Free Radical

This poignant bit was published in the March 4 - 10 Boston Phoenix. At the JFK Library event [which still can be seen on the C-Span website under the title American Politics: Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) Discussion at JFK Library (03/13/2005)], Kerry spoke with passion and humor:

One of the great frustrations of John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign was the candidate’s refusal to take credit for his opposition to the Vietnam War. At the Democratic National Convention, in Boston, Kerry’s military service was celebrated ad nauseam while his anti-war credentials were studiously avoided. And the rest, to use a painfully apt cliché, is history. In rushed the Swift Boat Veterans, filling the vacuum left by Kerry with an assortment of lies and half-truths that were promptly lapped up by voters unable to fathom the concept of a loyal opposition. We’ll never know if Kerry would have gained votes, and if so, how many, by embracing his days as an activist. But expediency aside, simple intellectual honesty — and respect for his anti-war comrades in arms — should have compelled Kerry to act differently.

In his speech Monday at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Dorchester, where he was accepting the Kennedy Library Foundation’s 2005 Distinguished American Award, Kerry did what he should have done all along. In his acceptance speech, the junior senator from Massachusetts made several references to the anti-war and civil-rights movements of the late ’60s and early ’70s, any of which would have come in handy during the campaign. "There was an old adage then, which I wish I had talked about more during the course of the campaign," Kerry said at one point. "We used to say, ‘My country right or wrong: when you’re right, keep it right, and when you’re wrong, make it right.’ And ultimately, we created what we are lacking today in American politics, which is accountability." It was one of his biggest applause lines.

A moment later, Kerry was back at it. "What we need to do," the senator said, "is go back to what we did when 20 million people came out on the streets of America — when a river was lit on fire, the Cuyahoga River — when we marched and worked and went street to street and house to house. We have to do what we did in 1970, when 12 congressman were identified as the Dirty Dozen, and seven out of 12 of them lost. Know what happened after that? We passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the [Environmental Protection Agency].... Those laws, and that success, have carried this country."

Bush’s re-election, and the accompanying Republican ascendancy, have prompted much crowing on the right about the death of the ’60s once and for all. It was a time of misplaced rebellion, conservatives say, of moral degeneration and narcissistic self-indulgence. Good riddance. But as Kerry eloquently attested at the Kennedy Library, it was much more than that. If only he’d made that same point six months ago.

While I'm not convinced that unleashing his inner radical would have made the difference in this past election (it might have enraged as many latent hippie haters as it inspired), it was a tremendous relief to hear Kerry say these things in public. Unleashing the passion he displayed at this event could only be a plus.

Lest anyone reading this be tempted to use any of this as an argument against a possible Kerry '08 campaign, I'd like to add that one of the reasons for my loyalty to him is his ability to learn from his mistakes. A Kerry 2008 campaign would be very different.