Crap crap crap and more crap on RawStory

[demdiva]

What the hell is going on today? I'm hopping mad ....

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/An_account_of_veterans_meeting_with_0928.html

A book by Paul Rieckhoff called Chasing Ghosts: A Soldier's Fight for America from Baghdad to Washington slams the Kerry campaign for ignoring veterans.

At one point Kerry asked us all who we thought he should choose as his running mate. A few in the room mentioned John McCain. Rumors had circulated in the press for weeks about secret meetings between Kerry and McCain. Getting McCain to abandon Bush to run as Kerry's VP would change history. Together they could beat Bush. But Kerry made it clear the McCain option was not on the table.

One vet suggested Senator Cleland. Max is a hero and role model to every veteran. After losing three limbs in Vietnam from a grenade explosion, he ran for and won a seat in the Georgia state senate, and then became the youngest head of Veterans Affairs (VA) in history. An incredibly effective advocate for veterans, Max introduced America's first Vet Centers, revolutionizing VA care by providing vets with peer-to-peer counseling led by older combat vets. Max went on to be elected to the U.S. Senate. He was a guy with the most mojo I had ever been around.

But Max wouldn’t be Kerry’s choice either. Instead, Kerry asked us about Dick Gephardt. Everyone reacted tepidly. Then I proposed Wes Clark, arguing that in times of war, Americans trust a General. Generals project strength, which Democrats seriously needed. And Clark would bring in the most Independents and Republicans.

I came back from Minneapolis sorely disillusioned and angry. John Kerry was not the passionate activist he had been thirty years ago. He seemed like a good man, but over the decades in Washington had morphed into a calculating and coached politician.

More crap about some busy staffer at the link ...

I really don't think any of this stuff is all that bad, but it has the sniff of a "tell all". There are a bunch of reasons that neither McCain nor Cleland was the VP nominee. And why should people be walking through the Kerry HQ? I think Rove would just love that idea....bs...total bs....

[TayTay]

1. The guy who runs RawStory is not a KerryFan

He is recycling this news story that we talked about a while ago.

There are bashers in the world. BTW, Sen. Kerry just praised Paul Rieckhoff recently for his NYTimes editorial.

[Mass]

2. No big deal. Rieckoff is not happy about Kerry VP choice.

I was not either. So what. Kerry saw them. What more can be expected.

And Reickoff seems to favor the choice of McCain and says clearly Kerry was against it, which is just fine for me.

I dont think there is a lot to do with that, except to point to the obvious, that this is an old story and that Rieckoff has a poor taste in VPs.

[demdiva]

3. I agree with you, I just hate that it's put under the pretense

of the Kerry campaign ignoring veterans.

[beachmom]

4. This is old. And Kerry, like Jesus (really), takes these attacks

from a vet and turns the other cheek by citing Riekhoff's recent op-ed against the torture bill. He totally complimented him, too. And they're working together a little because of votevets.org.

I don't know how he does it, but he is a very forgiving person.

[kerrygoddess]

5. Raw Story is also

linking to the quote from JK's speech this morning. They've posted a lot of good stuff about JK in the past - some not so good.

[sandnsea]

6. It's a wonder he got a vote at all

Considering how he ignored women, minorities, environmentalists, progressives, rural voters, small business, big business... and now even veterans.

[kerrygoddess]

7. I just got an email from Reickhoff

He wrote an thanked me for posting JK's floor speech and said he was "flabbergasted" that JK quoted his OP/ED on the Senate floor.

I'm rather flabbergasted that he emailed me.

[Democrafty]

8. Interesting.

Hope this means he's gotten over a few things. :)

[TayTay]

9. Paul Rieckhoff served his nation honorably in war

and is entitled to a bit of honest criticism. He is a true patriot and a very good and honorable man.

:patriot:

Sen. Kerry is also a good and honorable man. He obviously sees worth in Mr. Rieckhoff and a fellow patriot in the cause of upholding our Constitution. Sen. Kerry, in quoting Mr. Rieckhoff on the floor may have just shown Paul that his words as quoted at the top of this thread were, perhaps, a bit ill chosen. Bravo to both of these good men who still are open to listening to each other, despite differences.

