"Kerry Was Right"

There's plenty of context in which the title of Matthew Yglesias' post, "Kerry was Right" would make sense, but the example cited by Yglesias is one many of us have been trying to explain to our friends on the right for years. It should be obvious now to voters who were taken in by the media and by Bush and his chubby, soon to be incarcerated friend Karl Rove, that when it comes to the fight against terrorism, Bush was wrong, and continues to be wrong, that John McCain is equally wrong, and that Senator Kerry was right.

While the Bush voters were cheering the flight deck landing and excusing his political blunders, and justifying the deaths of our men and women in uniform and the billions of dollars spent because "We had to get the terrorists." (we haven't), Senator Kerry was explaining that the way to defeat terrorism is through law enforcement and counterterrorism. He should know. He wrote a book on the subject. He investigated Iran-Contra. He shut down BCCI. He prosecuted criminals. He knows what he's talking about.

But instead of electing the person who actually knows something about fighting terrorism, someone convinced folks that they wouldn't want to have a beer with him (again, wrong), so that was that. We got Bushed.

In an April 17, 2004 Meet the Press interview, Senator Kerry said:

I think that I can fight a far more effective war on terror. I will build alliances and cooperation. I will make America safer. But I will use our military when necessary, but it is not primarily a military operation. It's an intelligence gathering, law enforcement, public diplomacy effort, and we're putting far more money into the war on the battlefield than we are into the war of ideas. We need to get it straight.

In February, 2004, in a speech at UCLA, he said:

But the fight requires us to use every tool at our disposal. Not only a strong military – but renewed alliances, vigorous law enforcement, reliable intelligence, and unremitting effort to shut down the flow of terrorist funds.

In September, 2004 in a speech at New York University, he said:

To prevent that from happening, we must call on the totality of America’s strength. Strong alliances, to help us stop the world’s most lethal weapons from falling into the most dangerous hands. A powerful military, transformed to meet the new threats of terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction. And all of America’s power – our diplomacy, our intelligence system, our economic power, the appeal of our values – each of which is critical to making America more secure and preventing a new generation of terrorists from emerging.

He said it throughout the 2004 campaign (watch 34 minutes into the video), and the Bush campaign mocked the strategy with ads intended to mislead and frighten the American people with the support of the majority of the mainstream media, who bought Bush's hype and sold it to the American public.

Five years, over four thousand American deaths and unknown thousands of Iraqi's killed and displaced, and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars later, it's clear. Bush was wrong. Kerry was right. Not just about Iraq, but about the larger issue of how to deal with terrorism.

In 2006, conservative George Will agreed that Senator Kerry had the correct approach to fighting terrorism.

[Will] even offers praise for John Kerry, saying he was right to say "that although the war on terror will be 'occasionally military,' it is 'primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world'"

The most recent validation came from the conservative Rand Corporation, whose report concluded:

... that the use of military force by the United States or other countries should be reserved for quelling large, well-armed and well-organized insurgencies, and that American officials should stop using the term “war on terror” and replace it with “counterterrorism.”

and that

"Even where we found some success against al-Qaida, in Pakistan and Iraq, the military played a background or surrogate role. The bulk of the action was taken by intelligence, police and, in some cases, local forces."

Keith Olbermann covered the story of MSNBC's Countdown.

I'm not sure how much play this story will get in the mainstream media. People don't like to be reminded that they were wrong, and the media pushed Bush's war hard for years. There's hope that they will repent, though, and give this the attention it deserves. Before American voters make the same tragic mistake with more of McSame.

Senator Kerry will give a speech today at the Center for American Progress on "A New Approach to Fighting Terrorism", and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing today on "Defining the Military's Role Toward Foreign Policy". I'd advise folks to listen. He has a habit of being right on these things.

I really don't understand religious extremism, where people hate in the name of religion or believe that a loving God intended for his people to kill each other in His name. There is no text of any major religion that preaches hate, and people who scour through them looking for justification for their own hatred aren't interpreting the message intended by either the Koran or the Bible. When Jesus instructed his disciples to "Love one another, as I have loved you." [John 13:34], he didn't add a list of conditions or exclusions. Love one another. Pretty simple.

In a speech at Yale Divinity School yesterday, Senator Kerry spoke on the importance of recognizing the shared values and beliefs common to people of various faiths, and the acceptance of our differences as the way to achieve peace.

Senator Kerry quotes the poet Auden in his remarks: “We must love one another or die.”

That's really the heart of it, isn't it?

Hopefully, the folks at Yale will put this up on YouTube soon. For now, here's a link to video of the Senator's speech and his remarks as prepared.

"I’d like to start by extending my heartfelt thanks to His Royal Highness Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan, President Levin, Dean Attridge, Miroslav Volf, and Joseph Cumming for having me here, and to all of you who have made the journey to Yale to tackle such a timely, essential, and challenging topic. It’s a pleasure to be here.

The American novelist Michael Chabon recently asked, “Is there anybody else who feels that it might be best if we just started the 21st century over again?”

As someone who narrowly lost the Presidency in 2004, I try not to worry about do-overs. But as a person of faith, it’s hard to avoid a sense of regret about all the ground we’ve lost in a few short years in our quest for interfaith tolerance and understanding.

We’ve barely broken the seal on the 21st century, but already it’s been marked not just by burning buildings and occupying armies and riots and roiling images of bloodshed and humiliation, but also by an even more widespread and dangerous worry—by a question you hear whispered and spoken quietly: What if we can’t live together? What if the gulfs that separate us are unbridgeable? Maybe we just need higher walls and fewer visas. Maybe coexistence is just too difficult.

While demagogues will play cynically to this pessimism, most leaders believe and talk otherwise. They believe we can, we must, and—God willing—we will find a way to live together better than we have. That’s why you’re here. You’ve placed yourselves among those looking to be on the right side of this debate—now together we must put ourselves on the right side of history.

In a world where today a Catholic, a Protestant, a Russian Orthodox Christian, a Confucian ex-Communist, a Hindu, a Muslim, and many assume a Jewish finger sits on a nuclear button, it’s a delusion to think we can retreat to our safe spaces. Not when Christians, Hindus and Muslims number in the billions. Not when Islam is the second-largest faith in Europe and the third-largest in America. Not when people of all faiths are migrating and mingling like never before. Gallup says there are 1.3 billion Muslims worldwide. The Vatican recently announced that there are now more Muslims than Catholics. The reality is that our faiths—and fates—are inextricably intertwined. The poet Auden said it best, “We must love one another or die.” It’s a delusion to think we have any choice but to find a way to live together.

The question of tolerance isn’t new and it’s not one Americans come to without our own experience. We’ve struggled with this since our founding, which has its roots in the search for religious freedom. The quest for religious truth and the challenge of peaceful coexistence are written into the fabric of our country and the history of the world and even into my own family DNA.

John Winthrop, my great-grandfather eight times over—meaning 10 generations ago—was the son of a lawyer born in England. His passionate faith and his disagreements with the Anglican Church inspired him to lead a ship full of religious dissidents across the Atlantic to America to seek freedom to worship. On the deck of the Arabella, he famously said: "For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us."

It wasn’t long before these religious dissidents—many of whom lived in the city of Salem, which takes its name from salaam or shalom, meaning “peace”—experienced their own religious strife. They accused women of witchcraft and burned them at the stake.

