John Kerry. Barack Obama. The Same...

Hat Tip to my friend MediaLizzyVoiceover is John Kerry from 1971 testimony before US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Script Text:
John Kerry. Barack Obama.
More of the Same.

1971: US Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing
John Kerry accused American Soldiers of Atrocities...

"...randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan..."

Barack Obama sounds a lot like his friend John Kerry...
as reported by the Nashua Telegraph, 8/17/07

Obama on American Troops in Afghanistan:

"...just air raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there,"
---Barack Obama

Is that the "change" you believe in?
Or more of the same?

November 4th,
You have the choice
Vote.

I am just one voter.
This video is not affiliated with, not sanctioned by, nor coordinated with any candidate, committee, organization, party, PAC, or interest group.

Remember to vote.

Remember 1999, John Kerry ?

This April 14, 2008, we celebrate 9 spectacularly uneventful years since the last time John Kerry was able to pass a single bill into law for his constituents

Spin - War Stories and Cameras

War Stories and Cameras
by Austin Bay

John Kerry's "Christmas in Cambodia" yarn ignited the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Whatever your memory of the 2004 presidential campaign, Kerry's sudden silence about a wartime Christmas "seared" in his memory was a rare example of a citizens group (the Swifties) publicly backing down a powerful U.S. senator and a major-party presidential candidate.

Kerry's full quote, delivered in the midst of a 1986 Senate debate about aid to the Nicaraguan Contras, is rhetorically powerful:

"I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared -- seared -- in me."

Glorious oratory indeed, based, unfortunately, on a touch of truth (his naval service) magnified by chest-pounding falsehood.

There were, however, no cameras recording Christmas in the Mekong estuaries, which left Kerry with wiggle room. That's all a politician ever needs, of course, a silly centimeter of wiggle room. He accused the Swift vets of being motivated by partisan malevolence and personal animosity rather than historical veracity.

Kerry was dead right on the personal animosity angle. I still run into Vietnam veterans who rile at a memory "seared" in their minds -- that of Kerry pulling his made-for-television "Winter Soldier" routine, where he accused American soldiers of hideous war crimes. He rode those anti-American allegations into a political career.

Hillary Clinton is having her "Cambodian" moment -- her claim that she ducked sniper fire when she landed in Bosnia in 1996. Cameras, however, were rolling. The CBS News clip juxtaposing Clinton's stump speech rendition of her "snipers tale" to the tender hugs reality of her Bosnian excursion exposes the candidate's story as blarney.

This is blarney with damaging blowback, since Clinton's claim to superiority over her Democratic primary opponent, Barack Obama, is she possesses hard-core foreign policy expertise.

CBS earns qualified kudos. An Obama supporter, the comedian Sinbad, pulled the magic carpet from beneath Clinton's Bosnian crock. Sinbad was with Clinton in Bosnia, and he told a Washington Post political blog that "I think the only 'red-phone' (i.e., scary) moment was, 'Do we eat here or at the next place?'"

It appears that crack journalistic fact-checking by a major network did not catch Clinton -- breaking the duplicitous news took a celebrity anecdote relayed to a political gossip column in the midst of a nasty internecine Democratic Party political war. CBS had a reporter with Clinton in 1996 and a tape. Clinton has told "the sniper's tale" on several previous occasions. Next time, maybe ...

Obama has his own problems with truth in packaging. We have learned the electrifying candidate of "hope" has a political debt to "hate" -- and Chicago's sleazy political machine.

Excusing the videotaped anti-American hate speech of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright as hot rhetoric reflecting deep historical suffering may pass muster in the Democratic primaries, but should Obama obtain the nomination, come November he will be running for president of the nation Wright insistently damned. If he really wants to become leader of the Free World, he will dump Wright sometime in September and acknowledge embedded bitterness stalls change?

As for John McCain? If he faces Clinton in November, expect to see her sniper's tale video followed by Vietnam War footage of McCain climbing into his Navy jet. If McCain faces Obama and "suffering" becomes an issue, a nuanced mind must ask if Harvard is a greater hell than Hanoi.