[kerrygoddess]

10. Bravo is right!

It was a very nice heartfelt email I got from Reickhoff, their differences are probably not all that deep. JK is working hard to reach out to those he knows may have issues with him. It's a beautiful model in what the world should be. :)

[WildEyedLiberal]

11. Yeah but it's too late to take the crap out of his book

Now thousands of people will buy that book, see him call Kerry a "calculated and coached politician," and never know any of this. I don't think his comments were necessary or overly honorable... but, that's just my take.

[kerrygoddess]

12. I haven't read the book

perhaps what Raw Story posted was taken out of context a bit? I don't know. But I think JK was right to quote Rieckhoff today and evidently that he did meant something to Rieckhoff. I do plan to read his book. We learn from criticism, JK knows that.

[WildEyedLiberal]

13. It was nice that he quoted him

But come on, if anyone else had called JK a "calculating and coached" politician all of us would be pissed at the smear, and I fail to see why I should exempt this guy because he's a vet. How is this going to help JK "learn" - most likely all it will do is embitter people who read the book against JK. Maybe it's out of context, but I can't think of too many instances in which "calculating and coached" can mean anything other than that.

[kerrygoddess]

14. It's all stuff

that has been said and I think JK has learned a lot over the past year from various criticism. JK obviously respected what Reickhoff said in his OP/ED, so good on him that he can rise above the rest.

Bottomline is JK needs to reach out to people like Reickhoff, he gets that.

[karynnj]

20. I make the exception not because he's a vet

but because I percieve that he is very well meaning on the Iraq issues he's taken on. I sort of get the feeling that his fame, partly enhanced by Senator Kerry, has gone to his head. I think he is relatively young (which is a relative term as to me he is young, while to you, he's likely not.).

His op/ed was excellent. Reading what he said, he simply was disappointed that Kerry picked Edwards. It is true that that choice was made for political reasons - it always is. He also is likely dissapointed in the loss - and like some here thinks he feels that had Kerry done as he said, he would have won. What I hope is that as time passes, he will see that Kerry gave him access and a platform he won't otherwise have had. (Admittedly, Kerry likely was very grateful to the Senators who let him testify - the coverage and the fame weren't a given - they occurred because of Kerry's exceptional speech. How many others who testified before the Senate even made page 22. Reichoff was given a major radio address.)

I would hope that as time goes on he will see things for what they were. As to people reading it, as DD posted, the description of the interactions will clue people in on the the truth. In literature, I think this is called having an unreliable narrator. You do eventually reject the narrator's conclusion.

[_dynamicdems]

15. This isn't so bad. You can see through the author's griping and

get some perspective about the decision-making Kerry went through.

This passage makes it clear that John Kerry did not ask McCain to be on the ticket. Dispelling this rumor is a VERY, good thing considering how McCain has been voting and snuggling up to neocons he previously pretended to loathe. Now we have it in print, witnessed by a party who is criticizing Kerry for not wanting McCain. What could be better for busting the "Kerry wanted McCain, but McCain wanted Bush" myth?

Kerry and Cleland are friends and it is probable that Max wouldn't have wanted to be on the ticket. He has been very open about his problems with depression and post-traumatic stress, so maybe JK didn't think this was something his friend would want or need. In any case, this is between the two men.

As far as Clark goes, choosing him for his merits would be one thing, but putting the general on the ticket to appeal to Republicans isn't activism, it's pandering. John Kerry chose Edwards, probably because he felt they were closer aligned on the issues, but I'm sure he considered Clark carefully. Perhaps he had another position in mind for General Clark, say the one that Rumsfeld currently holds? Clark might have been considered too valuable an asset to be locked into a nearly vestigial position such as VP.

Having this speculation in print is a good thing because anyone can see the flawed logic at play in the author's disappointment that a candidate for President didn't choose a running mate on the basis of who would bring in the most opposition votes and then going on to say the candidate wasn't, "...the passionate activist he had been thirty years ago."

[karynnj]

16. I agree with you

I always thought the complaints were much ado about nothing. I can even see Riechoff ending in Kerry's camp, if Clark doesn't run. (It will be interesting to see what happens to his opinion of McCain as he begins to see him on issues like this.)

His criticisms seem to bethat Kerry did not listen to him. This would be a negative if he meant Kerry didn't have 2 way conversations with him, but it becomes clear to readers that he means that Kerry, listened but didn't take his advice. The decision of issues to surface at a convention and who to pick as VP are political decisions and Riechoff has (to my knowledge) never even run for town counsel. Think of it, he describes a couple of conversation with Kerry that show an unusually accessible man. Would any other candidate have reached out to him as much as Kerry did? Would any of the others have given him the radio address?

