I don't know what to make of this, but the Heinz-Kerry connection is just weird... http://www.post-gazette.com/columnists/20040229roddycol1.asp -- Two wars, two Kerrys Sunday, February 29, 2004 Thirteen years ago, Walter Carter, of Newton, Mass., wrote to his senator and asked him to support military action to expel Saddam Hussein's troops from Iraq. As a vote neared, Carter faxed his letter to the office of John Kerry and, just to be sure, sent it along by regular mail as well. A few days later, Kerry wrote back to thank Carter for opposing military action against Iraq and told him he had voted "no" on the resolution to give then-President George H.W. Bush the go-ahead. "I didn't know what to think," Carter recalls today. A few days later, Carter got another letter from Kerry. The Senator thanked Carter for supporting Bush on Iraq. "From the outset of the invasion, I have strongly and unequivocally supported President Bush's response to the crisis and the policy goals he has established with our military deployment in the Persian Gulf," Kerry wrote. "As I recall they said it was a computer glitch," Carter said. "Possibly it's true. Possibly it's not true. I don't know what to believe." And therein lies one of the mysteries of John Kerry, a man inclined to split irreconcilable differences, leaving voters confused and Republicans ready to pull out the blunt instrument of his own record and beat him with it. Kerry's innate sense of triangulation is so widely recognized that President Bush, in the opener to his campaign, simply reeled off a list of contradictions. "The other party's nomination battle is still playing out," Bush said. "The candidates are an interesting group with diverse opinions: for tax cuts and against them; for Nafta and against Nafta; for the Patriot Act and against the Patriot Act; in favor of liberating Iraq and opposed to it. "And that's just one senator from Massachusetts." For Gulf War II, Kerry kept his correspondence in order and voted to authorize armed force, this time layering on so many caveats that, when he changed his mind, he had ample escape tunnels dug. In a debate, he answered a question about whether he felt responsibility for those young men and women dying in Iraq with a statement that veers from one corner to another then finally ascending to midair where it hovers in permanent incoherence. The candidate who supported the North American Free Trade Agreement now sounds like both senators Smoot and Hawley as he tours industrial states. "How about some fair trade," he demands. He helped write the Patriot Act and now explains: "The only thing wrong with the Patriot Act is John Ashcroft." It is as if a man who has written bad law is angry that someone bothers to enforce it. This betwixt and between existence comes not from innate hypocrisy but from the abundance of caution that transforms honest men into hypocrites. Kerry's heroism in Vietnam, and his later heroism in working to end the war, once spoke to his best side. Absent agreement, he would persuade. Ted Kennedy, Kerry's senior colleague in the Senate, spoke to me about how Kerry pushed endlessly to normalize relations with the nation whose guerrilla warriors worked so hard to kill him 40 years ago. "There was no political gain to it," Kennedy said. Kerry pushed to normalize relations with Vietnam because it was the right thing to do. What happens to men once they have offices to protect -- or, in Kerry's case, an office to gain -- is that they suddenly aim for the great, vast middle where their mistakes can be lost amid the crowd of others. Thus, Kerry was expected to lead Democratic opposition to the latest Iraq war but voted, instead, to approve it. Now he says he only approved it as a last resort. Kerry's straddle, both now and back then, is likely to make him an easy target for Republican operatives who should not be given such an easy time when their own leader has yet to account for the Iraq mess. Instead, the Republicans will simply wave Kerry's Senate vote on the current Iraq war every time he criticizes the current mess. He will equivocate so hard the room will shake and votes fall away like loose roof tiles. How well will it work? Consider the treatment he was handed when the two contradictory letters to Walter Carter surfaced a decade earlier. I remember it because it happened at the annual Lincoln Day Dinner of the Allegheny County Republican Party, March 20, 1991, at the William Penn Hotel. At the time the first George Bush was still flush with victory in the Persian Gulf, and dinnergoers chortled over a videotaped presentation of assorted senate Democrats backpedaling in the wake of a war they'd opposed. Ted Kennedy was shown. News clips were shown. But for Kerry, the speaker simply read the two letters, to everyone's amazement. "It's like those before-and-after pictures they print in the papers," the speaker said. "If they didn't tell you so themselves, you'd think they were different people." Kerry has to remember that one. The speaker was Sen. John Heinz. Two weeks later, he would die in a plane crash. Four years after that, Kerry would marry his widow -- a woman who speaks directly and without equivocation and doesn't need two sets of letters to make her mind known. He might want to ask her for a copy of the speech.
