Feder: Watch Out for Kerry

Newsmax ^ | 2/7/04

[areafiftyone]

"Is there anything about the war-hero/VC symp, "Irish”-Jewish-Brahmin, left-wing moderate, pro-abortion Catholic, patrician-tribune-of-the-people that’s real?" asks columnist Don Feder about John Kerry.

His answer: Sure, there' "a stark consistency" that runs through Kerry’s career – "He’s an opportunistic, back-stabber who never met a commie he didn’t like. He also has chutzpah to spare."

Writing in the February 2, 2004 FrontPageMagazine.com ("Kerry: War Zero")Feder notes that he's a resident of Massachusetts who has kept a close eye on Kerry’s career "with a mixture of fascination, revulsion and amusement."

In an unremitting assault on the record of real John Kerry as opposed to the one John Kerry would like you to think it is, Feder lays out the facts on the junior Senator from Massachusetts and it's not a pretty portrait.

• "... nothing about Kerry is what it seems. He’s Irish, right? Well, actually, he’s part Jewish. (His paternal grandparents were Kohn, before they goy-icized their name.)"

• He’s a war hero who became an anti-war activist, when it looked politically advantageous to turn on his country and slander his fellow Vietnam vets.

• Claiming to have a common touch but he's really a snooty Boston Brahman with an aristocratic ancestry on his mother's side who improved his modest financial standing by marrying two enormously rich women, one of whom he dumped when she was suffering from depression, after she bore him two kids.

• This graduate of uppity St. Paul’s and Yale – member of the ultra-secret and super-exclusive Skull and Bones, now married to a lady worth over half-a-billion dollars - has the gall to talk about this nation belonging "not to the privileged few, but to all Americans.”

• He claims to be a "moderate" Democrat in the face of a a voting record far left of either Ted Kennedy or Dennis "The Red" Kucinich. Kennedy’s lifetime congressional rating from the if-it-moves-tax-it Americans for Democratic Action is 88 percent – compared to 93 percent for Kerry. Kucinich’s lifetime score from the American Conservative Union is 15 percent. Kerry’s is 6 percent.

• In the late Sixties, Kerry went to Vietnam, as a naval Lt. jg "probably to round out a resume for the political future he was planning even then." He was awarded medals which he later claimed to have tossed over the White House fence as part of an anti-war demonstration. It turned out that the medals weren't his - those he kept to display to everyone who'll look at them.

• One of Kerry’s medals was for killing an enemy soldier who supposedly was armed with a rocket launcher. But, says Feder, "evidence suggests the fearsome foe was wounded at the time and may have been shot in the back. Perhaps this was a dress rehearsal for young Benedict’s eventual betrayal of the guys he fought with."

• Believing there was a political advantage in opposing the war on arriving home in Massachusetts, Kerry enlisted in Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and worked side-by-side with such VC-lovers as Hanoi Jane Fonda and Ramsey Clark in the so-called Winter Soldier Investigation, and paraded around with scruffy Marxists carrying Viet Cong flags and signs with slogans praising Ho Chi Minh, Kim Il Sung and Fidel.

• But that was just the beginning - Kerry went on to slander his former comrades-in-arms as a bunch of degenerate, mutilating baby-killers. "The man who’s now running on his war record – and mentions his medals in every other breath – told a Senate hearing that Americans then bleeding and dying in the rice paddies were the moral equivalent of the Waffen-S.S."

  Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 23, 1971 , Kerry charged that American soldiers had "raped, cut off ears, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks and generally ravaged the countryside of Vietnam.”

  Gen. George S. Patton (namesake of the World War II general) -- who led troops into combat in Vietnam – said Kerry "gave aid and comfort to the enemy.”

• He was kinder to the murderous Viet Cong. They were simply agrarian reformers. Apparently never having heard of North Vietnamese regulars, Soviet aid or the Ho Chi Minh trail Kerry insisted the conflict was a "war of the people” fought by indigenous peasant reformers. He demanded not only an American withdrawal, but the cut-off of all aid to Saigon. If the wicked South Vietnamese puppet state fell, at most 2,000 to 3,000 of its lackeys might face recrimination, Kerry assured us.