In this “city on a hill,” Winthrop clashed with a rogue preacher named Samuel Gorton. When Gorton compared Winthrop to Pontius Pilate and his followers to idol-worshippers and vipers, Winthrop responded by putting him in shackles and having him arrested. When Gorton refused to stop preaching, Winthrop expelled him into the wilderness.

More doctrinal differences, this time over relations between church and state, would soon exile Roger Williams from Massachusetts. Accused of “wanting to banish god from government,” Williams was threatened with deportation back to England. Instead, he left Boston, leading his flock wandering through forests for the winter until he emerged on a great bay and called it Providence.

Then, a theologian named Thomas Hooker broke with Massachusetts leadership because he believed that all authority, in state or religion, must rest on popular consent. It wasn’t long before he left too, and founded Hartford, Connecticut with his congregation.

Yet another pastor, John Davenport, called for his congregants to burn their rings, cloaks, wigs and other vain personal items in a large bonfire—along with religious books he considered to be wicked. What happened? You guessed it: he left town to found a colony in Connecticut—making him one of the first to forsake Cambridge Massachusetts for greener pastures right here in New Haven. Davenport College at this university is named after him.

Today we are all neighbors with more in common than could possibly separate us.

These early disagreements—all among a group of Christians whose shared disagreements with the Anglican Church had led them to the New World in the first place—remind me of a joke a Jewish friend of mine used to tell:

A Jewish man, miraculously rescued after years stranded alone on a dessert island—welcomes some news crews. He shows them a bucket and says, “this is how I got my rainwater.” He shows them his coconut tree, and walks them past a snake patch he learned to avoid. And then they arrive at a clearing, with two shining temples.

The man says, “these are my two synagogues.” And the reporters ask, “if you were here all alone, why did you build two synagogues?” And the man points to one and says, “this one, I go to every week.” And he points to the other one, with a look of disgust. “That one…I would never set foot in!”

So these are not new challenges. Every religion has a version of this joke because we all struggle with the divisiveness of religious differences—even small differences inside the same religion.

This dialogue is critical. And the truth is, no faith arrives with clean hands. In Christianity we’ve had our own struggles, going back to the crusades—and some would say there are still crusades going on today!

America has experienced its share of religious disputes and religious cruelty. And yet, though we’re far from perfect, no place has ever welcomed so many different faiths to worship so freely.

There are Buddhist temples in the farmlands of Minnesota, Mosques in the cornfields of the Midwest, and Hindu temples in suburban Nashville, Tennessee. Ours is a country not only of white church steeples but of synagogues, of minarets of Muslim mosques, of golden domes and shikara of Sikh temples; of monasteries, Buddhist as well as Catholic. “E Pluribus Unum,” “From Many, One, is our national creed.”

From many faiths, one shared country. That achievement rests on our solution to the age-old question: Who defines the truth in public space? Our experiment has succeeded because we’ve allowed for different notions of truth in public life. Many believe that to do otherwise is to invite permanent war.

My pride in America’s successes is tempered by knowing that we are a long way from mutual understanding with the Muslim world today. One enormous problem in that effort is that we lack a forum to discuss these issues. Even among political leaders it happens far too rarely.

If you don’t engage, you can’t even find answers to the most basic, fundamental questions: Why do you wear the hijab? Why do you go to Mecca? What is jihad? If you ask many Americans or Europeans, they don’t know because they aren’t having the dialogue. We have major politicians who couldn’t tell you the difference between Shi’a and Sunni— so it’s no wonder that we attack a secular dictator in response to radical fundamentalist terrorists.

And shockingly, the vast majority of followers of these great faiths have very little understanding of our common ancestry—or even know that we all worship one god and the same god. And do so with a very similar sense of awe and wonder and total commitment.

As a Catholic American politician, I know enough about Islam to know that I don’t know enough about Islam—and when it comes to Islam, American politicians ought to do a lot more listening and maybe a little less talking.

I believe we have a duty to understand each other in the name of living peacefully. We have a duty to engage with each other. The Abrahamic faiths—Christianity, Judaism, and Islam-- have to find new meaning in the old notion of our shared descent. What really is our common inheritance? What does it mean to be brothers? Are we responsible for each other, or are the exhortations of the Koran, the Torah, and the Bible just words?

Ultimately, our sense of kinship has to rest on something more basic than our common ancestry: an acknowledgement of our shared humanity.

The good news I see is that, for all the challenges our differences present, all of the major religions do have a sense of universal values—a moral truth based on the dignity of all human beings.

Gandhi called the world’s religions “beautiful flowers from the same garden.” Every religion embraces a form of the Golden Rule, and the supreme importance of charity, compassion, and human improvement. When Jesus was asked "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law," he replied: first "you shall love the Lord your God" and second "you shall love your neighbor as yourself." "In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."

The Talmud says that in Roman times, a nonbeliever approached the famous Rabbi Hillel and challenged him to teach the meaning of the Torah while standing on one leg. Holding up one foot, Hillel replied: "What is hateful to yourself, do not do to another. That is the whole of the Torah… the rest is commentary."

The Prophet Muhammad said "not one of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself."

Buddhist scriptures teach us to "treat not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful." Native American spirituality proclaims that “all things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves.”

Anyone who adheres to these basic principles must acknowledge: the moral challenges we all face today are immense, but also shared. Billions of human beings live in poverty. People are struggling to feed their families from Port Au Prince to Dhaka. AIDS orphans are raising their younger siblings in shantytowns in South Africa. A planet is being ravaged and radically altered by the pollution we’ve created. And people in every corner of the world are living lives of violence and desperation.

We should think of our shared struggle in terms of these unmet challenges. 65% of the Middle East’s population is under age 25. There’s a 15% unemployment rate, half of which is comprised of youths between ages 15-24—and just to maintain this unacceptable status quo as the population grows, the region needs 80 million new jobs in the next 15 years. Extremism and violent sectarianism often represent a human attempt to capitalize on the failures of governance and civil society. This applies to failed states like Afghanistan, where in the 1990s the Taliban arose to fill a chaotic vacuum, but also to many other places where the state, the society, and the religious order don’t do enough to remedy unfairness, lack of education, or social alienation. I don’t just mean a place like Sadr City in Baghdad— this is true of Cairo or even the desolate immigrant suburbs around Paris. People exploit religion to drive a wedge and gain a foothold—and failed states, failed civil societies, and frankly corruption in governance empower them to do so.

The dialogue here must include ways in which we join to express a common moral responsibility to avoid that exploitation and find instead the governance that empowers people and liberates religion.

In talking about our shared challenges, I don’t seek to minimize the real differences between our religions. The specificity, the immediacy, the richness of each of our sacred texts, the greatness of our preferred theologians and thinkers—all are cheapened when dialogue tries to turn religion into some sort of undifferentiated feel-good mush. Nor can we hope to remove any influence of faith from our public life. In fact, we shouldn’t even try. If we’re not shaped by our faith, then we don’t have faith.

It’s important to remember what faith is. Faith, to the person who has it, is truth. But in the end, faith is a belief beyond the evidence—or as some people say, in the evidence yet to come. Who pronounces the truth? In the end, God does—not us. And each of us has to choose among god’s messengers on earth.

