You are here: Fairness.com > Resources > Senator John F. Kerry

Senator John F. Kerry


Self Description

"April 2004: "John Kerry was born on December 11, 1943 at Fitzsimmons Military Hospital in Denver, Colorado, where his father, Richard, who had volunteered to fly DC-3's in the Army Air Corps in World War II, was recovering from a bout with tuberculosis. Not long after Sen. Kerry's birth, his family returned home to Massachusetts.

A graduate of Yale University, John Kerry entered the Navy after graduation, becoming a Swift Boat officer, serving on a gunboat in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. He received a Silver Star, Bronze Star with Combat V, and three awards of the Purple Heart for his service in combat.

By the time Senator Kerry returned home from Vietnam, he felt compelled to question decisions he believed were being made to protect those in positions of authority in Washington at the expense of the soldiers carrying on the fighting in Vietnam. Kerry was a co-founder of the Vietnam Veterans of America and became a spokesperson for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War -- Morley Safer would describe him as "a veteran whose articulate call to reason rather than anarchy seemed to bridge the call between the Abbie Hoffmans of the world and Mr. Agnew's so-called 'Silent Majority.'" In April, 1971, in testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he asked the question of his fellow citizens, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Sen. Claiborne Pell, (D-R.I.) thanked Kerry, then 27, for testifying before the committee, expressing his hope that Kerry "might one day be a colleague of in this body."

Fourteen years later, John Kerry would have the opportunity to fulfill those hopes - serving side by side with Sen. Pell as a Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But in the intervening years, he found different ways to fight for those things in which he believed. Time and again, Kerry fought to hold the political system accountable and to do what he believed was right. As a top prosecutor in Middlesex County, Kerry took on organized crime and put the Number Two mob boss in New England behind bars. He modernized the District Attorney's office, creating an innovative rape crisis crime unit, and as a lawyer in private practice he worked long and hard to prove the innocence of a man wrongly given a life sentence for a murder he did not commit.

In 1984, after winning election as Lieutenant Governor in 1982, Kerry ran and was elected to serve in the United States Senate, running and winning a successful PAC-free Senate race and defeating a Republican opponent buoyed by Ronald Reagan's reelection coattails. Like his predecessor, the irreplaceable Paul Tsongas, Kerry came to the Senate with a reputation for independence -- and reinforced it by making tough choices on difficult issues: breaking with many in his own Party to support Gramm-Rudman Deficit Reduction; taking on corporate welfare and government waste; pushing for campaign finance reform; holding Oliver North accountable and exposing the fraud and abuse at the heart of the BCCI scandal; working with John McCain in the search for the truth about Vietnam veterans declared POW/MIA; and insisting on accountability, investment, and excellence in public education.

Sen. Kerry was re-elected in 1990, and again in 1996, defeating the popular Republican Governor William Weld in the most closely watched Senate race in the country. Now serving his fourth term, Kerry has worked to reform public education, address children's issues, strengthen the economy and encourage the growth of the high tech New Economy, protect the environment, and advance America's foreign policy interests around the globe.

John Kerry is married to Teresa Heinz. He has two daughters, Alexandra and Vanessa. Teresa Heinz has three sons, John, Andre, and Christopher. Senator Kerry lives in Boston."

Third-Party Descriptions

May 2012: "Now, though, Senator John F. Kerry, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, sees another chance to push through a treaty last debated in 2007. In the first of a series of hearings, he enlisted Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to help make the case — allowing them to argue that the treaty is increasingly important to deal with such issues as fraught relations over the South China Sea."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/24/world/americas/law-of-the-sea-treaty-is-found-on-capitol-hill-again.html

January 2012: "Perhaps for historical or cultural reasons, Europeans tend to be more invested in issues of data privacy than Americans. Certainly, the proposed regulation is evidence that European politicians consider it to be a more urgent legislative issue than members of the United States Congress. Privacy bills have languished on Capitol Hill. Those that have been proposed, by Senator John Kerry and others, have none of the strict protections included in the draft European regulations."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/technology/europe-weighs-a-tough-law-on-online-privacy-and-user-data.html

