(Bob) Kerrey: 1% chance I'd run for Senate

[Omaha Steve]

Bob Kerrey was a great Democratic Senator. It is to bad his run for President failed.

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2835&u_sid=2369301

Published Friday | April 20, 2007
Kerrey: 1% chance I'd run for Senate
BY JAKE THOMPSON
WORLD-HERALD BUREAU


WASHINGTON - Former Nebraska Democratic Sen. Bob Kerrey recently tested the waters for a possible U.S. Senate bid, but he said Thursday evening that there was only a 1 percent chance that he would run again - and only if GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel didn't run for re-election next year.

Kerrey asked his longtime political adviser, Paul Johnson, to gauge public opinion on him. That led to Democratic pollster Harrison Hickman's sampling Nebraskans' views with some telephone calls. Hickman didn't conduct a full-fledged poll, Kerrey said.


Bob Kerrey

Kerrey said he was told that the results were "the same old stuff. Some people like you, some people don't."

The former governor and two-term senator who decided not to seek re-election in 2000 said that the sampling won't affect his judgment and that he will decide "very quickly" about the race.


FULL story at link.

[depakid]

1. His seat went to that POS Nelson

Too bad he didn't try to take it back last election cycle.

[Ignacio Upton]

2. Why did he leave last time?

He was one of the few Dems (other than Ben Nelson) who can hold elective state-wide office in Nebraska.

[skipos]

3. Nelson's approval ratings from dems (and NE is general) are sky high

Were Kerrey's as high?

[acmavm]

4. His run for President didn't fail. He had a nasty little skeleton in his closet

that was about to come out, if you remember. So he had to fess up before the guy that was in his platoon beat him to it.

<snip>

By now everybody knows that former Senator Bob Kerrey led a seven-member team of Navy Seals into Thanh Phong village in February 1969, and murdered in cold blood more than a dozen women and children.

What hardly anyone knows, and what no one in the press is talking about (although many of them know), is that Kerrey was on a CIA mission, and its specific purpose was to kill those women and children. It was illegal, premeditated mass murder and it was a war crime.

And it's time to hold the CIA responsible. It's time for a war crimes tribunal to examine the CIA's illegal activities during and since the Vietnam War.

http://www.counterpunch.org/valentine.html

-more-

<snip>
Kerrey: Civilian killings in Vietnam a mistake

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former Sen. Bob Kerrey says he feels "anguish and guilt" about the women and children accidentally killed during a nighttime mission he led in Vietnam, but he denies a report that the civilians were deliberately shot.

"I've never been able to justify what we did, either militarily or certainly not morally," Kerrey said on CNN's "Wolf Blitzer Reports."

But Kerrey said those killings were a mistake, that his Navy SEAL team had been told only enemy personnel were in that particular village in the Mekong Delta on February 25, 1969. He said they were told Viet Cong were holding a district-level meeting at the site on a moonless night.

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/04/25/kerrey.blitzer.02/index.html


The guy was a phony and a war criminal

[venable]

5. He is NOT a war criminal

he was a soldier with a mission that went wrong.

when he saw that this is what war looks like, when a soldier's mission can turn out that way, in that war, he became the first Medal of Honor recipient to take an active and public anti-Vietnam war stance.

look it up before you sling that stuff.


also look up what the rest of the men said, and look up the story behind the guy that said it was intentional.

[acmavm]

6. The murder of innocent civilians is a war crime. He intentionally and

successfully hid it for years. Right up to the time a guy with a conscience was going to out him.

Believe me, I have read all about it. Many articles, many times.

The only difference between Kerrey and Lt. William Calley is the body count and the amount of time it took the news to hit the air waves. Kerrey had a successful political career here in Nebraska until the shit hit the fan. Calley was caught not long after the massacre.

[venable]

11. wrong

I don't want to disparage 'the guy with a conscience' but there was much more to the situation than 'conscience'. Much more. It was not 'conscience' that led him to speak out.

I know a great deal about this from a personal vantage point, and I can tell you that to say it was intentional is simply wrong.

To compare him to Calley, who knew who he was shooting, is wrong in the extreme.

Kerrey was a young man who went to war. He saw what war was, especially that war. He became an anti-war activist.

That's the true story. Yours is not.

[acmavm]

14. No, that is not the story. He killed old people and kids. He did it and then

he hid it for decades. He thought he was home free. Until...

There's another fool here trying to make the case for what a good guy Kerrey is. Well maybe he had a change of heart. Of course it was too damn late for the victims of his platoon.

I can only laugh at people who can make excuses for 'our side' but demand that the 'other side' behave ethically and humanitarily and honestly.

None of your excuses will ever change what happened. And it will always come down to choice. Orders count for nothing. Nothing. What matters are the choices one makes in life. And to go against authority (if he was indeed 'following orders') shows integrity and decency. Bursting in on a bunch of unarmed civilians cowering in a hut and letting loose with a hail of bullets shows the total opposite.

[venable]

21. did he know who was in the village?

did he? did anyone in the platoon?

were they told it was persons that it wasn't?



don't call people you don't know fools. I'm not calling you names, and I know that what you're saying is wrong.

[flaminbats]

7. this guy isn't phony or a criminal..

although the Republicans who enjoy slapping our war vets around are!

sorry but following orders while serving in the military is not a option, those who give bad orders along with the voters who supported them are the war criminals.

war is hell, but putting Kerrey in the Senate makes it more likely we can bring our troops home sooner! opposing Kerrey because he isn't "pure" enough is nothing more than a phony jester, the kind we can expect from Karl Rove!

