The John Kerry Overflow Page

The John Kerry Overflow Page

There was so much material on the John Kerry Page that it just wouldn't fit comfortably on one document. It ballooned up to 142 k-bytes, and I began to get the feeling that people with dial-up internet service weren't going to wait 15 or 20 seconds for the page to load. So I moved some of the older and less relevant material to this page, for the benefit of people who just can't get enought of it.

Subtopics:
Kerry's Vietnam-era record
Kerry's voting record in the Senate
Teresa Heinz, the ketchup fortune, and big money issues
Contradictions, waffles, half-truths, flip-flops and prevarications
John Edwards

See also Liberalism in General and the Socialist Platform of the Democratic Party.

Comments on the Kerry Campaign in General:

Senator, You're no Reagan. Listening to John Kerry in the debates, one could be forgiven for thinking that his running mate is Ronald Reagan. He has invoked Reagan's name more often than that of John Edwards. And he has mostly done it in the context of foreign policy, suggesting that his approach to the world will be Reaganesque.

What Democrats Still Don't Get: Kerry — like all doves — is unpersuasive on national security issues because he doesn't realize certain basic truths that have guided American policy for decades.

A man without a plan. What is John Kerry's economic plan? Can anyone reading this column name even one key element of it?

The bizarre candidacy of John Kerry. Remember when former Senator Bob Kerrey said that Bill Clinton was an "unusually good liar — unusually good"? Well, surely by now Democrats realize that John Kerry is an unusually bad candidate — unusually bad.

Mr. Expedience: Kerry voted in favor of giving President Bush the authority to use force in Iraq to compel Saddam to disarm, and on the campaign trail he could scarcely take a breath without mentioning his service in Vietnam. But then hawkish Kerry ran into a stiff headwind called Howard Dean, and he began to tack.

Nowhere left to flop. Having taken every possible position on the war, there is nothing he can now say that is even remotely credible. If he had simply admitted that he had made a mistake in supporting the war, he might have become an antiwar candidate. But having taken a dozen positions, he has nowhere to go.

Flushing Kerry out: It's time to flush John Kerry out on the issues and expose his liberalism for all to see. Then we'll find out how evenly divided this country really is.

Kerry is a Loose Cannon on Nukes. A little free advice for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry: Criticizing your opponent works better when you have your facts straight. For instance, Sen. Kerry says he's going to stop the Bush administration's research on a new generation of nuclear weapons because "this is a weapon that we don't need." The problem with this statement? The Bush administration is not researching or developing any new nuclear weapons.

Kerryisms: Democrats say they have a candidate who speaks more clearly than Bush. Does he?

The 'presumptive' nominee: The pros all know that a candidate who starts each morning having to explain himself is a goner.

Windsurfing through history. Kerry is having a Groundhog Day of ineptitude. "W stands for wrong" is rubbing the cat's fur backward, a punch line without a joke. As slogans go, it fails the catchy test.

Misery loves Kerry. According to Sen. John F. Kerry's new middle-class misery index, Americans are certifiably miserable after three years under President Bush. The best part is: Kerry's advisers had to cook up a new index in order to make Americans miserable.

Kerry needs a new mantra. As a man auditioning for commander in chief, John Kerry is hanging himself with his own words. I just hope enough people are listening — and paying attention.

Kerry the slow: It seems that John Kerry is just as ignorant, just as unreflective, just as dull and just as vain [as his former opponent Howard Dean proved to be]. The pathetic truth about this blue blood who never had to actually work a day in his life is leaking out as he begins to leave the scripted, vetted monologues and to answer questions.

Kerry is silent on broadcasting's moral slide. But he seeks a revival of the Fairness Doctrine to drive conservatives off the air.

Back to the top of the page

Kerry's Vietnam-era record:

Kerry's Dishonorable Discharge. For a guy who's hitched his entire presidential campaign to his military service record, John Kerry sure is parsimonious when it comes to releasing that record. ... Kerry has consistently refused to sign a Standard Form 180 authorizing the Department of Defense to release all of his records.