McCain is encountering the Alzheimer's innuendo for his claim (now retracted) that Iran supports al-Qaida in Iraq. He will have to take that heat. The al-Qaida-Iran relationship is very murky. Al-Qaida has numerous "affiliates," and Iranian intelligence has contacts with radical Sunni Muslim organizations (the Ayatollah Khomeini originally claimed his was an Islamic revolution, not a Shia revolution). But as for definitively aiding al-Qaida in Iraq, he was wise to retract. As for his age, nope, you can't retract a birth certificate.

While Clinton and Obama tread the political gutter, McCain ought to continue his global trek. McCain ought to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Green Berets training counter-terror cops in West Africa, destroyer sailors in the Strait of Hormuz, Marines on an assault ship in the Mediterranean, a carrier off South Korea.

And he should smile -- energetically -- as the cameras roll.

Ogonowski plans Senate run against Kerry

Having met Jim, I can tell you that He is one of the good guys !


Lets just hope that the NRSC will back him all the way, and, NOT leave him out to dry like the NRCC did, last year.

Republican Jim Ogonowski, who narrowly lost a congressional race to Niki Tsongas in October, is preparing to challenge U.S. Sen. John Kerry.

Ogonowski, the brother of an airline pilot killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said he’s been attending Republican events around the state since his 6-point loss to Tsongas, a Democrat.

"There’s nobody in Washington who represents the status quo more than John Kerry," said Ogonowski, who did not officially declare his candidacy.

Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president four years ago, hasn’t faced a serious challenger since he fought off former Republican Gov. William Weld in 1996. The state GOP had no candidate against Kerry in 2002.

David Wade, a spokesman for Kerry, said Kerry is running for re-election this year to continue fights against global climate change and for universal health care, energy independence and ending the Iraq war.

"John Kerry brings to public service a lifetime of fighting the tough fights for change and standing up with courage and conviction, and he’ll keep doing that in the United States Senate," Wade said.

Ogonowski ran on a platform of energy efficiency and stopping illegal immigration in his campaign for the seat vacated by Democrat Martin Meehan. He also said the Iraq war was a mistake, but he wanted the troops home only after their mission was complete. Emboldened by the results of his first run for office, the Dracut farmer said Kerry is not out of his league.


"We started a movement," the retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel said. "After my campaign ended, I’ve been very active throughout the state. I want to continue my public service."

Since the election, Ogonowski has attended GOP events in the 5th District, as well as in Brookline, Marshfield, and Hingham.

Kerry, 64, has $9.5 million in his campaign account, compared to the $65,000 Ogonowski has left over from his congressional run. Ogonowski said he’s prepared to raise "a few million dollars."

Ogonowski won 45 percent of the vote to Tsongas’ 51 percent, despite being outspent by his better-known opponent. Tsongas is the widow of the late Sen. Paul Tsongas.

Ogonowski, 49, benefited from public awareness of his family following the death of his brother John, an American Airlines [AMR] captain whose plane was hijacked in the Sept. 11 attacks. But he raised just $463,000 for his campaign and eschewed any assistance from President Bush. Tsongas spent $2.5 million.

He stayed close even as Tsongas called in big guns from the Democratic Party. Among the establishment heavyweights who helped her were former President Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Edward Kennedy, Gov. Deval Patrick and Kerry.

Tobe Berkowitz, interim dean of Boston University’s college of communications, said Ogonowski’s chances of unseating Kerry are "slim to slimmer."

He said Kerry will benefit from high turnout for the presidential election.

"Turnout will be huge. It’s going to be a walk for him. I don’t see this as much of a workout for Kerry," said Berkowitz, who has worked for Democrats.

Ogonowski "did better than expected" against Tsongas, Berkowitz said, but Kerry’s stock is "at a pretty good level with the voters of the Commonwealth."

Republican consultant Charley Manning disagreed, saying Kerry’s record of delivering for the state is remarkably thin because he’s been more interested in national and international issues.

"I think people are kind of tired of John Kerry being our senator and I think he’s ripe for the picking," Manning said.

Manning said Ogonowski’s "regular guy appeal" is a major contrast to the patrician Kerry. That, combined with the electorate’s general desire for change in Washington, could boost Ogonowski.

"It might be the right time and the right place," Manning said.