What separates our faiths are different beliefs about what is not shown but simply believed. Belief by Christians that Jesus is the Son of God; Belief by Catholics in the Holy Trinity—a notion which Muslims and some even some other Christians believe compromises the oneness of a monotheistic God; Belief by Muslims that Jesus was a great prophet who didn’t complete his mission, requiring Mohammed and the teachings of the Koran; Belief by Muslims and Jews that Jesus was an important teacher but that God could never become human. Each religion believes its basic tenets are supported by fact: That Mohammed received the Koran; That crucifixion was observed and recorded; That Moses led the Jews to the promised land. While each rests on basic facts, it still takes a leap of faith to weave these facts together into a religious narrative.

Whatever our differences, among the monotheistic religions, we should be celebrating that we all believe in one God. All religions should be celebrating our agreement to put one thing above all else: worship. And at the same time, we must also welcome the secular among us to join in celebrating our common awe at the majestic fact of the universe we inhabit, however it may have originated.

We don’t need to agree on everything to get along—instead, we need to ask ourselves tough questions about coexistence. I see at least two types of conversations to cultivate between the great Abrahamic faiths—and all faiths. The first I would call traditional interfaith dialogue. The second is a search for how we might live together in some sort of peace and harmony that respects our differences while fashioning a common effort for human dignity. We cannot wait for the theological conversation to finish before we move to pressing political and social questions.

Somehow, we have to find a way to agree that faith may be worth dying for, but it cannot be worth killing for. We have to strive for a global ethic that allows each of our religious faiths to express themselves fully but also allows us to unite around common ethical ground.

My own faith, Roman Catholicism, has advanced a line of thinking that I believe can help structure this second conversation. For many years Catholics have spoken of the common good, not just for Catholics, not just for a single people, not just for this or that nation, but for all the earth’s people: an international common good.

Vatican II, a crucial document in recent Catholic history, labels the common good "the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment." These conditions include the right to fulfillment of material needs, a guarantee of fundamental freedoms, and the protection of relationships that are essential to participation in the life of society. These rights are bestowed on human beings by God and grounded in the nature and dignity of human persons. They are not created by society. Indeed society has a duty to secure and protect them.

Can our great faith traditions come together and forge a consensus on the conditions of life that will empower people to find their own fulfillment? It seems to me that we cannot move forward as a planet if we do not come to some rough consensus on what these broad rights are. Beyond that we must find ways to secure these goods for everyone on our planet while simultaneously discussing, arguing and sharing our particular understandings of God and God’s call for how we are to live our lives.

There are many different ways that communities of faith and governments can contribute to nurturing this second conversation. There are profound gaps in the mutual understanding not only between the major faiths, but also between nations populated by these faiths. Governments possess resources to sponsor educational exchanges, to make it easier for students to study abroad, to create venues for mutual intellectual collaboration and exploration.

We must also recognize that dialogue is not enough. We must also learn to match it with action and treat each other with respect. Napoleon, for example, arrived in Egypt declaring his love and respect for the Muslim religion, and even hinting that he himself was eager to become a Muslim. Then he pillaged the country. It’s not enough to talk a good game—our actions must foster coexistence as well.

I believe our shared ethics must also expand to embrace a duty to engage, to learn from, and to at least try to understand one another. I’ve been thinking recently that along with the Hajj to Mecca there should be another pilgrimage somewhere else—Jeddah maybe—where people of all faiths could join together and pray—in their own ways—for the enduring health of our planet and its people.

All religions today include their moderate and extreme elements—those who value peaceful coexistence and those who don’t. It’s up to each of us to work within our faith communities and between them to push people toward expressing their beliefs in a manner compatible with a peaceful world.

Gandhi said: You must be the change you want to see in the world. We all want to see a great deal of change. Somewhere between religious war and religious harmony—the “love” that each of our faiths command—is tolerance, acceptance of others’ freedom to believe. I am so impressed and so grateful to “A Common Word” for not merely longing for a better dialogue but for standing up and delivering one.

We have come together to make an honest effort at understanding. When you do so, whatever your faith, I believe you are doing God’s work.

My ancestor, John Winthrop, saw his colony in Massachusetts as a “city on a hill”— an example to teach others how to live an ideal life. Today it is up to all of us to build a new kind of city on a hill: one that cannot be walled off, one where those who disagree are not locked in shackles or exiled into the wilderness. We still need to set an example for the world. We have a lesson to teach humanity. Only now, the lesson is this: “We must love one another or die.” We must learn how to love our faiths and live them side by side. In the 21st century, that will be our city on the hill. May god bless you all. Thank you."

Image: Yale Divinity School website

Is there some sort of contest between McCain and Senate Republicans? Both seem to be going for quantity over quality, McCain with his daily gaffes, flip-flops and cheap shots, and the Roadblock Republicans with their record filibusters. It seems as though after Senate Republicans set an all time high for blocking legislation last fall, McCain just decided to stop going to work and strike out on his own to see how many screw-ups he could manage in a row. Quite the maverick, that guy.

Republicans blocked an effort last week by Senate Democrats to lower gas prices, and despite the fact that Norm Coleman (R-flipflopper) released a study with Carl Levin two years ago that found speculation was a major contributor to high energy prices, he voted against the legislation.

This is what the report said two years ago:

The report recommends that Congress enact legislation to close a major loophole in federal oversight of oil and gas traders, slipped into law in 2000 at the behest of Enron and other large energy traders.

This is what Norm Coleman said about the report at the time:

“The question is whether we have allowed this sector to play by the beat of their own drum – going virtually unchecked and unregulated. We need to take a hard look at whether we have enough regulatory tools to prevent fraud and ensure there isn’t profiteering by traders at the expense of you and me.” - Norm Coleman June 27, 2006

Incredible, isn't it? Norm Coleman and the rest of the Republican obstructionists in Congress know that oil price speculation is contributing to high prices, yet they voted against a bill to help curb it.

That fact didn't escape the watchful eye of Al Franken, the next Senator from Minnesota, who took note of Coleman's vote and introduced his energy plan to give Americans relief from high energy prices.

So, while Senate Democrats and Democratic candidates are looking to ease the pain of high fuel prices, Senate Republicans are blocking bills so they can help their oil buddies.

From CNN:

The bill would provide more resources and authority to the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to detect and punish speculation, stop speculators from using foreign markets to manipulate the price of oil in the United States, require more transparency in oil markets and limit the trading of market players who do not intend to take delivery of the oil they purchase.

In particular, the bill will give the trading commission greater power to regulate the "swap" market for futures and differentiate between "legitimate" and "illegitimate" hedge trading, which, the Democrats say, has led to increased prices.

It's really no surprise that Republicans want us to pay more for gasoline, what with two oil guys in the White House. These guys have marched in lockstep with the Bush-Cheney administration for years, rubber stamping George and Dick's every wish, and restricting the power of Congress by mirroring, rather than providing a check on the Executive branch. And while Republicans continue to try to bamboozle the American people by calling for more drilling, they don't mention the millions of acres where oil companies already have leases and permits to drill, but haven't. Nancy Pelosi discussed the issue with Jon Stewart on last night's The Daily Show.

Last week, Senator Kerry spoke with MSNBC about the effect of gas prices on small businesses, and the Senate Democrats efforts to provide a near term fix.

We can't drill our way out of our energy problems. Senator Kerry has been saying that for years. We can, however, get some relief from high gas and heating oil prices by controlling speculation.

