenant Calley Was Responsible For The My Lai Massacre

and Jimmy Carter led a campaign to free him when he was Goveronor of Georgia...



Bob Kerrey get's a pass. Who knows what happens in the fog of war... There are conflicting accounts of what happened...

We are better than our worst moments....


http://www.ccmep.org/2002_articles/General/101802_starring_jimmy_carter.htm

Look at how Alexander Cockburn eviscerates Carter... Nobody is perfect....

[Terwilliger]

34. well, I could trust that a fucked up kid could mistakenly kill civilians

Powell's duty was SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY...

Majorly, he was the "warrior" who knowingly co-ordinated a falsification of events in order to deceive the public (and Congress as well).

I won't forgive Kerrey that he did this and was forced to own up to it, but Colin Powell is part of the machne that makes it happen in some other country under some other banner of necessity driven by forces, that do NOT represent a lot of Americans, toward goals of global domination.

[ButterflyBlood]

31. He slaughtered a villiage of civilians

I'll take Ben Nelson over Kerrey any day. Nelson may be a spineless DINO, but Kerrey's a cold blooded murderer.

[Snow]

39. Better do a bit more research

1. Kerrey's memory of what happened in that village does not jibe with his accuser -
2. There is only one accuser out of that unit; none of the other participants remember it that way.
3. Kerrey said at the time the whole story was coming out something along the line of he didn't remember it that way, but supposes some of it could've happened, and the general consensus was, kid in a war, scared, maybe it happened, maybe it didn't, but "we are better than the worst thing we've done."
4. Kerrey was against the vietnam & later wars, and when asked while campaigning about that stance, replied by singing (very well) Eric Vogel's terrific anti-war song, "The band played waltzing matilda".

I knew Bob Kerrey although not closely while living in Omaha, and he struck me as a man of integrity, a decent person, albeit too conservative for me (and too liberal for most Nebraskans).

Don't fling epithets around so carelessly, please, without knowing more about your flingee....

[ButterflyBlood]

42. check out this link

it was part of a CIA operation: http://www.counterpunch.org/valentine.html

[Snow]

44. Yes, I saw that url the first time you posted it....

and I stand by my statement - you really should do a bit more research, rather than relying totally on counterpunch. WHile I like that site as well, some of their stuff is frequently over-the-top and not very well documented. The reliance on DeCamp in that article, for instance, is a bit alarming - he is not a source I would trust about Bob Kerrey for a number of reasons - chief among them being political rivalry and strong personal dislike (ie, DeCamp & Kerrey _really_ don't like each other).

[IndianaGreen]

47. Bob Kerrey was involved in a massacre of Vietnamese civilians

Kerrey was forced to admit his role when confronted with it.

August 2001
The Uncovering and Reburial of a War Crime
Exposé of Kerrey's massacre provokes media backlash
By John L. Hess

The last weekend of April marked a high point in American journalism, when the New York Times Magazine and 60 Minutes II exposed a dreadful war crime. It also marked a low point in American journalism, when the media denied the crime, minimized it, defended it and reburied it.

The story had first been exhumed by Newsweek's Gregory L. Vistica in 1998. He established that in the Mekong Delta one night in 1969, in the village of Thanh Phong, a squad of Navy SEALs led by Bob Kerrey knifed to death an elderly couple and three children, then gunned down a cluster of women and children. Kerrey was cited for killing 21 Vietcong, and awarded a Bronze Star. Confronted by Vistica nearly 30 years later, he acknowledged that the citation was false and said he'd agonized over the killings ever since. A few days later, he withdrew as a candidate for the presidency. On that ground, Newsweek spiked the story as no longer of interest.

Three years later, Vistica finally placed the story with the Times and CBS. Set to appear in the Sunday Magazine on April 29 and on 60 Minutes II on May 1, it was leaked to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post with Kerrey's cooperation. It set off a media storm. Most of the commentary accepted one or another version of Kerrey's often contradictory testimony, and treated him as the agonized victim of what Jonathan Alter of Newsweek (5/7/01) described as "gotcha" journalism. Kerrey told the Associated Press (4/28/01): "The Vietnam government likes to routinely say how terrible Americans were. The Times and CBS are now collaborating in that effort."

Mark Shields on PBS's NewsHour With Jim Lehrer (4/27/01) described the Times' cautious suggestion that the incident deserved a public inquiry as "an act of moral arrogance rarely seen." Brit Hume on Fox News Channel expressed similar outrage (4/29/01). His sometimes liberal panelist Juan Williams concurred: "I mean, this is unbelievable. We have these elite New York press type people…." (Williams is a Washington press type.) Mara Liasson of NPR chimed in: "You didn't see people from the major newspapers or television networks asking those questions." She was mistaken; an ABC reporter put the ironic question to Kerrey at a news conference, "What did you do that was wrong?"

http://www.fair.org/extra/0108/kerrey.html

Vietnam charges ex-Senator Bob Kerrey with war crimes
By Bill Vann
6 June 2002

Kerrey’s account evades the detailed description of the bloody start of the Thanh Phong raid that appeared in the New York Times magazine last year. A Navy enlisted man who served under Kerrey reported that there were five people in the house. An older man resisted and, according to this account, Kerrey knelt on his back while another raider cut his throat. The four others in the house—by one account a woman and three small children—were taken out and slaughtered separately.