Tough Questions for Former US Navy Lt. Kerry: In the history of the US Navy, have you ever found another instance of an officer being awarded the Silver Star for killing a dead man? Did you get the Silver Star based on the Action Report that you wrote and the "action" that you alone witnessed? If you get a Silver Star for killing an enemy, wouldn't every soldier, sailor and marine who killed an enemy soldier also be entitled to wear a Silver Star?

30 questions about Kerry's Vietnam Service. Here's a pretty complete list of what we know and don't know about John Kerry's Vietnam war record. (For example...)

#20. Did Kerry attend a meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War in November 1971 at which it was proposed to assassinate several pro-Vietnam war U.S. senators?

Yes.

#21. Did Kerry deny he was there?

Yes. Until a New York Sun reporter showed that FBI records proved otherwise.

#22. Did Kerry report the danger to any authorities?

No.

Dole helps unveil Kerry POW film. "Stolen Honor: The Wounds that Never Heal" juxtaposes Kerry's actions after the war with the words of veterans still serving, including some who heard his testimony in a North Vietnamese prison.

Kerry finds himself hardscrabbling out of an awful August. As Ross Perot used to say, think about it. Here's Kerry, (1) maybe having embellished his war record, (2) departing Vietnam early to become an altar boy of Teddy Kennedy (fresh from his heroism at Chappaquiddick), (3) joining the likes of Jane Fonda and other screamers on the ramparts, (4) launching his political career with remarks to Congress alleging war crimes on the part of his government and fellow servicemen — and then (5) going on to use Vietnam as the centerpiece of his campaign for president in 2004.

Vets vs. Kerry on Vietnam. Senator John Kerry's running mate, Senator John Edwards, has said melodramatically: "Ask the men who served with him in Vietnam!" But now that men who served with Kerry in Vietnam are coming forward and contradicting Kerry's version of what happened there, Senator Edwards is calling it a "smear." Apparently we are to listen only to those veterans who were hand-picked by the Kerry campaign.

The unsubstantiated heroism of Hanoi John: Most recently, Kerry has had to backpedal on the circumstances surrounding his first Purple Heart. Kerry has described the action on Dec. 2, 1968, for which he received a Purple Heart as his "first intense combat." The Swift Boat veterans say Kerry came under no enemy fire that day and that his injury, such as it was, resulted from the ricochet of a grenade fired by Kerry himself.

Apologize, Senator Kerry. Thirty years later, it still makes their blood boil. When, in April 1971, John Kerry testified to a Senate committee that "...war crimes committed in Southeast Asia [were] not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command," he said that the average American soldier who fought in Vietnam was a war criminal.

A Very Kerry Christmas: Some people wondered how long the major media would be willing to ignore the Christmas-in-Cambodia story. Well, the answer is in: at least 10 or 11 days. I first noticed the story August 6... Soon it was all over the Internet, the conservative press, talk radio, and some cable shows. But the networks, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and other major media didn't run the story. Some papers, like the Kansas City Star, got protests from readers on what appeared to be a news blackout.

Editor's Note: This is a story that everybody knows about — except the people who depend on television for national news.

Unfit for command: To deflect attention from his glory days as an anti-war protester, John Kerry incessantly reminds us that he served in Vietnam. To buttress his war veteran image, the Democrats shamelessly brag about Kerry the "war hero" and cynically deploy, as campaign props, a few select veterans he refers to as his "band of brothers."

Kerry camp: Candidate was "inaccurate" on Cambodia. "I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting in a gunboat in Cambodia," said Kerry on the Senate floor. "I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States tell the American people I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia." Kerry was referring to President Nixon, who was not sworn into office until 1969.

A Veteran Makes The Case Against Kerry. On the cover of The New Soldier by John Kerry and Vietnam Veterans Against the War, hippies clad in a mismatch of military uniforms are pictured mocking the legendary image of Marines raising the American flag atop Mount Suribachi in the 1945 battle for Iwo Jima Today, the Iwo Jima image is a memorial statue that sits above Arlington National Cemetery and honors all Marines killed in action since 1775.