If Republicans will stop obstructing.

With all the excitement over Obama's visit to Europe and the Middle East and McCain's trip to the grocery store, you may have missed the Senate Finance Committee hearing on The Cayman Islands and Offshore Tax Issues. If you did, you can still catch video at the committee website. Offshore tax havens are an huge issue, costing taxpayers $100 billion annually. But it's not just the tax revenue. As Sen. Kerry reminds us, it's a national security issue as well.

The Senator released a statement on the proposed power sharing agreement in Zimbabwe, spoke with Imus on a broad range of topics including McCain's confusion, proposed legislation for heating assistance (which the Roadblock Republicans filibustered), and stopped in Framingham to discuss alternative energy, Iraq and Barack Obama, and fist bump with local shopkeepers.

That's a pretty cool photo.

He called for a diplomatic presence in Iran, announced $26.7 million in grants for housing rehabilitation, introduced legislation to help with at home care for the elderly and disabled, and was endorsed by NARAL.

On Friday, Senator Kerry attended a wake for Sgt. Alex Jimenez.

Senator Kerry is scheduled to speak on Thursday at the Center for American Progress on "A New Approach to Fighting Terrorism", and will be riding in the Pan-Mass on Saturday.

He's riding for Teddy, so don't forget to dig deep for two great Senators and the fight against cancer.

Hey McCain, got some whine to go with that cheesy dairy case photo op?

John McCain issued another disingenuous attack (lie) yesterday against Barack Obama while Obama was out of the country on a visit to Europe and the Middle East rebuilding our global alliances. This time the assault came in the form of a poorly done TV commercial, rife with distortions and intended to mislead the public. The Obama camp hit back with a response.

The McCain ad claims Barack Obama never held a single Senate hearing on Afghanistan.

The truth is that Afghanistan is Sen. Kerry's subcommittee, not Obama's, and there have been hearings. Not that McCain would know, he's been AWOL from the Senate for months.

McCain Missed Every Armed Services Committee Hearing In The Last Two Years That Discussed Afghanistan. A review of the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings as listed on the committee Web site for the past two years reveals that McCain’s committee has held six hearings that included the word “Afghanistan” in the title or Central Command — which overseas U.S. troops in Afghanistan. McCain missed them all.

...

Kerry Said That Oversight Of Afghanistan Falls Under His Subcommittee And Not Obama's; Said Top Topics Like NATO Are Left To The Foreign Relations Committee. “Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., an Obama supporter and member of the Foreign Relations Committee, pointed out in a teleconference with reporters Monday that oversight for Afghanistan falls under the jurisdiction of his subcommittee — Near East and South and Central Asian Affairs. He said he had conducted hearings on policy in Afghanistan. He also said top topics such as NATO are left to the Foreign Relations Committee.”

He was just there, and McCain bitched about it the whole time. Next.

The McCain ad says Obama voted against funding our troops.

Annenberg Fact Check: Saying Obama Voted Against Troop Funding Is "Oversimplified To The Point Of Being Seriously Misleading, Which Is Exactly The Problem With McCain’s Ad." "As recently as April 2007, Obama voted in favor of funding U.S. troops again, but this time Democrats added a non-binding call to withdraw them from Iraq. McCain (who was absent for the vote) urged the president to veto that funding measure, because of the withdrawal language. President Bush did veto it, and McCain applauded Bush's veto. Based on those facts, it would be literally true to say that 'McCain urged a veto of funding for our troops.' But that would be oversimplified to the point of being seriously misleading, which is exactly the problem with McCain’s ad."

AP Fact Check: The McCain Ad’s Charge That Obama Voted Against Troop Funding Is "Misleading." "The ad’s most inflammatory charge — that Obama voted against troop funding in Iraq and Afghanistan — is misleading. The Illinois senator consistently voted to fund the troops once elected to the Senate, a point Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton made during the primaries when questioning whether his anti-war rhetoric was reflected in his actions."

I'm still waiting to hear why McCain campaigned against the GI bill. If he thinks some crappy ad's going to hide his miserable Senate record, he's not giving the voters much credit. Why didn't McCain co-sponsor a single piece of legislation proposed by Sen. Obama to support our active duty military and veterans? He doesn't think we should do any of this?

S.117 : A bill to amend titles 10 and 38, United States Code, to improve benefits and services for members of the Armed Forces, veterans of the Global War on Terrorism, and other veterans, to require reports on the effects of the Global War on Terrorism, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Sen Obama, Barack [IL] (introduced 1/4/2007)

S.692 : A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to establish a Hospital Quality Report Card Initiative to report on health care quality in Veterans Affairs hospitals.
Sponsor: Sen Obama, Barack [IL] (introduced 2/27/2007)

S.713
Title: A bill to ensure dignity in care for members of the Armed Forces recovering from injuries.
Sponsor: Sen Obama, Barack [IL] (introduced 2/28/2007)

S.1084
Title: A bill to provide housing assistance for very low-income veterans.
Sponsor: Sen Obama, Barack [IL] (introduced 4/10/2007)

S.1271
Title: A bill to provide for a comprehensive national research effort on the physical and mental health and other readjustment needs of the members of the Armed Forces and veterans who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom and their families.
Sponsor: Sen Obama, Barack [IL] (introduced 5/2/2007)

S.1817 : A bill to ensure proper administration of the discharge of members of the Armed Forces for personality disorder, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Sen Obama, Barack [IL] (introduced 7/19/2007)

S.2330: Title: A bill to authorize a pilot program within the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development with the goal of preventing at-risk veterans and veteran families from falling into homelessness, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Sen Obama, Barack [IL] (introduced 11/8/2007)

S.AMDT.664 to H.R.1591 To appropriate an additional $58,000,000 for Defense Health Program for additional mental health and related personnel, an additional $10,000,000 for operation and maintenance for each of the military departments for improved physical disability evaluations of members of the Armed Forces, and an additional $15,000,000 for Defense Health Program for women's mental health services.
Sponsor: Sen Obama, Barack [IL] (introduced 3/27/2007)

S.AMDT.3078 to H.R.1585 Relating to administrative separations of members of the Armed Forces for personality disorder.
Sponsor: Sen Obama, Barack [IL] (introduced 9/27/2007)

S.AMDT.4330 to S.CON.RES.70 To provide an additional $5 million to the military departments' respective Boards for Correction of Military Records to expedite review of cases in which service members with combat-related psychological injuries (such as PTSD) or closed head injuries (such as TBIs) were administered discharges for personality disorders or other discharges resulting in a loss of benefits or care and seek a correction of records or upgraded discharge.
Sponsor: Sen Obama, Barack [IL] (introduced 3/13/2008)

The McCain ad says Obama made time to go to the gym, but cancelled a visit with wounded troops.

The fact is that Obama did visit troops. The video of Obama shooting hoops in the ad is with the troops. He also visited wounded troops while he was in Iraq. He just didn't turn it into a photo op.