Continuing the narrative in his new book, Kerrey says that he and his men proceeded into the village where they found only women and children, awakened by the noise and standing in front of their homes. Someone fired a shot, he said, and the SEAL squad returned “a tremendous barrage of fire.”

“I saw women and children in front of us being hit and cut to pieces. I heard their cries and other voices in the darkness as we made our retreat to the canal.”

This constitutes Kerrey’s sole description of a night in which he and the men he commanded massacred 21 women, children and elderly men.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jun2002/kerr-j06.shtml

[RobertFrancisK]

4. He does make a valid point

WHile I disagree with Lieberman on so so many issues, I think Kerrey is making a good point in saying that a candidate can't be afraid to be booed and needs to just lead. Lieberman was a bad example, but his heart is in the right place. Kerrey's a good man. He was one of the few to vote against the welfare reform bill and he served his country well.

[JI7]

8. agree

many times lieberman doesn't have to say the things he does. he can just leave them out or mention things he supports that he knows will bring applause, but he doesn't do that. he tells them what he is for even if it's not popular. and i can see why bob kerrey would admire him for that.

[dfong63]

great - lieberman endorsed by war criminal

[IndianaGreen]

48. Lieberman voted for the war, that makes him an accomplice to war crimes

Birds of a feather, flock together!

[ulysses]

5. good for Bob.

I admire stubbornness in defending unpopular views too, actually. But that alone does not make a candidate worth supporting.

Vouchers? Fuck off, Joe.

[dolstein]

30. My thinking on vouchers

I used to be opposed to vouchers. And I'm still opposed to vounchers if they go to middle and upper income families who can already afford to sent their children to private schools, or if the vouchers can be used to pay for education at institutions that discriminate, or if the money comes out of the public school vouchers. But frankly, I have a hard time complaining about an experimental voucher problem that provides money only to the poorest families, is funded outside the public school budget (i.e., it doesn't drain resources away from public schools) and in which only nondiscriminatory institutions are allowed to participate. Considering how regressive so many of our policies are today, having the government (in this case the federal government) give money to poor families ought to be a cause for celebration.

[ulysses]

41. we can run experimental programs all the livelong day

under controlled conditions, but don't you do that with a view toward expanding the idea? Otherwise, why do it?

Under a national program, how would the money *not* come out of the general education budget? Given what tuition is at most private schools - $5k/year at the tiny school where I teach now, and that's just pre-K through 6 - how do you fund a program that will send *all* poor children to private schools? And given that "competition" is such a mantra for voucher proponents, how do those private schools keep their competitive edge with an influx of kids from public schools?

[dolstein]

46. My answers

You run an experimental program to see if it works. You don't simply assume it will be successful. If the pilot programs are successful, you expand them. If they're unsuccessful, you kill them.

No, money for vouchers isn't necessarily money diverted from public schools. The way to make sure there isn't a diversion is to make sure that you continue to spend the same amount or more on public schools. I don't think it's correct to assume -- especially at the federal level, where the Republicans are in control -- that any amount spend on vouchers would otherwise have been spend on the public schools.

In any event, I don't think we're likely to see a lot of federal spending directly on vouchers. DC is very much an exception, since the federal government has special responsibilities to DC that it doesn't have with respect to other states. I would expect Republicans to make a push to convert much of federal funding for education into block grants that states can spend as they will (including on vouchers) but there would be a huge fight over that.

[burr]

43. When do we try this, while the federal government is in the hole?

When we have 41 million workers uninsured, fine time to be wasting money on "experiments". Why not do it with your own cash, not ours?

[quinnox]

6. I admire the effort

of promoting Lieberman on this board, when it has so many who oppose him. I like the contrary spirit.

[Starpass]

7. Why do these people do this (banging head on the wall)

Can you imagine the wide appeal of Joe to the public if he were our nominee?? It's guaranteed defeat. He couldn't get Dems fired up. Why can't these guys pick one of the several viable candidates and endorse or just attack Bush and support them all. I tell you, I swear this party has nooooo political instincts...none....

[StopTheMorans]

10. don't generalize:)

saying "this party has no political instincts" just b/c one hack supports lieberman isn't fair, his poll numbers are dropping steadily as people take a real look at the candidates instead of name-recognition polling, Lieberman's had his day in the sun, and it's not gonna happen again.

[cherryperry]

23. It's obviously a trick!

He wants some news outlet to write "Kerry supports Lieberman", but, not to worry people: repeat after me, seriously, "Lieberman has absolutely no chance of becoming either the Presidential or even a repeat Vice-Presidential democratic nominee in 2004". It's true and I wish everyone would stop getting upset as if he were a real possibility!

