In defense of John Kerry - Democratic Underground

Time for change

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Tue Dec-28-04 11:31 AM
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In defense of John Kerry

Senator Kerry does not need to be defended by me or anyone else. But the reason I am writing this is that I feel that all of the carping and hostility directed at him, and the impugning of his character because of his low visibility in the fight to overturn the election is bad for all of us, including those who are doing it.

Like most of you, I am bitterly disappointed about the election results, I strongly believe that the election was stolen, and I am very upset about the main stream media’s lack of coverage of the election fraud. I also do not understand why John Kerry has not chosen to fight this in a way that attracts a good deal of attention.

But let’s put this in context by considering some of his main achievements: He has a record of heroic performance during the Viet Nam war. Then after becoming disenchanted with that war, he came home to lead the anti-war effort. Those efforts in all probability helped to shorten the war, resulting in the avoidance of thousands of additional deaths of U.S. and Vietnamese soldiers and Vietnamese civilians. A decade or so later, as a U.S. Senator, he served similar ends with regard to the war in Nicaragua, by leading the effort in the Senate to terminate U.S. involvement in that war. And most recently, he represented the Democratic Party in its efforts to unseat George Bush. He ran a fine campaign, crushing his opponent in all three debates so badly that even most Republicans had to admit it. Against all the advantages of an incumbent Republican President, he managed to win the election by a substantial amount (before secret electronic voting machine software and other dirty tricks reversed that result).

These are an extremely impressive list of accomplishments. If he never accomplishes another useful purpose for the rest of his life, his past accomplishments are certainly far more than I can claim credit for or am ever likely to achieve. I doubt that many people could say otherwise about themselves. For this reason alone I would not feel comfortable impugning his character.

I didn’t vote for John Kerry in the 2004 Democratic primaries, and I may not vote for him in the 2008 Democratic primaries if he’s not President by then and if he chooses to run again. None of what I said above should prevent me from expressing criticism of him if I feel it warranted.

As I said above, I don’t understand why he hasn’t fought the election results in a more visible manner. Some of you think he’s doing that for good solid strategic reasons. Others feel he’s simply trying to maintain his political viability for another run at the Presidency in 2008. Maybe he’s aware of some things that we aren’t privy to. Or maybe he’s just plain burnt out after all that he’s been through. I probably would be in his situation. But above all, I recognize that few if any of us can know what is truly going on at this point. And I believe that the negativity directed towards him is compromising our fight.

I am among the many of you who are losing patience with this whole thing and would like to see John Kerry maintain a much more visible role. But I say, let’s give him credit for all that he’s done, and let’s not worry about why he’s handling this the way he is. If he’s making a mistake, let’s recognize that we shouldn’t expect him to be God. And let’s continue to do what we think is right. Let’s continue in this truly tremendous effort, as so many thousands of us have, to bring democracy back to our country.