Obama Has Been Clear: He Did Not Want Visit to Wounded Soldiers To Be Perceived as Political, Which The Pentagon Had Ruled It Would Be, And Never Planned To Bring Media. "We had scheduled to go, we had no problem at all in leaving, we always leave press and staff off — that is why we left it off the schedule. We were treating it in the same way we treat a visit to Walter Reed which I was able to do a few weeks ago without any fanfare whatsoever. I was going to be accompanied by one of my advisors, a former military officer." Continued Obama, "And we got notice that he would be treated as a campaign person, and it would therefore be perceived as political because he had endorsed my candidacy but he wasn’t on the Senate staff. That triggered then a concern that maybe our visit was going to be perceived as political. And the last thing that I want to do is have injured soldiers and the staff at these wonderful institutions having to sort through whether this is political or not or get caught in the crossfire between campaigns." "So rather than go forward and potentially get caught up in what might have been considered a political controversy of some sort," Obama said, "what we decided was that we not make a visit and instead I would call some of the troops that were there. So that essentially would be the extent of the story."

Obama Visited Wounded Troops at Walter Reed Last Month. The AP wrote, "Barack Obama stopped by Walter Reed Army Medical Center Saturday to visit wounded war veterans, a group that he has said endures substandard care under the Bush administration. The presumed Democratic nominee, who was in Washington to speak to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, slipped into the facility shortly after 9 a.m. without stopping to speak to the small group of reporters who follow him. The visit wasn’t on his public schedule."

Obama Visited Wounded Troops In Baghdad’s Green Zone. Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said, "On Monday, Sen. Obama stopped into a combat support hospital in the green zone of Baghdad, some of you may have seen the show on HBO called Baghdad ER, that was this hospital."

If John McCain thinks he can bamboozle his way into the White House, he's got another thing coming. There were two other Senators with Obama on his trip, both Vietnam veterans. Is McCain claiming that Jack Reed and Chuck Hagel ignored the troops, too? The Obama camp and Sen. Reed responded to McCain's lies.

"John McCain is an honorable man who is running an increasingly dishonorable campaign. Senator McCain knows full well that Senator Obama strongly supports and honors our troops, which is what makes this attack so disingenuous. Senator Obama was honored to meet with our men and women in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan this week and has visited wounded soldiers at Walter Reed numerous times. This politicization of our soldiers is exactly what Senator Obama sought to avoid, and it’s not worthy of Senator McCain or the 'civil' campaign he claimed he would run," - Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor.

"I was with Senator Obama last week as we met privately with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Senator Obama listened to their concerns and expressed his gratitude for their service without press or fanfare. He cares for our troops deeply and has worked hard to give them not only the resources they need, but also honor their service with a clearly defined mission and by providing them with the support they have earned when they come home. And just as Senator McCain's support of President Bush's veto of funding for our troops doesn't mean he does not support them, neither does Senator Obama's insistence that we not give George Bush a blank check."
-Sen Jack Reed

McCain can whine all he wants about how the world loves Obama. He can bitch and moan about the media coverage, despite the fact that the media has been glossing over McCain's every screw-up (read up on McCain adviser "Enron Phil" Gramm). The fact is that people like Obama because he's a great candidate who will make an excellent President. And the media is covering Obama because he's meeting with heads of state, not standing in front of the Fudge Haus griping.

What should the media cover? A joint press conference with a Presidential nominee and the leaders of foreign nations or dinner in the rathskeller with Lindsey Graham?

Sorry your fromage and schnitzel tour didn't grab the attention of the media, Senator McCain. Really, though, can you blame them?

Oh, look. Obama's home. Even video of him getting in his car is more interesting than McCain's nasty attacks.

Do you ever wonder if you're doing enough?

A lot of us spend a lot of time knocking on doors, making calls and donating our hard earned cash to our nominee and local candidates. That's a lot. Most of us are not only hurting from the effects of the Bush economy, but we've already been hit up by the DCCC, the DSCC, a half dozen or so charities, PACs, the Obama campaign and our local Dems. But there's one more cause that needs your attention.

Senator Kerry has told us, more than once. "I know you've done a lot. Now I'm going to ask you to do more."

He's asking.

This time, it's for Teddy and everyone fighting the battle against cancer. An e-mail went out from Senator Kerry this week, asking us to sponsor his ride in the Pan Mass Challenge. If you aren't getting the emails, you can sign up at johnkerry.com, but first, you'll want to sponsor the Senator's Pan-Mass ride, and send some love (and your credit card number) to the Jimmy Fund.

There are a lot of great reasons to donate. Not only is the Senator a wicked fast rider who is sure to do his sponsors proud, but the Pan Mass Challenge is a great cause, and it's a personal one for Senator Kerry. And he's riding for Teddy.

So, give till it hurts, at least a little. You've done a lot. Do more.

No matter what the Republican strategists and right wing pundits on TV say, no one can convince me that the majority of Americans don't want the United States to regain our moral authority, that we don't want to be respected again by the rest of the world, or that we're not ready for the world to again look to us as a beacon of hope.

The world is waiting to love us again. They did, once. It can happen again.

But it won't happen with John McCain.

Wow. Throngs of Europeans waving American flags and cheering for an American political leader instead of burning our president in effigy. It's been a while.

Senator Kerry commented on the importance of Barack Obama's speech.

Once again, the McCain campaign used the occasion to bash the Democratic nominee. Obama gave a speech before 200,000 in front of Berlin's Victory Column urging the nations of the world to work together toward our common goals, and Germans waved American flags and cheered for our country in reply. Rather than take pride in that great moment, the McCain camp found fault. McCain's people didn't mention their candidate's recent speeches in Canada, London, or his Columbia photo op when they whined about Obama's speech in Germany. Maybe because a quarter of a million people didn't show up to hear what McCain had to say. Maybe it's because it didn't fit their talking points. When questioned about McCain's Canada speech, a Republican strategist actually excused it because Canada "is on the same continent". Oh, OK. It's not 'overseas'. Well that's different, then.

I really don't know what could be more important for our national security than to have the rest of the world's admiration and respect. And I'm not sure why McCain has a problem with it, except that it's not him on the receiving end of that admiration. It couldn't be that he cares more about winning an election than winning the hearts and minds of the rest of the world.

Could it?

Maybe McCain was just mad because he didn't get to make his oil rig speech, what with the massive oil spill that shut down the Mississippi. Instead, he was seen knocking over an applesauce display and speaking before cheese in a grocery store before heading to a German restaurant in Columbus for brats and cream puffs.

Weenies and cream puffs. Interesting choice.

He's a little busy right now.

From the moment Barack Obama stepped on the plane to visit Europe and the Middle East, McCain has taken every opportunity to trash the Democratic nominee. Yesterday was the last straw, as the McCain camp attacked Obama's visit to a holy site and used the solemn occasion in Israel in a desperate effort to promote McCain's failed strategy.

We wrote yesterday about the disgusting comment Sen. McCain made questioning Barack Obama's patriotism. At that point, I didn't think he could say anything more vile.

But he did.

Senator Obama visited Yad Vashem yesterday, and wrote an eloquent and touching comment in the guestbook at Israel's Holocaust memorial.

I am grateful to Yad Vashem and all of those responsible for this remarkable insititution. At a time of great peril and promise, war and strife, we are blessed to have such a powerful reminder of man's potential for great evil, but also our capacity to rise up from tragedy and remake our world. Let our children come here, and know this history, so that they can add their voices to proclaim "never again". And may we remember those who perished, not only as victims, but also as individuals who hoped and loved and dreamed like us, and who have become symbols of the human spirit.