June 2011: "The resolution was based on a Senate bill written by Senators John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona, to blunt criticism that the president has failed to seek Congressional approval for his actions in Libya."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/us/politics/25powers.html

May 2011: "Pakistan stepped up its condemnations of the United States as Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a longtime emissary to Pakistan in times of crisis, was preparing to land in Islamabad. He was arriving with a list of actions — and some offers from Washington to ease tensions — that he finalized in meetings with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, and other top American security officials."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/us/politics/15diplo.html

May 2010: 'It may have had something to do with what David Halberstam called the “patriotism fault line running through this country.” Writing in Vanity Fair in 2004 about the right’s scurrilous smear on John Kerry’s bravery in Vietnam, Halberstam said, “We require Democrats to work a little harder to prove that they’re really patriotic and not somehow in league with our enemies.”'

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/opinion/23dowd.html

September 2009: "Last year, Reps. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) and Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.) introduced a bill that would remove work-issued cell phones from the list of taxable fringe benefits. Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John Ensign (R-Nev.) introduced an identical bill. The proposal passed the House but was held up by the Senate. The bills were reintroduced earlier this year."

http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/57457

June 2009: "Congress passed a law requiring the value of employer-issued cellphones to be included in workers' gross income, unless an employee kept detailed records showing the phone was used only for work.... Sens. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) and John Ensign (R-Nev.) have introduced a similar bill [to repeal the law-Ed.] this year."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/11/AR2009061104239.html

May 2009: 'Other American politicians have faced this very threat. The first President Bush lost the White House after he broke his famous “Read my lips: no new taxes” pledge. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democrats’ 2004 presidential candidate, inflicted a mortal wound on his own campaign with his now-infamous line about Iraq war funding: “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”'

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/weekinreview/24stolberg.html

October 2008: "Not all lawmakers are opposed to voting on the white-space issue. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Chairman Martin urging the Commission to move forward and establish guidelines for the initial use of white-space technology as scheduled."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10075172-94.html

November 2008: 'During the 2004 presidential campaign, in the first televised debate between President George Bush and Senator John Kerry, the moderator asked each candidate, "What is the single most serious threat to the national security of the United States?" In rare agreement, Kerry and Bush both cited nuclear terrorism. As the president said, "I agree with my opponent that the biggest threat facing the country is weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist network." During the 2005 Bratislava summit, President Bush and Russian president Vladimir Putin for the first time accepted responsibility for addressing the threat and for ensuring that their governments secure loose nuclear material in their countries as quickly as possible. They assigned responsibility for securing nuclear materials to individuals (U.S. energy secretary Samuel W. Bodman and his Russian counterpart, the head of the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency) and held them accountable by requiring regular progress reports.'

http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/21535/?a=f

August 2008: "Hence, the Net can be used to create a smear campaign and augment a questionable series of more formal assertions like the Swift Boat campaign used against John Kerry. This can be done by the public at large, and neither party really has an advantage."

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2328863,00.asp

June 2008: "This is hardly the first time a Democratic candidate has faced such a challenge -- Al Gore lost white voters by 12 points in 2000, and John F. Kerry lost them by 17 points in 2004 -- but it is a significantly larger shortfall than Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton encountered in their winning campaigns."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/21/AR2008062101825.html

June 2008: 'In 2004, President Bush charged that his opponent for reelection, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), was advocating a pre-Sept. 11 mind-set after Kerry compared Islamic terrorism to other global scourges such as drug trafficking and said it is "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world." The charge appeared to help Bush sway security-minded voters on his way to reelection.'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/17/AR2008061702819.html

August 2007: Some political analysts harshly criticized Kerry in 2004 for failing to counter Bush's charismatic style with an equally attractive appeal of his own. Many, like Slate's Chris Suellentrop, complained that Kerry lacked vision. 'Vision without details beats details without vision,' Suellentrop wrote. Others, like Thomas Frank, wrote that Kerry should have countered Bush's 'cultural populism' with 'genuine economic populism.' But, if Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski are right, it would have been very difficult for any politician--not just the stolid Kerry--to overcome Bush's built-in advantage from being the nation's leader at a time when many voters feared another attack. In 2004, Bush, as the commander-in-chief, still had the unconscious on his side. And that advantage may have proven insuperable.