As you said:
"Having this speculation in print is a good thing because anyone can see the flawed logic at play in the author's disappointment that a candidate for President didn't choose a running mate on the basis of who would bring in the most opposition votes and then going on to say the candidate wasn't, "...the passionate activist he had been thirty years ago."

The point isn't that Kerry chose someone Riechoff didn't want, a reader can see that Kerry did hear him out. Also, this is proof that Kerry absolutely ruled out McCain. (It would be nice to have an appoximate date on this - which I'll see if the book has information to narrow it down - because it could be added to a time line on that story. It would be great if it pre-dates the time McCain was playing with it in the press.)

[_dynamicdems]

17. Good point about the approximate date.

Let's hope there is one referenced.

So you're reading this book?

[karynnj]

18. No but I end up in bookstores and the libary often

so I was going to scan for the incident and see if there's a way to at least bracket the date.

[beachmom]

19. I already looked at the book, and here was what I wrote

Here is the original thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=273&topic_id=85222#85564

Here is another thread, as a result of a Clarkie posting this in a dKos thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=273&topic_id=101457




The HuffPost author is definitely misleading equating the * and Kerry campaigns as equally "blowing off" Rickhoff. The * campaign REALLY blew him off -- he left messages, called Vets for *, and so on and they never got back to him. But his interactions with the Kerry campaign were more complex:

Relevant chapters are 23 and 24.

He's pretty negative about the Democrats and the Kerry campaign, but on p. 276-277, he meets Kerry for the first time, and they REALLY connect. Kerry listens to him, and Rieckhoff says "He'll never forget that". Then he talks about doing the radio address. (A funny aside was that there was a dingbat staffer he dealt with who apparently had just come from the Dean campaign). He is criticized by John McCain (who he HAD respected before), who said that there was a clear line between civilian and military in America, and that young men and women should NOT speak out during a presidential campaign (talk about intolerance for dissent).

However, by the summer of 2004, it all goes down hill. He met with Kerry one more time with a bunch of veterans including Max Cleland to discuss who should be VP. Someone brought up McCain, and Kerry said "that option was not on the table". Then, someone said Max Cleland, but that wasn't going to happen. Finally, Rieckhoff brought up Wes Clark, but came away very disappointed about the meeting, calling the choice of John Edwards as "politics as usual". Then he said this about Kerry: "He seemed like a good man, but over the decades in Washington he had morphed into a calculating and coached politician."

He and other Iraq war veterans were invited to the Convention, but it was a very bad experience. He said the Democratic leadership and the DNC forbade Iraq vets from speaking out on the war and were largely ignored at the convention. He said they should only talk about the Vietnam War, and that there was a secret pact among DNC higher-ups from various states not to talk about "the war", and that Rieckhoff and other Iraq vets were disinvited from engagements.

He also tells a story about a vet who contacted the Kerry campaign about the lack of armour used, and was completely rebuffed by staffers. The same vet showed up at a media event but Dem staffers forbade him from speaking out on the armour, or even to defend Kerry against the SBVT . Rieckhoff then says this: "The 2004 Kerry wouldn't have granted access to the 1971 Kerry".

He ends the chapter with how he KNEW Kerry would lose (he also attended the RNC convention, talking about the true believers in tears of joy after *'s speech -- gag!), because he showed he did not understand what was going on in Iraq, and failed to show leadership to speak out on it. "* showed he didn't understand the Iraqi people. Kerry showed he didn't understand the American people".

Now, once again, we don't necessarily have all of the facts here. But if you look at this biting critique, apart from the disagreement on the VP pick, a lot of this is about the Democratic party, not Kerry personally. Kerry was responsible for the campaign, for sure, and I am not going to underemphasize that, but there is NO way Kerry would have approved of the behavior of some these DNC/staffer types.

I don't think Rieckhoff is a hack -- Max Cleland wrote a nice blurb on the back of the book, complimenting it -- although he is an Independent. I think everyone should take a look at chapters 23 and 24, and see what you think. I bet the whole book would bring new insights on the war in Iraq. And, yes, Kerry needs to read this book, even if it does amount to a punch in the gut.

[kerrygoddess]

21. He's offered me copies

of the book to give away. I'm going to take him up on it and see how many I can get I will let you all know.