Barack Obama
23 July, 2008

In response to this statement of hope and remembrance, the McCain camp attacked Senator Obama's heartfelt message with a stunningly disrespectful rebuttal.

Congressman Wexler called McCain's attack "shameful" and "unconscionable", and added:

"using Senator Obama's somber visit to Israel's Holocaust Museum Yad Vashem as a backdrop to score cheap political points instead of focusing on the security needs of the nation."

Congressman Wexler wasn't the only one to find McCain's comment beyond the boundaries of decency.

Now, I understand McCain doesn't know how to use a computer and is just catching on to the whole sound and moving pictures thing, but someone needs to tell him that the people in other countries can hear what he's saying. The leaders of Israel know that McCain used the Yad Vashem visit to try to score cheap political points. Just like the people of al-Anbar know that he diminished their successes against al-Qaeda in Iraq and just like folks in Belarus know he belittled their country when he suggested banishing Phil Gramm there. Now, I don't think McCain intended to insult the memorial or the memory of the leader of the Anbar Awakening, or even the folks in Belarus. That's the point, though. He just doesn't realize that with his attempts at Obama, there is collateral damage to our international relations. After eight years of a president who couldn't leave the country without insulting someone, the last thing we need is another who we'd be afraid to put in front of a camera for fear he'll cause an international incident.

Senator Kerry spoke with Imus the other day about Barack Obama's leadership and about McCain's confusion on foreign relations and the economy.

On a side note, McCain surrogate Senator Joe Lieberman embraced anti-Catholic Rev. Hagee this week after McCain was for/against him.

If McCain's goal was to alienate Jews, Catholics and Muslims this week, I'd say he did a world-class job.

They're calling it yet another McCain 'gaffe', but is it?

Either John McCain knows little about the history of the Iraq war, he just doesn't remember from one minute to the next, or he'll go to any lengths to spin his fiction into 'fact'. I'm not sure which it is, but in an interview with Katie Couric yesterday, McCain got it absolutely wrong and CBS tried to cover it up. The Jed Report has the video here along with Countdown's expose of it. Masterp2323 has a longer comparison of what CBS aired vs. what CBS cut which was still available unedited on cbs.com.

From cbs.com's transcript of the interview:

McCain: I don't know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarlane (phonetic) was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that's just a matter of history. Thanks to General Petraeus, our leadership, and the sacrifice of brave young Americans. I mean, to deny that their sacrifice didn't make possible the success of the surge in Iraq, I think, does a great disservice to young men and women who are serving and have sacrificed.

The only problem with Sen. McCain's statement is that he got it all wrong. The Anbar Awakening started in September of 2006, and the troop escalation started in the spring of 2007. That's fact. There's no way to spin the spring of '07 to have occurred before the fall of 2006.

As bad as it was, it wasn't the worst thing McCain did while his opponent was out of the country.

This was.

"I had the courage and the judgment to say I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.”

On Anderson Cooper's show last night, Joe Klein called McCain's comment the most scurrilous charge he's ever heard from a candidate. Senator Kerry, in an interview on MSNBC yesterday called it 'ridiculous and insulting'. Personally, I think it questions the patriotism of a United States Senator, is inexcusable and warrants a public apology.

It wasn't the first time the campaign used the line. A McCain adviser said it the other day. It was an ugly statement at the time, but it came from an adviser, and they sometimes say ugly things. Coming from someone who wants to be the President of the United States, it's a disgusting and vile attack, and unbecoming of a candidate.

Meanwhile, the right wing news is still hiding behind the troops as they attempt to conflate the failed Bush strategy with tactical military successes. In a Fox News interview, Sen. Kerry discussed the surge, and explained the difference between tactical successes and strategic failures. I don't think the other guy 'got it'.

Here's my summary of the interview:

Fox: The surge worked!
Kerry: Not exactly.
Fox: But what about the troops?!
Kerry: They're the best troops in the world.
Fox: But the troops ...
Kerry: Our troops have done a brilliant job.
Fox: You're not giving the troops credit.
Kerry: The troops are extraordinary. They've done a brilliant job.
Fox: But you're not giving credit to the trooops ...

At that point, the audio is accidentally cut before the Senator can respond to the interviewer's final attempt to spin defense of the administration's failed policy into support of the military.

When is the right wing going to stop blaming Bush's failures on our troops? And when is the right wing media going to stop covering for McCain?

UPDATE: JedReport posted an update which shows interestingly enough that at one point before the surge, McCain understood that the Anbar Awakening was due to the sheiks in the province. Guess his memory failed him.

HuffPo's Seth Colter Walls found a gem of a quote -- John McCain talking about the Anbar Awakening on January 5, 2007...before Bush announced the surge.

Too often the light at the tunnel has turned out to be a train, but I really believe -- I really believe that there's a strong possibility that you may see a very substantial change in Anbar province due to this new changes in our relationships with the sheiks in the region.

As you know, McCain's CBS whopper was that these relationships (the Anbar Awakening) did not begin until the surge started. But they actually began in 2006, and now, thanks to the fact that I happened to have video of the event Walls referenced (go figure), we've got a YouTube clip of John McCain making that very point himself, in his own words -- before there ever was a surge.

The latest stop on Senator Kerry's "Kerry On Your Corner" tour was Framingham, where he spoke to constituents about the need to elect a Democratic president and a real Democratic majority in Congress.

PolitickerMA.com has the story:

From atop the chair, Kerry spoke emphatically and quickly, using his hands to emphasize his statements. The crowd was silent listening to him as he hammered home his points. If the Democrats succeed in November, he said, there will be the first "progressive, thoughtful and intelligent legislating since Lyndon Johnson was president."

Kerry also said that the Democrats would restore the United States to its position as a global superpower and repair its damaged reputation around the world.

In addition to stops around Framingham, the Senator took time for an interview with Chet Curtis to discuss Sen. Obama's trip to the Middle East, the troop surge and energy prices.

Senators Obama, Hagel and Reed echoed Senator Kerry's statements on the troop surge yesterday after their visit to Iraq. Despite the spin from the McCain camp, the progress in Iraq is not what John McCain claims.

The three Senators issued a joint statement:

... political progress, reconciliation and economic development continue to lag. There has been some forward movement, but not nearly enough to bring lasting stability to Iraq.

The Senators also learned that the Iraqi government is solidly behind the Democratic/Obama plan for a withdrawal timeline.

Iraqis want an aspirational timeline, with a clear date, for the redeployment of American combat forces. Prime Minister Maliki told us that while the Iraqi people deeply appreciate the sacrifices of American soldiers, they do not want an open-ended presence of U.S. combat forces.

So how does this square with McCain's claims that the surge has been a success?

It doesn't. He doesn't know if we've succeeded and can leave in two years, or if we've not, and have to stay for a hundred. He says we shouldn't set dates, then pronounces a two year timeline. I'm not sure he even knows if he's flipping or flopping at this point. Because no matter how many times McCain's been to the Middle East, he still gets it wrong. Maybe he's just confused about the countries; he seems to be a bit geography-challenged.

Maybe if Sen. McCain learned how to use the internet, he could do "a Google" and learn a few things. Like the fact that Czechoslovakia no longer exists, and that Green Bay is not in Southwestern Pennsylvania. He might even find out how much gas costs, and the percentage of Americans who want to end the war in Iraq.

Or maybe he's just not that interested.