Gen. Giap: Kerry's Group Helped Hanoi Defeat U.S.. In his 1985 memoir about the war, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap wrote that if it weren't for organizations like Kerry's Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Hanoi would have surrendered to the U.S. — according to Fox News Channel war historian Oliver North. That's why, [North] predicted, the Vietnam War issue "is going to blow up in Kerry's face."

Numerous other articles about John Kerry's days as a Viet Nam war protester.

John Kerry, the anti-war antihero: Is there anyone in presidential politics who's tried to use his Vietnam experience for political gain more than John Forbes Kerry? Is there no end to Kerry fending off every examination of his decades-long contempt for seemingly each and every new weapon in the American arsenal by suggesting, as AP reported, that Republicans who didn't serve in Vietnam are fighting a war against war heroes like him?

Vietnam today: With the presidential race generating so much talk of John Kerry's Vietnam record, one could almost forget that "Vietnam" is not just the name of a war that ended 30 years ago. It is also the name of a country of 82 million human beings — who live under one of the most repressive dictatorships on Earth.

"Unfit For Command" — Unfit For Discussion? I can appreciate why people are turned off by dirty politics, by which I mean the unsubstantiated mudslinging against candidates designed to mislead and smear rather than inform. But I lament the level of cynicism to which we've descended that makes us turn a deaf ear to negativity that may well be true and relevant.

"Hanoi John" Gets Unwelcome Reception From Veterans. Hours after Sen. John Kerry sailed into Boston with his Vietnam swift boat crewmates Wednesday [7/28/2004], about a hundred other veterans gathered near the Democratic National Convention site to protest the anti-war positions of Kerry's past.

Vietnam Vets Speak Out on John Kerry. Although John Kerry accumulated a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts in a relatively brief 4-month tour in Vietnam as a Swift Boat skipper, many of those who served on the combat patrol vessels in that era have come out swinging against the Democratic presidential candidate.

Key Points: In his April 1971 speech to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, John Kerry claimed that war crimes committed by the American military against Vietnamese civilians were "not isolated incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis…" War crimes in Vietnam were actually quite rare.

The Kerry medals mystery - and why it matters: If John Kerry hadn't already clinched the Democratic presidential nomination, his medals meltdown on "Good Morning America" this week would have sunk his campaign.

Discrepancies noted in Kerry's record. Vietnam combat records posted on John F. Kerry's campaign website for the month of January 1969 as evidence of his service aboard swift boat No. 94 describe action that occurred before Kerry was skipper of that craft, according to the officer who said he commanded the boat at the time.

Kerry Still Backpedaling on Presence at 1971 Anti-War Meetings. Five days after CNSNews.com reported that Democrat John Kerry had attended a 1971 anti-war meeting at which the possible assassination of U.S. senators was discussed, the presidential hopeful is still backpedaling on statements regarding his whereabouts during that meeting.

Kerry Flip-Flops Again on "Tossed" Medals. Did John Kerry throw away his Vietnam War medals, or didn't he? In a newly surfaced 1971 interview with a Washington, D.C., television station, the young Kerry said he threw away "six, seven, eight, nine" medals. He said nothing about ribbons in that interview. But on Monday morning [4/26/2004], Kerry vehemently denied throwing away his medals, contradicting what he said in the 1971 interview.

Kerry and Kennedy …are not doing much to build the morale of our troops abroad, but then they played the same role 30 years ago during the Vietnam War.

Kerry's War Wound Called a "Fingernail Scrape". Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry insisted on being awarded his first Purple Heart in Vietnam even though his injury amounted to no more than a "fingernail scrape," his commanding officer at the time now says.

Kerry's past: C-SPAN was rebroadcasting an episode of "The Dick Cavett Show" from 1971. Opposing Kerry was a hard-charging, highly intelligent Vietnam veteran named John O'Neill, who gave the future senator no quarter.

Kerry Lying About Anti-War Past, Supporter Alleges A Vietnam War historian and supporter of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has told CNS News that Kerry is lying about key events related to his anti-war activities in 1971.

