Washington bureau reporter Jill Zuckman wrote a startingly poignant article in today's Chicago Tribune about Senator Kerry, and how he is engaged, like he had before in 1971, in ending a misguided war. I urge you to read the entire article here, it is that good, because it finally, finally captures who John Kerry is and always has been. Where were reports like this in 2004? Is Ms. Zuckman a new reporter at the Tribune? No, she is not. If you join me at the flip, you will see what she was writing back then, and excerpts of what she writes now. Unfortunately for our country, she waited until it was too late to tell the truth.
Jill Zuckman was like any other DC press corps type reporter back in the day (2004, that is). She fit in famously with the rest of the snark artists, ahem, reporters, feigning moral ambivalence for printing factless rumors about John Kerry taken from Drudge:
KURTZ: And the New York tabloids trotted out their screaming headlines. The former Associated Press reporter Alexandra Polier issued a statement this week denying the allegations, saying, quote, "I have never had a relationship with Senator Kerry, and the rumors in the press are completely false. Because these stories are false, I assume the media would ignore them."
But they didn't ignore her statement, especially the "New York Daily News."
Terry Smith, this turns out to be a complete non-story, so should the mainstream have gotten into running with it because Kerry was forced to deny it on the radio?
...
KURTZ: Although it's a tough call when it's out there. Now, how did you feel, Jill Zuckman, putting this rumor in the "Chicago Tribune" with no facts, not even an on the record allegation, in the course of writing a campaign story?
ZUCKMAN: I found it incredibly frustrating and kind of painful. It goes against what we are taught as journalists, you know, what you know. You don't put unsubstantiated things in the newspaper. It's wrong.
And yet, it's on the Internet. It's on talk radio. The candidate addresses it. And I'm sure it must have been a very difficult decision for the campaign, too, how to deal with something like that.
And once he addressed it, well, we felt like we had to mention it. So we did it at the bottom of a story, very, very low.
Yes, very low, Ms. Zuckman -- I love the way she works in that since it's on talk radio she needs to stoop that low, too. And why not a little knock at his marriage and his wife, while you're at it:
But Chicago Tribune correspondent Jill Zuckman says: "A lot of these things just don't happen in plain view of reporters. And few people within the campaign were willing or able to discuss the state of the candidate's marriage. The only thing that was apparent was that Senator Kerry's wife tended to put crowds to sleep while speaking, and I think that was captured in the profiles written about her."
Call me too traditional or sentimental, but this kind of talk has no place for a serious reporter at a big city newspaper. As a blogger, I can't imagine going after a politician's spouse in such a petty way or go ahead and print outright lies, while expressing that I felt bad about it after the fact. But this was and is DC press corps mentality. Now, however, when the election is over and our country is going to pot because the wrong guy "won" by a small margin, Ms. Zuckman has dusted off the ol' journalistic credentials and has nearly (not quite, but nearly) redeemed herself:
Kerry fights battle he finds all too familiar
Senator sees Iraq war as history repeating
By Jill Zuckman | Washington Bureau
July 23, 2007
WASHINGTON - He was a seminal figure as the Vietnam War spiraled downward, just as the generals and the politicians were starting to acknowledge that the war was a failure.
Young, lanky and highly decorated from his service commanding a Navy swift boat, John Kerry sat before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and famously said, "How do you ask a man to be the last person to die for a mistake?"
Few living American politicians have had their lives so defined by war as Kerry. His wartime service and wartime protest stoked his political career in Massachusetts. His military background burnished his credentials among Democrats seeking a nominee to run against an incumbent president during wartime in 2004. And now, in a quieter time, his hair gray and reading glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, he finds himself again opposing his government's conflict.
Beautifully written, it gives ample quotes of Senator Kerry's continued fight to end the war in Iraq. In one of those lightening hits twice moments, I can actually link to another MSM outlet (and not just have to prove it to y'all like I usually do by excerpting the actual bills from Thomas), the Washington Post's Blog, whose writer Paul Kane also seems to have taken some truth serum and lets a few facts
slip out:
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.): Few people might have realized this, but Levin-Reed -- setting a timetable for withdrawing troops -- was essentially the same amendment Kerry offered in June 2006. Back then, it got 13 votes. Now, 53. Of course, the 2004 Democratic nominee wasn't given his due, relegated to speaking shortly after 5 a.m. Wednesday.
I don't think, however, that Senator Kerry is trying to grab the spotlight on this -- just end the damned war the best and fastest way possible. If that means speaking at 5 AM, and giving other faces the chance to persuade during prime time hours, then so be it. I think this has just gotten very personal for him, and more important than feeding a senator's ego. Really. Ms. Zuckman continues:
On the Senate floor recently, Kerry recalled his famous question before the Foreign Relations Committee in 1971.
"I never thought I would be reliving that question again. I never thought I would have parents of young Americans killed in Iraq look me in the eye and tell me: Senator, my son died in vain," said Kerry, quickly adding that no death is in vain when it is in service of the country.
...
Kerry said he is frustrated when he hears his Republican colleagues privately complaining about mismanagement and mistakes in the war. And he can't understand why they want to wait until September, when Gen. David Petraeus issues his report, to consider changing course. With 100 American troops dying each month, that's another 200 deaths, he said.
The entire article reads like this, nicely weaving Kerry's history with Vietnam, the current political environment, his sadness on how too much is similar today to the Vietnam era, and his determination to end this war now. Contrast that with the silliness I excerpted earlier, and I really am at a loss. How could the DC press corps do this to our country, allowing that MAN to stay in the Oval Office, when they damn well KNEW better? I have yet to find an answer.
In the end, it is not Senator Kerry who has paid the ultimate price for this betrayal by the press, but rather our fighting men and women, and it is they who Senator Kerry focuses on today. Please go to this link to view a picture that goes with these words by Senator Kerry, describing the funerals he and Ted Kennedy attend at Arlington National Cemetery:
"You can see the precise military honor given to each of those soldiers, the flags draping the coffin rippling in the breeze. You can see the honor guard folding that flag meticulously into that sharp triangle of blue and white stars and then handing it to the loved ones, the wife, the mother, husband, father. Then hear those words -- 'On behalf of a grateful nation' -- and watch people crumble."