Well, we finally made it into the 21st century last week.

Senator Kerry's legislation to lift the 20 year old HIV travel ban was passed in the Senate along with the PEPFAR reauthorization, leaving less than a dozen countries who still think AIDS is 'catchy' from doorknobs and toilet seats. You can see the entire debate and vote at C-SPAN, or watch the Senator's floor speech here.

The Senator also spoke at a hearing on offshore tax havens, which cost Americans $100 billion a year and which the Senate will continue to investigate this week.

On the topic of offshore tax evasion, I still can't understand why the Phil Gramm story isn't getting more attention in the media. John McCain's chief economic adviser quits the campaign within hours of the company of which he's a VP gets caught up in a Senate investigation on offshore tax evasion and the media attributes his retreat to his 'whiners' comment from ten days earlier? I can't believe people aren't questioning this, yet little in the mainstream media. There was a must-read Frank Rich column in the NYT yesterday that dives into Mr. Gramm's history a bit. Maybe that'll get people talking.

The Boston Herald published several stories from a meeting with the Senator last week. This one is my favorite. Except for the requisite remark about JK being 'stiff', I agree with the writer. We blew it big time in 2004. This letter from the Merced Sun-Star echoes the sentiment. There's a lot of that these days.

Senator Kerry also told the Herald that he's planning to introduce legislation to secure funding for needed Acela upgrades, and commented on the abuse of terror alerts during the 2004 election, and the need to focus on alternative energy (although the writer got it backwards, attributing a quote to The Liar Pickens that Sen. Kerry has used repeatedly for years).

Senator Kerry spoke with MSNBC about energy prices and small business, and introduced the "Emergency Energy Response Act of 2008" to help them deal with rising costs. He announced $1 million for Lowell RTA, called on Russia to be a "responsible G8 partner", introduced legislation dealing with nanotechnology research safety, issued a statement on nuclear weapons detection, and announced funding for a homeless veterans' shelter.

In entertainment news, there's The Strangerer, a new play about the first Kerry/Bush debate. Wonder if the Senator kicks Bush's ass in the stage version, too?

The Senator will be in Framingham on Monday as part of his "Kerry on your Corner" listening tour.

Whatever. I think calling it a 'time horizon' is a little wishy-washy, but it beats the heck out of the previous "when we get around to it" plan the administration has embraced from the start. Of course, they didn't have much choice, the Iraqis telling us to get out and all. I wonder how many Bush administration officials it took to come up with a way to advocate a timeline without calling it one and admitting Democrats were correct and that Bush's open-ended occupation was a failed strategy from the beginning.

Call it a deadline, a timeline or a time 'horizon', it seems the administration has finally adopted the basic tenet of the Kerry-Feingold/Democratic/Barack Obama position on Iraq.

How many times is Phil "Enron Loophole" Gramm going to quit the McCain campaign? Seems to me he stepped down a week or so ago after he called Americans a bunch of whiners and said our economic troubles were a 'mental recession'.

Didn't McCain let him go after that? I thought he was going to send him to Belarus. Did he bring him back after the heat died down? Well, looks like he's off the bus again, and this time I'm afraid McCain's going to have to cut his best bud and chief economic adviser loose for good.

The press is blaming it on the 'whiner' remarks, but I really don't think that's it. You see, our economic troubles are not 'all in our head', despite McCain and Gramm's insistence. A substantial bit is in offshore bank accounts, as the Guardian explains.

UBS closed the Swiss bank accounts of US clients, thousands of whom are believed to have sheltered assets to avoid paying taxes. ...

In an explosive seven-page deposition, Birkenfeld claims he was encouraged to win clients at UBS-sponsored tennis tournaments and major art events. UBS bankers, he said, assisted wealthy Americans to conceal ownership of their assets by creating 'sham' offshore trusts. Misleading and false documentation was routinely prepared to facilitate this, and the motivation, he concluded, was to ensure that UBS continued to manage a staggering $20bn of assets owned by wealthy US individuals, which generated the bank $200m in fees each year.

'By concealing US clients' ownership and control in the assets held offshore, [UBS] managers and bankers... defrauded the IRS and evaded US income tax,' reads the statement.

(here comes the money quote)

UBS's links to the US financial establishment centre on its vice-president, Phil Gramm. Gramm, a former Texas senator who is co-chairman of John McCain's campaign, is tipped to be his choice for Treasury Secretary if he is elected.

Oh, that's bad. McCain, who admits to not knowing much about the economy, picked a chief economic adviser who knows enough to help the rich avoid paying their fair share of taxes, leaving the burden to the rest of us. Wonder if Carly will be the next to go? She's got a little offshore history of her own. She was also the original source of McCain's rather awkward Viagra/birth control moment which, once you get past how stupid it made McCain look, is really disturbing from a health care perspective. Or maybe McCain will hang on the the rest of his economic team, such as it is, and dump the sweatshop guy/lobbyist next.

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held a hearing and released their findings on offshore tax havens Thursday. Additional hearings on the matter are scheduled for next week in both the Finance and Homeland Security committees.

NECN has video of Sen. Kerry's comments on offshore tax havens and the impact on our economy.

Senator Kerry and Senator Obama recently passed legislation to eliminate one offshore tax loophole.

Kerry drafted the payroll tax provision after The Boston Globe reported in March that Houston-based KBR had avoided hundreds of millions of dollars in payroll taxes for 10,000 American employees in Iraq by hiring them through shell companies based in the Cayman Islands.

Pretty sure McCain didn't show up to vote on that.

Sen. Kerry has a long history of investigating international banking scandals, as we learned from the BCCI investigation, so it's important that he's helping shine a light on this issue. It's amazing what you can turn up when you follow the money.

Isn't it interesting that this time, following the money has lead us straight to the McCain campaign?

The Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs held a hearing on Tuesday at which witnesses from the State Department, USAID, Freedom House and the Council on Foreign Relations delivered testimony on the crisis in Zimbabwe. Senator Kerry spoke about the recent sham elections there, in which Robert Mugabe used violence and intimidation to retain power and force his opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, to withdraw from the election to save the lives of his supporters. Senator Kerry shared his reaction as members of the African Union and other world leaders appear to have turned a blind eye to 'Zimbabwe's agony' and the theft of the Zimbabwean election by Mugabe's ruthless regime.

“There’s really some sense that the world has lost its capacity for appropriate outrage.”

Senator Kerry described the circumstances surrounding the election, as villagers were handed bullets and told to choose between their lives and 'democracy'.

“MDC (the opposition party) believes 113 of its supporters were killed, about 10,000 injured, more than 2,000 unlawfull detained and over 200,000 fled their homes, and frankly the details are much more horrifying than those statistics convey, because as we know, women were burned to death, young men were tortured and dismembered, the elderly were savagely beaten, and Mugabe had the audacity to say to the world ‘what do I care about an election? An X on a ballot means nothing against the power of a gun.'

And against all of this, where are we?”

The UN failed last week to impose U.S. proposed sanctions including an arms embargo,travel ban and assets freeze against Mugabe, with Russia and China refusing to support the US position. Despite the 113 politically motivated murders attributed to Mugabe and his thugs leading up to the election, they claimed the sanctions were a 'violation of the UN charter'.

Seems to me you can't get through the preamble of the UN Charter without running into something that would apply. How about "fundamental human rights"? You'd think not being murdered would be one of those.