Heroic John Kerry? If a Vietnam-era soldier comes home, blasts his country, gives aid and comfort to our enemies, and tosses his war medals over the White House fence — in this unique circumstance — then he's apparently still a hero in the minds of many, including the mainstream media. No amount of draft-dodging or anti-war activity kept Bill Clinton out of the White House, so why should John Kerry suffer from his anti-war, anti-USA excesses? The answer is, he won't.

Back to the top of the page

Kerry's voting record in the Senate:

Why Kerry Will Lose The Election: You needn't go back 35 years to Vietnam to see what Kerry's all about. Just check out his voting record in the Senate, where he's been for the past 19 years. Can you name one piece of legislation he carried? Don't worry; neither can anyone else. Talk is cheap. What has he done that's so memorable, besides marry two extremely rich women?

Electing an Image: Everything at this convention and on this year's campaign trail seems carefully designed to create the opposite impression from what Senator Kerry's voting record shows.

Outsourcing national defense: When it comes to the war in Iraq, John Kerry has been steadfastly ambivalent. One day he's for it; the next day, he's not. In his own words, he voted for $87 billion to fund the war, before he voted against the same $87 billion. He has vehemently criticized the war in Iraq, but now says that he'd vote for it again. About the only statement on Iraq Kerry has made consistently is that he would "internationalize" the effort.

Kerry says Reagan Was Too Tough on Terrorists. Beyond trying to torpedo Ronald Reagan's efforts to free Central America from the Soviet threat, Sen. John Kerry objected when Reagan tried to punish terrorists who killed Americans, arguing that a 1986 retaliatory bombing raid against Col. Moammar Gadhafi was too harsh.

Kerry's war. When Sen. John Kerry, cast his vote in favor of the Senate resolution authorizing military force against Iraq in October 2002, he made his bed. Now, the president's political guru, Karl Rove, is preparing to tuck Kerry snuggly inside those sheets.

What would Kerry do? Let's begin with the fact that Kerry voted for the war. Oh yes, he has since attempted to weasel out of responsibility for that vote by saying that he meant only to give the president negotiating room. But that's nonsense. Everyone knew at the time that the congressional vote was an authorization for war.

Political malpractice: It is an insult to our intelligence to act as if posing with guns is as significant as how the Senator has voted on gun control laws during his 16 years in Congress. It is an insult to our intelligence to claim conservative values when both liberal and non-partisan organizations have rated John Kerry's voting record as the most liberal in the Senate, more liberal even than Ted Kennedy's.

Kerry on intelligence: Under attack by Republicans for proposing deep cuts in the intelligence budget a decade ago, John Kerry is trying to justify them as efforts to slice away pork.

Kerry: Gorier than Gore on Global Warming. One lesson in climate hype that Gore never learned (and which may have cost him the presidency) is that people can look up facts pretty quickly now. Gore lost normally Democratic West Virginia because of his hype on global warming and his resultant vitriol against the coal industry. Miners, who he would have put on unemployment, stayed home or voted for Bush. … So should Kerry beware.

Kerry's U.N. fetish: For the better part of 18 months, John Kerry has bitterly denounced the Bush administration's conduct of international relations, above all in Iraq. Over and over he has pronounced his unsparing indictment: "George Bush has pursued the most arrogant, inept, reckless, and ideological foreign policy in the modern history of this country." That is remarkably hostile language for a presidential challenger. No major party candidate for the White House in modern times has so thoroughly abandoned the principle that politics stops at the water's edge.

Back to the top of the page

Teresa Heinz, the ketchup fortune, and big money issues:

Teresa calls for civility, then tells a reporter to "shove it". In a speech [July 25] to her home-state delegates to the Democratic National Convention calling for the restoration of a more civil tone in American politics, she used the term "un-American" to describe the sometimes harsh rhetoric used.

Reporter who questioned Teresa gets death threats. The journalist whom Teresa Heinz Kerry told to "shove it" after rejecting a question he asked her after a speech says he has received death threats in the aftermath of the incident.

Teresa's anti-Kennedy tirade: A day after Teresa Heinz Kerry told a hometown reporter to "shove it," some equally testy words from 29 years ago came back to haunt the would-be first lady.