[acmavm]

8. As has been said many many times before on DU, the excuse "I was just

following orders" was unacceptable during the Nuremburg Trials, and there are marines on trial right now who are on trial for killings in Iraq who were 'just following orders'.

That is NEVER EVER EVER an excuse.

[flaminbats]

9. Kerrey didn't run a concentration camp..

and even in Nazi Germany, those who served in the army or the air force had nothing to do with running concentration camps. those who ran the concentration camps were political appointees, most who served in the armed forces weren't even supporters of the NAZI party. Saying that Kerrey is a war criminal would be like imprisoning everyone fighting in the Germany army for the Holocaust.

I bet if Kerrey had been imprisoned for following orders you wouldn't even care. but if you had been imprisoned for not following orders, Kerrey would be the first one to fight for your release.

but I guess you don't consider stabbing someone in the back being a phony.

[acmavm]

10. What the hell is wrong with you? Do you really think that only concentration

camp commandants went on trial for war crimes? Bigger and better question, do you think murdering innocent old people and children can be excused with the lame and totally unjustified 'I was just following orders' shit?

If you do then there is something SERIOUSLY wrong with you.

[venable]

13. You say you have read the articles and you know what happened, but you don't.

You really don't.

With that in mind you should not be so unequivocal in your name-calling.


Bob Kerrey is not a war criminal.

[flaminbats]

16. insult me all you want..

if we followed your example..putting every man and woman in prison for following orders would be the standard, and turning our armed services into a tool for political revenge would be another form of justice. but impeaching Bush might be too political and nasty for you! :wow:

if Kerrey disobeyed orders he would be locked away in some military prison right now, and you wouldn't even give a damn!

[acmavm]

18. This is the last post I'll waste on you. Every man and woman in uniform

don't go into a village and massacre innocent people. And then hide if for decades.

And the pathetically idiotic line 'but impeaching Bush might be too political and nasty for you!' is just icing on the cake. That was hilarious. What the hell does one thing have to do with the other. I'm sure that you'll be able to come up with some really sad and twisted scenario, people who reason like you do don't give a damn about whether what they are saying is reasonable or not. They just have to be saying something.

See ya...

[flaminbats]

19. how sweet!!!

maybe you should face trial for not stopping the war in Iraq, for allowing our government to go into bankruptcy, and for not stopping all these recent gunmen from killing innocent civilians.

but I don't follow your standards, mine are probably not high enough for you! :eyes:

[venable]

24. Good luck with this guy who has it in for Kerrey

I'm giving up... he's not listening and is wildly flinging bizarre accusations at us. Soon we'll be the war criminals.

[venable]

22. mistaken post

EDITED BECAUSE I WAS RESPONDING TO THE WRONG POST...

[venable]

12. You don't know what you're talking about.

sorry, but you don't.

He had a mission. The mission went wrong. Shots were fired at a mistaken target, due to faulty intel (sound familiar). Women and children were killed. Kerrey reported it, and was sent out on another mission. He lost his leg in that mission, and was awarded the Medal of Honor for what he did in that second mission.

He recuperated, and joined the anti-war movement.

Bringing up Nuremberg is obscene.

[acmavm]

15. The mission 'went wrong'? You are the master of understatement. Or

maybe you just have a very poor way with words.

[venable]

23. ciao - ciao

not worth it.

[IndianaGreen]

20. There was a massacre by troops under his command. Kerrey had command responsibility.

And he lied about his role.

Kerrey is more than welcomed to challenge Nelson for the Senate in the primary since Kerrey is far, far, more liberal than that DINO.

[venable]

26. Kerrey never lied about his role. Never

He went into a village with the mission to assassinate enemy leaders, who, the platoon was told, were the sole occupants of the village.

A shot was fired in the dark. The platoon opened up on the village. When the smoke cleared the dead were women and children.

Kerrey returned to his superiors and told them exactly what happened.

He was sent out on another mission. In that mission he lost his leg and was awarded the Medal of Honor.

He recuperated and was discharged. He joined anti-war protests, the first Medal of Honor winner to do so.

Whend did he lied about his involvement? You say he did. When?

[karynnj]

17. Counterpunch is often over the top

The NYT magazine had a long article on this which really broke the story in the MSM world.

What happened was far more ambiguous. It is very likely that they were told VC were there and they shot without verifying who they were shooting at. This was not My Lai where people were shot at point blank range or like Haditha.

It obviously would have hurt his chances - though after 2004 a brain dead New York magazine article listed him as a good "purple" candidate - noting he couldn't be swiftboated.

[saltpoint]

25. Strongly agree with the OP -- Kerrey was an excellent Democratic Senator

and likely would be at least as good or better again.

Things get pretty conservative out in some of the redder states and if we could pick up a seat or two in a few of those places, all the better.

On top of that, Bob Kerrey is a bright guy. Very intelligent and thoughtful. While Hagel is good on Iraq because he pressures members of his own party to wake up and smell the defeat in Baghdad, Kerrey would be better in that chair because we'd have his vote on so many of the core Democratic issues in which many of us are deeply invested and emotionally invested.

Also, Bob Kerrey can sing "Waltzing Matilde" as good or better than any politician I've ever heard. He sang it in lieu of a victory speech on the night of his election to the U.S. Senate.

http://www.answers.com/topic/waltzing-matilda

I hope he runs. And I hope he wins.