Thankyew.

[Aidoneus]

9. endorsement by a war criminal

something to be proud of..

[dfong63]

11. yeah, let's nominate the candidate who gets booed the most

who cares if he can't be elected. it'll be a defeat we can be proud of. NOT

[Racenut20]

12. Why do you say that???

Kerry a war criminal?

[Terwilliger]

16. PAY ATTENTION!!!! BOB KERREY...NOT John Kerry

thank you

[indigo32]

17. Kerrey not Kerry

they are two separate people. I apoligize if I'm jumping to conclusions here...but there has been confusion in the past.

[Dhalgren]

20. You can google it,

but Kerrey's actions in his sited ingagement has been called into question by several of the men in his unit at the time. They say that, essentially, Kerrey was given medals for wiping out an unarmed village of women, children and old folks.

[paulk]

14. Bob Kerry : Democrat from nebraska

which means he's pretty much a republican. And since we're not going to get nebraska's electoral college votes in 2004, his endorsement don't mean shit...

[JI7]

18. not true, kerrey for gay rights, abortion rights etc

kerrey is not a republican. he is no ben nelson. he voted against the anti gay bill while in senate. look into his record.

[redeye]

35. And apparently for the right to murder...

...for soldiers in wars against unarmed civilians :eyes:.

[Terwilliger]

19. Kerr E y...

I may not agree with John much, but don't associate it

[paulk]

24. sorry... n/t

[RobertFrancisK]

26. One of the 9 to vote against the welfare reform bill

I believe only 9 others did, which included Moynahan and Wellstone. Kerrey was a solid democrat, and I think that those not in Vietnam really can't judge what happened over there. If you watch 80's Vietnam flicks, you see what it did to innocent young American soldiers who were forced to do horrific acts, and I really don't want to have to judge what happened when I can't possibly imagine myself in that situation.

[ButterflyBlood]

33. oh, it was much more than that

http://www.counterpunch.org/valentine.html

What hardly anyone knows, and what no one in the press is talking about (although many of them know), is that Kerrey was on a CIA mission, and its specific purpose was to kill those women and children. It was illegal, premeditated mass murder and it was a war crime.

[cherryperry]

52. You just touched a nerve:

Wellstone <sigh>

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

:kick: :kick:

[Doomsayer13]

51. Bob Kerrey was the most liberal Democrat ever to be elected in Neb

it's true, look at Americans for Democratic Action if you don't believe me

[BurtWorm]

21. Ew.

I'm holding the applause, all right.

[oasis]

28. The Democratic nominee could use Joe's help in campaign 2004

so I might be a good idea not to kick Joe to the curb. We'll be keeping an eye on Joe's conduct during this primary season. Damaging statements by Joe about the direction of the Democratic Party will not be tolerated.

[IndianaGreen]

50. Lieberman can carry Democratic nominee Dean's luggage

that's about all the help he can give without pissing people off.

[jos]

36. Birds of a feather

Bob Kerrey: The man who longs to privatize social security and medicare. He's actually worse than Lieberman!

The only way a true Democrat can react to this column:

:puke:

[ButterflyBlood]

37. and also enjoys killing civilians

like Lieberman

[burr]

38. Kerrey...fluke of nature or flake of Winger???

Bob Kerrey has the idealogy of a mood ring. In 92 he supported a middleclass taxcut, singlepayer healthcare, opposed the Persian Gulf War, and NAFTA. In 1993 he almost backed out of Clinton's budget that lead to surplusses, because of his concerns about the higher rates on the wealthy and not enough spending cuts. In 2000 he backed Bill Bradley because he liked Bradley's healthcare plan, and he disliked Gore's taxcuts. Now he backs Lieberman because he dislikes shrub's taxcuts...but not all of them, he likes the War in Iraq, and thinks Republicans are right..just not all of the time!

It is no wonder Debra left this nut, only he could be nuttier than she. I was certain he would either support fellow former Governor and Senator Bob Graham or fellow Vet and Senator John Kerry. But Kerrey is so starry eyed, that anyone of those bright speckles could be his next move. He could be our next primary candidate for all I know.

That is why I would never count on him or support him!

[buddhamama]

40. Kerrey huh...

wow! i'm impressed :eyes:

[David Zephyr]

49. Me, Too...

An out-of-office Democrat, with no audience of his own resorts to the Wall Street Journal to cheerlead for the Corporate Favorite Candidate.

Wow! I'm impressed with you, Buddhamama! :eyes:

[Cha]

45. Bullfreakin'shit! What a dumbass conclusion to be made.

that's right ...lieberman is going down in flames believing he's right and bob kerry thinks lieverman knows how to "lead"?

What Pure and udder bullcrap!

[dfong63]

55. lieberman can lead all he wants, but we ain't following