The Democrats' "un-American" charge: Before telling a reporter to "shove it" last week, Teresa Heinz Kerry complained that there were "creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits" to the presidential campaign. In dropping the "un-American" bomb she highlighted an important truth about today's politics: It is the Democrats who routinely question the GOP's patriotism, not the other way around.

Editor's Note: What the following opinion article lacks in substance, it makes up in witty ad hominem rhetoric. Exactly the sort of shallow attack which Democrats often mistake for serious political debate. So the shoe is on the other foot.

Middle America, [Indeed]. All the writers for the X-Files, Half-Baked, Evita and The Twilight Zone could never have dreamed up Teresa Heinz Kerry. She's neither Middle America nor middle earth. Her billion bequeathed dollars that fund some of the most liberal loopy organizations scream to the rest of us, "We really have nothing in common with you". [She] represents the peripheral liberals of the ludicrous left - not middle class Americans.

Champion of the little guy?
Kerry's War Chest Hits Record $180 Million. Coast-to-coast stops on the presidential fund-raising trail paid off for Democrat John Kerry in June as he collected $34 million and boosted his record total to more than $180 million. He has about a month of fund raising left before he receives about $75 million in taxpayer funding for the general-election campaign.

On our nickel: Kerry considered not accepting the nomination at the taxpayer-funded Democratic Party Convention. That way he could continue to raise and spend private dollars until September 1, when both President Bush and he will go under the public funding regime.

GOP Accuses Kerry of Illegally Using Soft Money: The Bush campaign and Republican National Committee said they would file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Kerry and pro-Kerry groups of violating a campaign law that broadly bans the use of "soft money" — corporate, union and unlimited individual donations — to influence federal elections.

Tax & Fiscal Information for Senator John Kerry: The National Taxpayers Union (NTU) and National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF) have both conducted yearly analysis of John Kerry's record as Senator. NTUF has also looked at the promises made by candidate Kerry on the 2004 campaign trail [and added up the cost].

The Heinz Cluster: Presidential hopeful John Kerry is married to the ketchup money. Teresa Heinz Kerry and her three big-time foundations seem to be buying him the campaign.

The Heinz Foundations and the Kerry Campaign: All three Heinz foundations make large grants to environmental pressure groups led by powerful persons who support her husband's political ambitions. [PDF]

John Kerry: "Man of the People". Pictures of some of Kerry's multi-million dollar houses.

Back to the top of the page

Contradictions, waffles, half-truths, flip-flops and prevarications:

Fallacious Flip-Flop Flummery: When Republicans characterize Kerry as a flip-flopper, they leave the impression that he's merely wishy-washy, irresolute and indecisive. I don't think his flips are a result of changes of heart, but the cold political calculations of a dangerously opportunistic customer. Kerry knows exactly what he believes, but often can't afford to be honest about it.

Is Kerry a Catholic in Name Only? He goes to Mass but windsurfs theologically: He has "always been fascinated by the Transcendentalists and the Pantheists and others who found these great connections just in nature, in trees, the ponds, the ripples of the wind on the pond, the great feast of nature itself."

The many faces of John Kerry: It's hardly news that politicians tell people what they want to hear. But John Kerry has taken this art form to new levels of outrageousness.

Kerry Sets a Record: 14 Flip-Flops in One Speech. At least no one can say Kerry is two-faced. He has so many more faces than that.

The politics of flip-flops: The other day, Kerry called the U.S. invasion of Iraq "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." I happen to agree with that assessment, but Kerry apparently does not; he almost immediately reverted to his earlier position, that the war was justified but was not carried out properly. Kerry has gone through this bait and switch so many times that I've lost count.

The truth gap: Democrats in recent years have been trying to emulate Republicans by quoting Scripture. Kerry equated the Fifth Commandment, "Honor thy father and thy mother." (he left out the rest — "so that your days may be long upon the Earth"), with his opposition to privatizing Social Security. That commandment means adult children, not government, should honor their parents by looking after them. But to liberal Democrats like Kerry, government is a "god," so perhaps the leap is not surprising.