Voice of America covered the story.

The full hearing "The Crisis in Zimbabwe and Prospects for Resolution" is available at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee website.

Senator Kerry spoke on the floor of the Senate yesterday in support of S.2731, the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008. The bill passed 80-16.

Among other things, the legislation appropriates funds to support the global fight against AIDS and other diseases through the year 2013, reauthorizing the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Also passed with the bill was Sen. Kerry's legislation to lift the 20 year old HIV/AIDS travel ban. The ban on travel was introduced by the late Sen. Jesse Helms in 1987, when fear and ignorance prompted the Congress to add it to the list of contagious diseases.

Senator Kerry released a statement on lifting the ban:

"Today we are one step closer to ending a discriminatory practice that stigmatizes all those living with HIV, squanders our moral authority, and sets us back in the fight against AIDS. By passing PEPFAR today the Senate not only has made a powerful statement about our commitment to eradicating HIV/AIDS but we have also voted to overturn the HIV travel and immigration ban that has no foundation in public health or common sense. There was no reason for this policy to still be on the books, and I am proud to have been part of eliminating this draconian ban. I sincerely hope we can get this to the President as quickly as possible to finally end this misguided policy."

As Senator Biden proclaimed after the vote, there isn't much to praise about President Bush's foreign policy. Except this. And both Senator Kerry and Senator Biden were quick to give due credit with the passage of the bill.

Yesterday's Senate session and the vote on S.2731, Global HIV/AIDS programs, can be found at the C-SPAN archives.

Students with Physicians for Human Rights held a Global AIDS Superhero Rally outside Sen. Kerry's Boston office to thank him for his work on repealing the HIV travel ban and his support of PEPFAR. Don't miss their Flickr link to some great photos of the rally.

There are a lot of things to think about before packing up for that long awaited vacation and the promise of memories to last a lifetime. Most of them have to do with squeezing into a decent swimsuit and how much sunscreen to bring, and if you should take your pets to the kennel or have your neighbor watch them and have to worry the whole time.

The last thing anyone wants to think about as they set sail for that dream cruise vacation is if they're going to make it through 7 days in the Caribbean and get back home unscathed. But sometimes those dreams turn into nightmares, and the memories aren't what you expected.

The Senate held a hearing on cruise ship safety recently, prompted by the disappearance of Merrian Carver of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her dad Kendall, president of the International Cruise Victims Association, was there to tell her story.

The full hearing is available at the C-SPAN Video Library

Senator Kerry has introduced The Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act of 2008 to protect the millions of passengers every year who board that ship hoping for the time of their lives and to return home with only fond memories and perhaps a slight sunburn.

Unlike Merrian, who never made it back.

So concludes the narrator of this video of Senator Kerry meeting with Palestinian youth at the Intel Computer Clubhouse in Ramallah on his recent trip to the Middle East.

The mission of the Clubhouse, from their website, is to provide

... a creative and safe after-school learning environment where young people from underserved communities work with adult mentors to explore their own ideas, develop skills, and build confidence in themselves through the use of technology. Using the "original" Clubhouse as a model, the Computer Clubhouse Network supports community-based Clubhouses around the world, providing thousands of youth with access to resources, skills, and experiences to help them succeed in their careers, contribute to their communities, and lead outstanding lives.

No doubt that experience is something as sought after in the West Bank as it is in Boston. Or anywhere else on the planet, for that matter. The Intel Computer Clubhouse, with more than 100 clubhouses in 20 countries, got its start in Massachusetts, but it translates well. Technology, understanding, and a common purpose has taught these young people that there really is more that unites us than divides us, and the Senator's visit is a reminder to them that people are paying attention to our future and what the youth of the world can accomplish with a little guidance, some patience and determination.

You know, the best diplomacy isn't always done around a conference room table in high level meetings, or in posh resorts with fancy menus and photo ops. Sometimes the best diplomacy is done in the classroom, or the Clubhouse in this case, where future leaders learn that through their common interests, they can establish positive relationships and share common goals with their contemporaries across the globe.

When that happens, peace can't be far behind.

Who decides what's news?

I hit the 'internets' yesterday, looking for material for the weekly roundup, and I have to say it was a bit depressing.

Although there are dozens of stories about how Sen Kerry and John McCain are no longer BFF, there's been almost nothing about McCain not showing up for work since April, and little on the rest of McCain's Very Bad Week. There was a piece or two about Sen. Kerry's e-prescription bill which is estimated to save thousands of lives and billions of dollars every year, but you really have to search to find news of it. Who cares about saving lives when the Johns are on the outs, and Brangelina had twins? (Congrats to them, btw.)

And nothing on the Kerry legislation that passed with the housing bill.

You can easily find articles noting that Senator Kerry has a challenger for his Senate seat, but where's the story about the so-called progressive opponent trolling for votes on anti-Obama websites? That sounds newsworthy to me.

I guess, as Sen. Kerry noted in his interview with AAR's Mark Green, it's up to us to help get the truth out.

There was a good blog piece about the SFRC hearing, one about securing the vote for our veterans, and one about money to help small businesses.

But I could find nothing -- and I mean that seriously -- nothing on the Mortgage Revenue Bond Provision, the Service Members Civil Relief Act, the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund or the Community Development Block Grant, all of which passed with the housing bill, and all designed to help Americans keep their homes during these very difficult economic times. Believe me, I looked, and I found nada. You'd think a lot of people would care about that. Maybe I should just stop whining. According to McCain's chief economic adviser, the problems with the economy are all in my head anyway.

Several local media outlets noted that the Senator was in Lowell and Lawrence last week, but didn't provide a whole lot of detail. We did get a fabulous story from the Lowell Sun about the Senator's stop in Lowell to survey the Hamilton Canal district, so thanks to the Sun for that.

It would be nice, though, to hear at least as much about the Senator's provisions in housing bill as we did about JK and McCain's bruised friendship.

Enjoy the news.

In an interview on Air America this past week, Senator Kerry addressed the media's recent accusations that Barack Obama has somehow shifted on some of his positions, explaining that they've often been mis-characterized going in, and that Barack has not made any fundamental changes in his stand on the issues. He explained Obama's thinking on the FISA vote and their recent conversation about his plans to review it as President. The Senator also remarked on Obama's appeal to Independents and Republicans and the need to include them in the conversation. Obama has not shifted his position. What we're seeing is who he's been from the beginning, and the 'shift' that's been played in the media is not the reality.

Senator Kerry spoke with Mark Green on AAR's 7 Days in America about Barack Obama and why he has been a vocal supporter of the Democratic nominee, citing Obama's judgment and the promise of accountability in Washington. Everyone won't agree with every one of his positions all the time, the Senator explained, but an Obama administration will do a lot of good on a lot of issues that are important to most Americans. McCain, on the other hand, is following the same Bush policies that got us to where we are today. He's "living in the same voodoo economics land as Bush 41."

Senator Kerry cited the power of the internet as a means of getting the truth out, and called for people "on our side of the fence" to realize that even though we're not going to agree with our nominee 100% of the time, it's up to us to make sure we work to elect the candidate who represents the best interest of the American people.

Senator Kerry and Mark also discussed the Bush administration's broken promises going into Iraq and his broken policy now that we're there, and Maliki's recent call for a withdrawal timeline. The Senator spoke about