# John Kerry **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 30, 2014, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608 "2014-05-30T01:07:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![slowlearner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@slowlearner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slowlearner)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608/1 "2014-05-30T01:07:09Z")
John Kerry is a disgrace to the young man he was. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608/2 "2014-05-30T01:12:46Z")
That cleared **that** up. Thanks for stopping by. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608/3 "2014-05-30T01:13:06Z")
> [@slowlearner](#): > > John Kerry is a disgrace to the young man he was. O.K. ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608/4 "2014-05-30T01:35:19Z")
The OP/username combo make me giggle, regardless of any of John Kerry’s alleged failings. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608/5 "2014-05-30T01:43:29Z")
I’m going to go out on a limb and bet that, by “young man he once was”, he’s referring specifically to the period when Kerry was in the US Navy. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608/6 "2014-05-30T01:50:24Z")
> [@slowlearner](#): > > John Kerry is a disgrace to the young man he was. “Aren’t we all?” I ask, as I pat my oversized gut. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608/7 "2014-05-30T02:20:17Z")
OP fail in 11 words. Waste of time and space. Did I mention stupid? Stupid, too. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608/8 "2014-05-30T02:37:54Z")
Hell, who is? Its gravity change. Not climate change, gravity. A while back, I went to a store to pick up a couple 35 lb weights for the Err Apparent. They are at least twice as heavy as they were when I was twenty. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608/9 "2014-05-30T02:39:11Z")
Yeah, I’d like to know if he’s disloyal to his past as naval officer, or an anti-war protester. As an aside - some contemporary [Doonesbury](http://www.abstractdynamics.org/archives/2004/02/04/john_kerry_doonesbury_strips_from_1971.html). ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608/10 "2014-05-30T02:45:17Z")
My guess would be that since Kerry’s most recent news exposure was criticizing Snowden, the OP believes that Kerry as a young man would have approved of Snowden – in other words, anti-war Kerry as opposed to US Navy Kerry. But it’s just a guess… ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608/11 "2014-05-30T02:45:42Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > “Aren’t we all?” I ask, as I pat my oversized gut. Dammit, I was going to post that. Barkeep, another round. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608/12 "2014-05-30T03:17:32Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > My guess would be that since Kerry’s most recent news exposure was criticizing Snowden, the OP believes that Kerry as a young man would have approved of Snowden – in other words, anti-war Kerry as opposed to US Navy Kerry. > > But it’s just a guess… I’m sure that’s it. Kerry called Snowdon a traitor. Now, I’m no Snowdon fan, but he did not commit treason. Kerry sounds exactly like Cheney these days. ---
**Author:** ![splatterpunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3be4f8/32.png) [@splatterpunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/splatterpunk)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608/13 "2014-05-30T03:48:29Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Kerry sounds exactly like Cheney these days. No, he doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608/14 "2014-05-30T03:56:57Z")
> [@splatterpunk](#): > > No, he doesn’t. Yes, he does. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608/15 "2014-05-30T04:18:42Z")
Well, give us a list of quotes and we can play “Cheney or Kerry?” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608/16 "2014-05-30T04:31:32Z")
> [@Folacin](#): > > Yeah, I’d like to know if he’s disloyal to his past as naval officer, or an anti-war protester. Are those the only two choices? Maybe the OP feels Kerry’s opposition to school vouchers is a disgrace to his past as a boarding school student. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608/17 "2014-05-30T04:34:18Z")
Maybe he was caught using A1 steak sauce. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608/18 "2014-05-30T04:34:21Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Kerry sounds exactly like Cheney these days. > [@splatterpunk](#): > > No, he doesn’t. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > Yes, he does. No, he doesn’t. He’s trying but he just can’t get the accent right. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608/19 "2014-05-30T04:37:26Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Maybe he was caught using A1 steak sauce. That took me a second, but well done. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2014, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608/20 "2014-05-30T06:50:31Z")
Way back in the day, by a series of odd circumstances, it came to pass that the Viet Nam Veterans Against the War was meeting in my living room. It was an odd circumstance, since I am not a veteran, so the situation had a lot of odd little discomforts. I did the only appropriate thing, if I was home, I shut up and listened. Right about that time, John Kerry became the spokesman. The guys knew who he was, what he was, there was an air of affectionate disdain. But he was useful, he was necessary. He was clean, articulate, dripping Kennedy, white as a motherfuck. A lot of these guys had not had enough time to become civilians yet, they were kinda scruffy, rough-edged. Kerry said what they wanted said, and did it well, and if people wanted to say he was a leader, that was ok with them. I think Kerry was, like Clinton and Obama, running for President from the womb. I don’t think Kerry volunteered for combat duty because he wanted to fight, I think he wanted to be a veteran when he got back home and started his political career. In the vernacular, he was “getting his ticket punched”. Something changed him, something changed him so much that he was willing to risk his life’s ambition for a cause. He didn’t have to, he had his _boney fidos_, he could have simply mildly disapproved of the war in liberal Massachusetts and coasted. But he didn’t. The medal thing. Wasn’t his idea. Nobody really anticipated the impact it would have, it was a bombshell. It hit America right in a cherished myth, that veterans solidly approved of the wars they served in. Another bright shiny lie. It was political theater, guerrilla theater, at its best, it hit hard. The VVAW guys were suddenly very impressed with themselves, hey! Let’s do it again, some more, and some more. Kerry didn’t want to. OK, we made our point, but now we have to convince the ordinary people. And this shit repels them, it fires up the people who are already on our side, but doesn’t bring anybody else over. He was thinking like a politician, and was probably right. But it wasn’t very long at all before it became clear that Kerry was a spokesman, a front man, not the leader. And he resigned. Kerry wasn’t a radical by any stretch of the imagination, nor any kind of pacifist idealist. But those qualities are not required to recognize evil and oppose it. Jane Fonda wasn’t smart, she was an empty headed Hollywood bimbo. but she knew something was wrong and flailed about stupidly trying to do something about it. Kerry wasn’t some radical lefty who grew to be a centrist, he always was a centrist. But if you see something so evil that you are compelled to act, then none of that matters, the radical lefty sees the same evil that the milquetoast liberal sees. But let this be noted: all he had to do was shut up. And he didn’t. He risked his most cherished hopes to do the right thing. No, that’s not the same as risking your life. But its damned sure something. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry/689608.md?page=2)