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20070827&s=judis082707

March 2007: After the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush chose a radically different approach. He declared the fight against al-Qaeda to be a 'war' -- even comparing it to World War II and the Cold War -- and labeled suspects 'combatants' who were subject to military detention. He ridiculed Sen. John Kerry for suggesting that terrorists should be fought primarily by law enforcement means. With the 2001 attacks, he said, 'the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States of America, and war is what they got.'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/16/AR2007031601993.html

Relationships

RoleNameTypeLast Updated
Member of (past or present) Democratic Party / Democratic National Committee (DNC) Organization Feb 6, 2006
Organization Executive (past or present) Massachusetts (State Government) Organization Feb 6, 2006
Opponent (past or present) Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Organization Jun 18, 2011
Member of (past or present) US Senate Organization Feb 6, 2006
Student/Trainee (past or present) Yale University Organization Feb 6, 2006
Colleague/Co-worker of (past or present) Supervisor of (past or present) Senator John Edwards Esq. Person Jan 19, 2006
Family Member Teresa Heinz Kerry Person Feb 6, 2006
Advised by (past or present) Joe Lockhart Person Sep 23, 2004
Financial Recipient from (past or present) Mary O. McCarthy Person May 15, 2006
Advised by (past or present) Prof. Robert A. Pastor Ph.D., M.P.A. Person Jan 10, 2009

Articles and Resources

76 Articles and Resources. Go to:  [Next 20]   [End]

Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at:
May 23, 2012 Law of the Sea Treaty Is Found on Capitol Hill, Again

QUOTE: Thirty years after it was signed in Montego Bay, Jamaica, the United Nations treaty that governs the world’s oceans is undergoing one of its periodic resurrections in Congress... The Senate has never ratified the treaty...its opponents — a handful of conservative Republicans who view it as an infringement on American sovereignty...

 New York Times
Jan 23, 2012 Europe Weighs Tough Law on Online Privacy

QUOTE: Europe is considering a sweeping new law that would force Internet companies like Amazon.com and Facebook to obtain explicit consent from consumers about the use of their personal data, delete that data forever at the consumer’s request and face fines for failing to comply.

 New York Times
Jun 24, 2011 House Spurns Obama on Libya, but Does Not Cut Funds

QUOTE: The House dealt a symbolic blow to President Obama on Friday by resoundingly rejecting a bill to authorize United States military operations in Libya. But the chamber also defeated a measure that would have limited financing to support those efforts.

 New York Times
Jun 18, 2011 Friendship of Justice and Magnate Puts Focus on Ethics

QUOTE: The publicity-shy friend turned out to be Harlan Crow, a Dallas real estate magnate and a major contributor to conservative causes. Mr. Crow stepped in to finance the multimillion-dollar purchase and restoration of the cannery, featuring a museum about the culture and history of Pin Point that has become a pet project of Justice Thomas’s. The project throws a spotlight on an unusual, and ethically sensitive, friendship that appears to be markedly different from those of other justices on the nation’s highest court.

 New York Times
May 14, 2011 As Rift Deepens, Kerry Has a Warning for Pakistan

QUOTE: The United States and Pakistan are veering toward a deeper clash, with Pakistan’s Parliament demanding a permanent halt to all drone strikes just as the most senior American official since the killing of Osama bin Laden is to arrive with a stern message that the country has only months to show it is committed to rooting out Al Qaeda and associated groups.

 New York Times
Apr 27, 2011 Holding Companies Accountable for Privacy Breaches

QUOTE: Yet there seems to be no real repercussions for these companies when a person’s information stored online is exposed. “Today the only real hit a company takes when these data breaches happen is to the company’s image.”

 New York Times
Apr 23, 2011 Show Us the Data. (It’s Ours, After All.)

QUOTE: Companies are accumulating vast amounts of information about your likes and dislikes... The more they know, the more money they can make... Not only should our data be secure; it should also be available for us to use for our own purposes.

 New York Times
Apr 20, 2011 Latinos and Democrats Press Obama to Curb Deportations

QUOTE: “We are asking the president if he could provide some sort of relief to innocent people who are the most impacted by the inequities of the immigration system.”

