Sen. Al Franken has long been a supporter of the military and its men. So it is no surprise that he took T. Boone Pickens to task for Boone’s financial support of the Swift Boat ads that besmirched Sen. John Kerry’s military record.
T. Boone was to present his ideas on wind energy to the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. Upon being introduced, Sen. Franken “began to berate Pickens for funding an ad campaign that depicted Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., as not deserving of the military honors he received during the Vietnam War.”
Other Senate Democrats gave Pickens a warm welcome, Politico said. Kerry did not attend, his staff saying he “had a long scheduled lunch with interns and pages.”
I wish Sen. Kerry had shown up and demonstrated a class act riposte to T. Boone for his role in Kerry’s defeat in 2004. I am not a fan of Sen. Kerry but, like Sen Franken, I was offended at the dishonoring of a Vietnam veteran and public servant.
I’m curious PB…if you are “partially” blue does that mean you are also “partially” red??
Heh…I was actually going to post something on this, but you beat me to it.
More like independent.
Didn’t Kerry say some pretty bad things about the military while the Vietnam War was still being fought?? So…it’s okay for Kerry to dishonor the men fighting while they are fighting/dying but it’s not okay for someone to question him years later?? Seems to me that’s just a little hypocritical.
And Zach…I’m surprised you didn’t post anything on or offer an opinion about what President Obama said about Sgt. Crowley and the Cambridge Police Department.
Anon, I’ve been working on it…I’ve just been pulled in a few different directions any time I sit down to finish it.
Sorry, who is hypocritical? I am confused on that point.
Sen. Kerry was not questioned about his military service, he was smeared because he was running for President. His opponent, Bush, had no combat experience and he was smeared for the same reason. And then we had John McCain’s credentials as POW attacked by those who wished to rip his bona fides to shreds.
I agree with Sen. Franken that men who serve honorably should not be defamed by other Americans regardless of their political affiliation.
Along related lines, I disregard any politician’s history if it has occurred twenty years ago. I don’t care if Clinton inhaled at college, not do I care about Michelle Obama’s college thesis. I don’t particularly care about Bush’s National Guard years either.
Experiences and errors make men. Not the avoidance of same. Reformed people are stronger and focused and defined by their choices. The same applies to women;I only use the word ‘men’for simplicity in phrasing.
So…what you are saying John Kerry was wrong for “besmirching” the Vietnam Veterans in the early 70s?? Maybe that’s why Kerry didn’t show up. Maybe he was worried about Franken taking him to task too…
What Franken showed is he still can’t get over Kerry losing (talk about a sore loser)…because if his problem really was the “besmirching” of a Veteran he would also take Kerry to task…unless of course he only cares about the “besmirching” of Veterans that are also Democratic politicians. It’s good Pickens didn’t put up with Franken’s selective outrage and gave it right back to him.
Father, and uncle fought in Vietnam. Uncle served 30 years, now works at the Pentagon. They denounce the man. To many fraudulent stories about his actions. Uncle flew air ambulance, has first hand acount of some of the lies.
Thanks, ray
I don’t like Sen. Kerry either but I would not smear him for his service. All men have weaknesses and vanity is one of Kerry’s. Weaknesses have led us all to do things that more mature versions of ourselves would never do.
They (Swift Boat Veterans) are not smearing him *for* his service…that’s spinning the issue. It’s what Kerry said after he got back from Vietnam that they are upset over…and rightly so…IMO.
I hear you on that and those were different times and a different military and a different Administration. John Kerry’s military career included two Purple Hearts, a Silver Star, and a Bronze star. John Kerry was no coward and he was a leader of men in war time.
The ads that I recall, however,focused on his grandstanding videos, his leadership under fire, and then his renunciation of his medals and his congressional testimony.It portrayed him as anti-American and he was not.
As some of us remember, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War were dyed-in-the-wool heroes who objected to the strategy and objectives emanating from Washington. John Kerry was one of them. They objected to the policies surrounding the war in Vietnam, a war that we should never have been in to begin with. They were not anti-military, nor were they anti-US. They were anti-Vietnam.
Personally, I am more upset about President Bush II’s trip to Vietnam to ring the opening bell at their stock exchange in November 2006. After listening to all that warhawk *stuff* about Vietnam war protestors for years and the noble battle against evil Communism, here is POTUS paying homage in a communist country to a stock exchange. This does not sit well with me and it galls me to think that a Republican President would go to Ho Chi Minh City to celibrate anything. It denies every argument ever made by every right wing warrior on why the US was in Vietnam to fight communism. In the end there was no Domino effect, no spread of Communism. In the end it was a Republican President Bush in a communist country. Not Bill Clinton, mind you, nor Jimmy Carter, it was a Republican who betrayed all of the arguments for being in Vietnam in the 1960s.
Those events are now history but it will be a long while before I trust any Administration that says this is a ‘just’ war to protect democracy around the world. They lie and recent history proves it.
But coming back to the issue, the issue that Franken had occurred 4 years ago, not 40.
Well…I don’t remember the Vietnam War…but I’m not going to tell any Vietnam Veteran they don’t have a right to speak their truth which is what the Swift Boat Veterans did with the help of T. Boone Pickens.
I’m not sure what your point is about 4 years vs. 40 years…as if the Swift Boat Veterans should just forget about it?? I don’t think that is ever going to happen.
“Their truth”? That is a leftist perspective.
“Their truth” was wrong about John Kerry, the man and the candidate for President of the United States. So too were the “truth” attacks about Sen. McCain’s POW imprisonment.
Unfortunately, the darn leftists in the world (not the liberals) have taken relativity out of mathematics and applied it to “truth”. However, operating from an invalid paradigm does not make a “truth” regardless of how many people think that it is.
My remark about 4 years and not 40 reflects my belief that recent history is a better indicator of the current man than old experiences.