Spook reform: [John Kerry] chose to use the [9-11 Commission's final] report — which may or may not be the basis for effective reform — as simply one more political arrow to shoot into the air.

Weapons of class warfare: I was glad to hear Sen. John Kerry quote Abraham Lincoln as he accepted the Democratic nomination, but he did not read Lincoln far enough.

Kerry's Quandary: Trying to be Both Pro- and Anti-War. Despite the media's obsession with President Bush's failures in Iraq and the blame cast on him even for the CIA's mistakes, John Kerry should be soaring in the polls. But he's not.

Looking for John Kerry's principles: Little girls know makeup has something to do with being grown up. But when they try it on, they tend to overdo it. Likewise, John Kerry knows "values" have something to do with getting elected president. But he uses the word promiscuously, almost randomly, betraying overeagerness and a lack of understanding.

When more is less. To describe an increased minimum wage as a compassionate gesture is the opposite of its most obvious effect. In reality, Kerry's proposal to raise the minimum wage to $7 an hour would shove hundreds of thousand of young and unskilled American job seekers into dead end jobs that pay less than the minimum.

But Let Them Kill "It" Anyway: It doesn't surprise me that someone in the pro-abortion camp finally admitted he supports the "right" to an abortion even if it means killing actual human beings in the process. It does surprise me, however, that that someone is Senator John Kerry.

People Like Waffles. According to whichever polls can be believed, President Bush is 3 to 16 points behind arguably the most liberal Senator in America. The "flip-flop" labeling of John Kerry was a $70 million (and counting) rabbit hole that jeopardizes the re-election prospects of President George W. Bush.

Janus-Faced Kerry Compass: If John Kerry becomes president, some enterprising entrepreneur stands to make a fortune by creating and selling the "Kerry Compass." Senator Kerry is a master at mixing and matching positions and metaphors to have it both ways — to try to sound one way on an issue while his heart lies with the opposite position. Being the Massachusetts liberal that he is, you can bet that John Kerry's heart lies with the left-wing position, particularly on social issues.

Kerry's Aspirin Factory Moment: Exactly how inept is the Kerry campaign? It's a question worth pondering after Kerry's pronouncement last week that "When Bill Clinton left office, not one young American in uniform was dying in a war anywhere in this world." That remark is as meaningless as it is stupid.

Kerry: We don't attack our opponents in personal ways. "We're running a very positive and affirmative campaign," said Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Indeed, Sen. Kerry renounces nastiness: "We have not stood up," he said, "and attacked our opponents in personal ways." Really? Let's go to the videotape.

The real John Kerry stands up. Isn't there something profoundly unattractive about a man who can see a pregnant woman brutally attacked and worry about abortion politics? That's a cold man.

Senator Kerry's Propellers: While left-over hippies with gray beards chain themselves to the gates of future nuclear power plants hoping to stop progress, and while bird- and caribou-watchers shed tears over the imagined trauma that Alaska oil drilling might cause, the rest of us get on with the business of business — finding real ways to make and save energy.

Back to the top of the page

John Edwards:

I don't like being called a cockroach. But apparently, Democrats John Kerry and John Edwards think it's funny to compare Hispanic Republicans to roaches — or so it seems based on their behavior at a recent fundraiser in New York City.

See No Terror: Kerry's VP announcement had at least one glaring omission — not one reference to al Qaeda, radical Islam, or even terrorism.

Kerry's choice of Edwards is a bonus for trial lawyers. It is no surprise that Edwards has voted against every bill in Congress that proposed limits on non-economic damages. If elected, he'll be glad to follow the Democrats' usual policy of redistributing tax money to their favored groups.

Edwards' glaring weakness: "The American people want an experienced hand…. This is not the time for on-the-job training in the White House on national security issues." … "If his intent is to remove special interests from Washington, why has he … taken more than $11 million from lawyers and law firms?" No, wait — those criticisms didn't come from Republicans. They came from John Kerry (or his campaign spokesmen), sometimes repeatedly.

Back to the top of the page

Nothing on this page shall be construed as an attempt to influence any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office or any political party.