Charting a future as Senator Kerry

[politicasista]

Snip:

Charting a future as Senator Kerry
2004 nominee rejects 2d run, seeks to end war

By Rick Klein, Globe Staff | January 25, 2007

WASHINGTON -- A tearful Senator John F. Kerry launched the next phase of his Senate career yesterday with a vow to hasten an end to the Iraq war, as the man who spent the past four years gunning for the presidency turned his attention to building a statesmanlike legacy in the Senate.

Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, choked back tears on the Senate floor as he bowed out of the 2008 presidential race and said he would run for a fifth Senate term next year. He said his mission would mirror the one he brought to Congress with his famous Senate testimony in the midst of the Vietnam War: to end an unpopular war.

"I've concluded that this isn't the time for me to mount a presidential campaign," Kerry said. "It is the time to put my energy to work as part of the majority in the Senate . . . to change a policy in Iraq that threatens all that I have cared about and fought for since I came home from Vietnam."

Kerry's announcement could freeze in place a host of ambitious Massachusetts Democrats, including several members of the congressional delegation, who had been actively preparing runs in anticipation of a Kerry run for the presidential nomination.

Kerry aides and advisers said the senator's decision came down to a political calculation that he would face long odds in capturing the presidential nomination for a second time, given his diminished public standing after his 2004 defeat by Bush.

With Democrats now controlling Congress, Kerry decided he can best serve the causes he believes in by not running for president, because that frees him to pursue legislative solutions without regard for national political consequences, said Alan Solomont, a prominent Democratic fund-raiser with close ties to Kerry.

Kennedy was one of a handful of senators on the floor for the entire speech. The senior senator, who had vowed to support Kerry if he decided to run for president again, commended his colleague's decision to stay in the Senate.

"Now John has decided to continue to devote his passion, his interests, his energies, toward bringing our troops home from Iraq safely," Kennedy said.

Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, was next up offering praise. "The mere fact that he announced that he's not running for president speaks well of this gallant man, this heroic man," Reid said.

Turning to Kerry, who was seated silently two rows behind him, Reid added: "I say to John Kerry: I love you John Kerry, and I'm so sorry that things didn't work out for our country."

Kerry then gave Reid a bear hug and walked out of the chamber alone.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/01/25/charting_a_future_as_senator_kerry/

[ginnyinWI]

1. I have a major quibble with the writer of this article!

If you go back and listen to the floor speech, you'll see that at the point his voice was breaking with emotion he was speaking about the Iraq war and the possibility that it would spread throughout the entire MIddle East and the threat it would pose to America! He is truly fearful for the future.

But this journalist twisted it into a description of a man weeping for his own lost fortunes. And that interpretation is absolutely wrong. This man is a dedicated public servant and patriotic American before everything else. It must be hard for some people to understand someone so unselfish and with principles so high!

[wildflowergardener]

2. Well

I thought he was emotional at the idea of giving up his dream of being president.

Meg

[ginnyinWI]

3. I thought that too, at first,,,

So I went back and listened again, and I am convinced that it was this country and the future he was most worried about.

[europegirl4jfk]

4. You're right

"...and I intend to work here to change a policy in Iraq that threatens all that I have cared about and fought for since I came home from Vietnam."

That's what he was saying when his voice broke with the word Vietnam. That's all so sad! He was fighting his whole life, and his country is once again at the same point where it was when he started his fight in 1971. When will we ever learn from History? :cry:

[ginnyinWI]

5. Vietnam was a life-changing experience for him.

I guess that's an understatement. It prompted him to get into public life both as an activist and then in government, where he's always sought to in some way make right that great wrong. And now to see it happening all over again. Hagel and Kerry are right to bring Vietnam into the argument, and Webb is wrong if he thinks it's not relevant.

Me--in my small way--I've also been influenced by it, because as a young person I saw my country doing something bad. Our generation thought that after that war we'd never make the same mistake--couldn't possibly make the same mistake another time. That was the one consolation: we'd lost that war and learned a lesson. But the jokers in power now didn't learn that lesson at all, but kept up the deluded idea that if we had only tried harder, stayed there longer that we would have "won", whatever that would have meant.

I try to imagine how much more keenly JK feels this, having been there and seen people die for one of the biggest mistakes our country ever got itself into. Wanting to honor his fallen friends by making sure nobody else had to die for stupidity. And then watching it happen again.