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Edited on Wed Dec-22-04 04:35 PM by angrydemocrat
The 1992 presidential campaign was a three-way race among George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Independent candidate Ross Perot. Clinton won with less than half the vote. In January 1993, when he started work in the Oval Office, his administration was already under strain. The new president's decision to fulfill a little-noticed campaign problem by drafting an executive order to repeal a ban on gays in the armed forces was provoking a huge uproar. Even his own military advisor's fought him.
Rising to Clinton's defense, Kerry called the ban "fundamentally wrong. There is nothing inherent in homosexuality that makes a gay incapable of serving." In May, Kerry appeared as a witness before the Senate Armed Services Committee and engaged in a sparring match over sexual practices with two supporters of the ban, Democrat Sam Nunn of Georgia and Republican Storm Thurmond of South Carolina.
Thurmond declared that only homosexuals perform sodomy. "Heterosexuals don't practice sodomy," he shouted, prompting laughter from the audience.
Kerry pointed out there were gays working in Congress, none of whom have been arrested for sexual practices.
"You want them arrested for that," Thurmond said.
"Do you, sir?" Kerry replied.
"Sodomy is against the law. Why shouldn't they be arrested?" Thurmomd responded.
Proponents of the ban argued that the military's disciplined and tight-knit culture would be disrupted by openly gay members. Kerry and others argued that the attitudes would shift if the ban were lifted. "Change is hard to accept," Kerry said.
President Clinton ultimately split the difference by adopting a policy of "don't ask, don't tell," permitting gays to serve.
In June 1993, Kerry once again came to the administration's rescue as a supporter of Clinton's $500-billion deficit reduction measure, a bill that would combine spending cuts with some tax hikes on the wealthiest. Not a single Republican in either the House or the Senate was going to support the bill, so the vote was going to be a close one. Kerry fought to get enough support to pass the bill. It came down to a tie vote that Vice President Al Gore was forced to break.
Kerry help the Clinton administration on another initiative: the crime bill. In 1993, high urban crime rates- symbolized by the random murders of tourists and others- were capturing headlines. As a part of his campaign platform, Clinton promised to deploy federal funds to put another 100,000 police on the street. But with the budget deficits swelling, the initiative faced internal resistance, and the administration was planning to cut cop-on-the-beat commitment by half.
That fall, Kerry called Bruce Reed, Clinton's domestic policy adviser, to his office. "He thought the administration policy was making a big mistake by not doing 100,00," Reed recalled. "He showed me charts of how federal assistance to local law enforcement had declined. He talked about his years as a prosecutor. I was ecstatic to have an ally. I had been making similar arguments within the administration."
It "certainly strengthened my hand within the administration," Reed recalled, "to have a Democratic senator of some stature leaning on us to get it done." Led by Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, the Senate passed a crime bill that included the 100,000 new cops at the cost of $13.5 billion, as well as an assault weapons ban and an expanded federal death penalty. On the amendments Kerry voted against expanding capitol punishment. Kerry believes the death penalty should only apply to terrorist and had said in the past that "he didn't believe that the government should be in the business of killing people. It cheapens life and demeans us all" Kerry voted in favor of the the crime bill that included it. In order to get all the good that come from the bill it was one of those deals where you had to except the bad with it. This is the position that many like Kerry find themselves in on a regular basis. This is what happens when several items are crammed into one bill. They find themselves faced with the hard choice of do I or don't I. They have to decide if the bill serve the people they are representing in a more positive, effective, and just way. In this case it did.
It is these unfortunate situations that a senator such as Kerry has to face often. And due to these types of votes they are unfairly labeled in the eye of the American public as a waffler or flip flopper. It is the unfortunate situation of the American people not knowing how the system works and what men like Kerry are faced with on a day to day basis. It is the unfortunate situation where many good leaders such as Kerry have been lost their jobs because the American people didn't understand the process and the challenges that great leaders such as Kerry face everyday when they go to work to serve the country they so greatly love. It is truly time America educate itself and learn the process before more great leaders are lost.
Then came Clinton's health care plan. When Clinton introduced the initiative in Sept. 1993, Kerry praised the president for framing "the issue with a good tone that invites sensible debate." Kerry who once suffered with his own bout with skyrocketing health costs when he was forced on one occasion to pay $500 out of pocket expenses for an abscessed tooth, said a crucial question to be considered was: "Does it reduce cost?"
Four month later, Kerry appeared on CNN's Crossfire to defend Clinton's plan from the attacks by conservative commentator Pat Buchanan and Republican senator Phil Gramm of Texas. Both conservatives had adopted the GOP mantra that Clinton's plan would lead to "socialized medicine."
"You guys keep throwing these terms, and you love it," Kerry said. "This is the way politics is played here, throw out socialist threats, and Phil comes in and says, 'You want choice.'.....
"Let me get in one point," Buchanan responded. "I think what most Americans are saying is, 'Look if there's people that want health insurance and don't have it, let's find a way for them to get it"-
"CORRECT!" Kerry interjected.
"But they are saying 'I have a fine program, don't take over my program. Don't socialize it. I mean, don't change my program'"-
"But you see," Kerry responded, "you're saying socialize. This is a competitive system. I don't happen to agree with all of the system, and the system the President's put together is at least the opening gamit of the first discussion of a major problem this country faces, which you and your folks and your President have ignored for years."
By the fall of 1994, insurgent Republicans led by House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich were engaged in a full frontal attack on Clinton. On Election Day, Republicans took control of both houses of Congress for the first time in forty years. The Republicans were combative and righteous new breed, eager to wage war on Clinton and his Democratic allies.
Kerry mostly marched in lockstep with the Clinton White House. But with the Republican sweep, he went into full maverick mode.
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