I'd rather have someone who considers both sides of an issue , thoughtfully that a man who is ALWAYS on the wrong side, and cant be convinced otherwise. Bring it on.
but john heinz mocking kerry, getting killed, and kerry marrying his widow? too strange. also, i thought teresa heinz was the ketchup heiress, but it sounds like she married her fortune in her first husband.
Too strange?? What does that mean? Are accusing John Kerry of killing that senator?? Wow, I hope someone on your side were to seriously bring that up, too funny. I guess Norm Coleman killed Paul wellstone, and asscroft killed Mel Carnahan? In case you are really serious about this, ( I don think you are, but who knows, you may be batsh!t crazy) I doubt Chris Heinz, John Heinz own son, would be actively campaigning for Kerry if he had any reason to believe John Kerry ordered the murder of his father. Did he order the murder , or do it himself ??? Maybe he got one of his old Vietnam grenade launchers and shot that mocking b*stard out of the sky, and quickly jumped behind a rock before someone saw him. Yeah thats the ticket (softball style)...
In regards to Kerry pushing so hard to normalize relations with Vietnam even though they tried to kill him I would like to point out the another senator and Vietnam Vet by the name of McCain also strongly supported normalizing relations with Vietnam even though he was held prisoner and tortured by them. I suppose since he's a Republican I guess its OK for him to change his mind. As for flip flopping the current Bush Admin has plenty of that too. They're for free trade... No! They're for tarriffs to protect the steel industry. Well we're now that the Europeans are threatening retaliation we were just kidding and we're for free trade. Except when it comes to Chinese textiles. But dam those Euros if they don't believe in free trade enough to buy bananas from our friends in the Carribean and dam those Canucks if they think free trade extends to soft wood imports. We are the Admin. that will cut government spending and impose fiscal discipline. No! Lets enact a bunch of pork barrel spending programs and expensive new drug programs. At the same time lets cut taxes. Heck we're all Keynsians Now! We will be more open and transparent than the secrecy of the previous Admins. No! Executive privelage is too important, except for Dem. admins., and we will instead conduct more meetings in secret on any subject and dam the Congress and Judicial branches if they think balance of power extends to us telling them who we met with and what we talked about. This in particular for Cheney. I believe that the issue of Gay marriage is one best for the states to decide individually. No! This is too important to be left up to the States! And finally in regards to foreign policy. GW Bush himself said in the 2nd presidential debate that foreign dislike of America will be diminished if our foreign policy is humble and cooperative. So what does his Admin do even before 9/11...Unilaterally pull out of a treaties on missile defense, the enviromnment and global warming. Humble and cooperative indeed. Now I will agree that some conservatives might like some of the flip flops that this Admin has made but how much does that reassure you when they will also flip flop on trade and spending? And are also willing to state things that they aren't willing to act on and probably don't even believe in. Its true that Kerry has a painful record of flip flopping but this Admin. has flip and flopped a few too.
Sorry I was so eager to get to the issue of flip flopping I ignored the part about John Heinz. The article you site is really mostly about flip flopping and the Heinz piece seems tacked on at the end. Maybe you should've called this thread something different like: Flip Flopping Kerry, plus some Hamlet like stuff.
this is the kind of idiotic post that drives people to expand their ignore list. no where in my post did i suggest kerry had anything to do with heinz's death. i just found the juxtaposition of senator heinz's comments and kerry marrying his wife weird. there was nothing partisan in my post. your inference says much more about your own agenda than mine or the republican party's. lighten up.
Yes, that was a really heavy post I laid down there wasnt it? Man I was angry.. I hope you got that through my john lovitz picture... I only use that to show people my fury. Oh yeah, **** your ignore list.