JFK vs. GWB

[Ivo Skoric]

By now it is hard to imagine that any other candidate will emerge as 
a winner from Democratic primaries but John Kerry. The media were all 
over him, traditionally pre-empting genuine public opinion, just 
after the first two states (Iowa and New Hampshire). And at this 
point with Lieberman and Clark already out of the race, and Dean out 
of money, Kerry has only Edwards really to contend with (given that 
remaining candidates never receive more than 10% of vote anyway).

Dean was the biggest surprise and the biggest disappointment of this 
campaign. A physician that served as a governor of tiny (pop. 
600,000) but healthy state of Vermont, raised the most money through 
the avant-garde use of Internet, attracting the anti-war, socially 
liberal, young people that are hooked on e-mail. Yet, at the polls 
the dream just faced the harsh reality, and his chances to win are 
perhaps lost. Possibly he and Kucinich may have the same sympatizers, 
i.e. if one of the quits, it would mean more votes for the other.

Clark, the general, left when he saw that the victory is impossible. 
Honorable retreat is better than the ugly death. Edwards, now tha 
Clark quitted, is the most charming of candidates. But in reality, 
Kerry is the one who has the backing of the Democratic Party 
bureaucrats. Because he is from the royal inner circle, and they'll 
do anything to make him a winner.

Not only is he the Kennedy family protege, but even the abbreviation 
of his full name - JFK - is reminiscent of the Democrat's glorious 
past. Just like Bush he went to Yale, and just like Bush he was a 
member of Skull & Bones. As Rebecca Traister wrote for Salon about 
Kerrys: "It's a family that rivals the Carringtons for glamorous 
skeletons, the Fishers for melancholy and the Sopranos for operatic 
temper."

His grandfather was an Austrian Jew (Fritz Kohn) who changed his name 
and religion before coming to the US (to Frederick Kerry, Catholic), 
which made most people in Massachussest believe Kerrys were Irish. 
Frederick ended up shooting himself in the head. But his offspring 
made good marriage choices. His youngest son Richard, for example, 
married into the Forbes-Whintrop families. And his grandson, 
Richard's son, John Forbes Kerry, married into that rick ketchup 
family, Heinz. And he might have received injections of botox to look 
younger. Yet, despite the riches, Kerrys appear to be a thrifty 
family: his sister, working at the UN, was first in line to get the 
free manicure, at a certain UNIFEM event last year.

What could be more logical than to put as an opponent to the imperial 
Bush family, somebody with connections to imperial Kennedy family, 
and a few other potent families like Forbes, Whintrop and Heinz? What 
could be more logical than to put against a war-mongering president 
with a fishy soldiering record, someone who received 5 medals for 
courage under fire, only to turn a prominent peace activist upon 
return?

As a national organizer of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, 
Kerry built far more formiddable anti-war credentials than Dean, or 
even Kucinich. He is the real thing - to the point that he got 
accused of helping communist Vietnam and earned a nickname 'Hanoi 
John'. Yet he is also the guy that actually served in Vietnam and put 
his life in danger, unlike George Bush. Most discomforting, he also 
admitted to have accidentaly shot civilians, and even a little girl 
among them.

True, the picture of a good soldier turned better peace activist vs. 
an awful soldier turned worse president, may be just a picture his 
campaign hq wants us to see. He might be just a calculating 
politician, who always wanted just to move in the positions of power, 
and used various opportunities to do so: Vietnam War, anti-war 
protests, etc.

It seems only logical that in this interesting twist of events, he, 
the highly decorated Vietnam war veterans, will have Vietnam veterans 
against him (even united with Vietnamese-Americans against him), and 
that he, the very prominent anti-Vietnam-war activist, will not have 
the support of today's anti-war activists - that all flocked to Dean 
and Kucinich, because of Kerry's "yes" vote for Bush's war on Iraq. 
The twists are unfortunate, because they make him look less than 
consistent and devoted to the truth.

Here is the web page of Vietnam Veterans AGAINST John Kerry - which 
can as well be used by those who support him - it brings excellent 
pictures, just the caption is deplorable:
http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnkerry.com/page2.html

ivo