 New York Times
Dec 28, 2010 Your iPhone and iPad are tracking you, researchers say

QUOTE: Consumers who say their personal information has been sent to advertisers without their knowledge have launched a legal battle against Apple and the makers of some of its most popular apps… "It's an invasion of their privacy, and it's done without their consent.”

 Washington Post
May 22, 2010 Lies as Wishes

QUOTE: “I think that lies are like wishes,” said Bella DePaulo, a psychology professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. “So when you wish you were a certain kind of person that you know you’re not, and maybe you’re not willing to do what it would take to become that person or can’t go back, then it becomes very tempting to lie.”

 New York Times
Sep 06, 2009 IRS asked to repeal cell phone tax: Businesses are urging the IRS to cease taxing the personal use of work-issued cell phones.

QUOTE: A message is being conveyed by lobbying groups for a wide array of industries... cell phones are so ubiquitous and have become such an essential business tool that it’s nearly impossible to keep track of the line between professional and personal use [to document for income tax purposes].

 Hill
Aug 22, 2009 Ridge's Telling Tale, or Just Another Tell-All?

QUOTE: There is something about the Beltway culture that seems to discourage protest resignations. Instead, the well-worn path is to collect your grievances, find a publisher, hit the talk-show circuit and recast yourself as a painfully honest critic of the administration you once saluted.

 Washington Post
Jun 18, 2009 Exclusive Wireless Contracts Examined: Critics Say Deals Stifle Competition

QUOTE: growing debate on whether the practice of locking in cellphones to exclusive contracts with only one carrier has led to higher prices and fewer choices for consumers and stifled competition...

 Washington Post
Jun 13, 2009 Employees May Be Taxed for Texting If IRS Updates Work Cellphone Rules

QUOTE: ...IRS would more strictly enforce an existing law that classifies company-issued cellphones as a taxable benefit -- an idea decried by employers and wireless companies who argue that mobile phones are now essential tools in the workplace...

 Washington Post
Jun 12, 2009 IRS Seeks to Simplify Workers' Cellphone Tax Law

QUOTE: the Internal Revenue Service is weighing whether a portion of a work-related cellphone bill should be taxed as income....The law was designed to prevent employees from using employee-issued cellphones for personal calls and then writing them off as a work-related tax deduction.

 Washington Post
May 23, 2009 Nuance Is Fine Until It’s a Flip-Flop

QUOTE: It was the kind of careful, nuanced argument...a methodical laying-out of the facts by a president who seems convinced that if he simply explains himself to the American people, they will surely understand his position and forgive him for changing his mind. It is a tactic Mr. Obama has employed repeatedly as president...

 New York Times
Nov 01, 2008 Nuclear Deterrence in the Age of Nuclear Terrorism An attack on one of the great cities of the world is almost inevitable. But with better detection technologies, a new international alliance could st

QUOTE: Given current policies and practices, a nuclear terrorist attack that devastates one of the great cities of the world is inevitable. In my judgment, if governments do no more and no less than they are doing today, the odds of such an event within a decade are more than 50 percent.

 Technology Review
Oct 24, 2008 Debate to delay 'white space' vote heats up

QUOTE: Google and Microsoft, support the use of "white spaces," because they believe the spectrum can be used to help deliver new wireless broadband services. After more than four years, and over 30,000 filings by the public, broadcasters now accuse the commission of a rush to judgment on the white spaces.

 CNET
Oct 19, 2008 Many Holes in Disclosure of Nominees’ Health

QUOTE: Fifteen days before the election, serious gaps remain in the public’s knowledge about the health of the presidential and vice-presidential nominees. The limited information provided by the candidates is a striking departure from recent campaigns, in which many candidates and their doctors were more forthcoming.

 New York Times
Aug 08, 2008 Dirty Politics in the Internet Age

QUOTE: Hence, the Net can be used to create a smear campaign and augment a questionable series of more formal assertions like the Swift Boat campaign used against John Kerry. This can be done by the public at large, and neither party really has an advantage. The key to success in the upcoming election will be home-brewed dirty tricks—all played out on the Internet.

 PC Magazine

76 Articles and Resources. Go to:  [Next 20]   [End]