In a Journal Inquirer editorial, Keith Burris, the paper’s editorial page editor, labored to explain why a crowd composed of veterans attending Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry’s appearance in East Hartford was so pitifully thin.
“Is the Lamont campaign staff trying to fill halls?” Burris wrote.
Burris speculated that the Democrat Party in East Hartford may have been negligent. Couldn’t they have swelled the crowd by compelling students to attend as a part of their civic classes – not a bad idea, actually.
Kerry was praised in the editorial for his efforts to end the war in Vietnam – not a bad idea either – nor did he shrink from mentioning the Vietnam war:
“He said, in fact, that this war (in Iraq) is even worse, because Vietnam should have taught us to avoid a war like this one. He implied that this war was built upon even more lies than Vietnam. And he said the biggest lesson of Vietnam is that the government owes the public, and the men it asks to fight, the truth.”
Indeed, the truth, the inconvenient truth, always hovers around battlefields, waiting to claim its victims.
The undying Vietnam War still arouses animosity in some people, and it is always possible that some vets stayed away from Kerry’s presentation because they had read John Kerry and the VVAW.”
Or perhaps some of them remembered the events describe in his handy video, showing Kerry in a repentant mood.
American veterans, after all, are at least as literate as newspaper editors. Who knows, they may even have stumbled upon the truth in their pilgrim's progress through this sorry world.
“Is the Lamont campaign staff trying to fill halls?” Burris wrote.
Burris speculated that the Democrat Party in East Hartford may have been negligent. Couldn’t they have swelled the crowd by compelling students to attend as a part of their civic classes – not a bad idea, actually.
Kerry was praised in the editorial for his efforts to end the war in Vietnam – not a bad idea either – nor did he shrink from mentioning the Vietnam war:
“He said, in fact, that this war (in Iraq) is even worse, because Vietnam should have taught us to avoid a war like this one. He implied that this war was built upon even more lies than Vietnam. And he said the biggest lesson of Vietnam is that the government owes the public, and the men it asks to fight, the truth.”
Indeed, the truth, the inconvenient truth, always hovers around battlefields, waiting to claim its victims.
The undying Vietnam War still arouses animosity in some people, and it is always possible that some vets stayed away from Kerry’s presentation because they had read John Kerry and the VVAW.”
Or perhaps some of them remembered the events describe in his handy video, showing Kerry in a repentant mood.
American veterans, after all, are at least as literate as newspaper editors. Who knows, they may even have stumbled upon the truth in their pilgrim's progress through this sorry world.
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