  But after the fall of Saigon Feder recalls that an estimated 700,000 went through communist reeducation camps and many never came out. Moreover more than a million boat people fled Kerry's indigenous, peasant reformers. Says Feder, "The fall of South Vietnam led to the fall of Laos and Cambodia – and the genocide of the killing fields. And Kerry is actually trying to sell this foreign-policy expertise as a presidential credential."

• As a senator, he fought against American aid to the government of El Salvador during the communist insurgency of the 1980s. He also opposed support for the freedom-fighting Nicaraguan Contras. He described the Salvadoran military as "some of the most blood-drenched men on the planet.”

• He’s never known to have uttered a word of criticism about Cuban intervention in the Central American conflicts or spoken harshly of Soviet imperialism. President Reagan's rescue mission to Grenada, he claimed was "a bully’s show of force against a weak, third-world nation,” according to the likely Democratic nominee.

• He opposed the MX missile, B-1 Bomber and a missile defense system. Had the war hero prevailed, the Kremlin would still be in business, and opening branch offices all over the world. In 1991, he voted against the first Gulf War. (Body-bags would becoming in by the thousands, the military expert predicted.)

• Kerry voted to authorize the president to use military force to rid humanity of Saddam Hussein. Now he says he was only voting to give Bush the authority to spend the next decade in a futile quest for the UN’s approval.

• Kerry has even found time to bestow understanding on Columbia’s drug-dealing FARC terrorist butchers. A year ago, in a speech in Boston, Kerry said Columbia’s narcotics-fueled insurgency "seems to be a renewal of a kind of chaos fueled partly by guerrillas who have legitimate complaints and the combination of drugs and war and the drug lord.” Just another example of indigenous, peasant reformers asserting their rights.

  Feder concludes: "John Forbes Kerry/Kohn is a man whose time came and went – roughly 30 years ago. He could be elected president of Hollywood, president of the Ivy League, president of the National Council of Churches, president of the Dixie Chicks or president of CNN. But president of the United States? Only if the American people have a complete and total memory failure – if the nation has collective amnesia for the next nine months."

[thesummerwind]

You said it all!

ping to post # 17

[BobS]

Think bigger. Bush and pubbies made a strategic decision to shut up and let wackos dominate the democrat party for a while. And they are just doing their regular work. The red meat you want will be of better quality later! Meanwhile, just grab a bag of Doritos and some cheese dip and the adult beverage of your choice. All politicians know it's their time to humor us regular folks!

[jocon307]

"One picture of Dukakis in a tank was almost enough to sink him without any other screwups in his campaign. The pictures of Kerry are far more damaging..."

I both agree and disagree with you. Dukakis in the tank was absolutely the kiss of death. But that was a picture at that present time. I'm not sure picutres of Kerry from years ago will be as effective. Elections are never about the past. I do wish SOMEBODY would challenge him more on his two-facedness about Viet Nam, and it reveals his general two-facedness which seems to be the only consistent thing about him. That part of it will be very helpful. Nobody likes someone who constantly wants to have things both ways, nor a politician who won't take a firm stand on the issues.

From what I see Kerry is like a potemkin candidate, looks good but nothing really there. I AM glad that he has clearly stated his position that the WOT should be returned to a law enforcement situation; Bush needs to bang the drum that that strategy was tried for two decades at least, and 9/11 proved it a failure.

I'd love to see W win NY, but I'm not holding my breath. I hope he doesn't write it, or NJ, off and that he campaigns 'round here and not just during the convention. 9/11 is still very much with us, and nobody I know (liberal dems included) has forgotten that NYC is still target numero uno for Muslim terrorists. The lib dems will probably vote for Kerry regardless, but the swingers may well be winnable.

[Cicero]

You may be right. OTOH, Kerry's Vietnam service, which he has made an absolute centerpiece of his campaign, is even further in the past. So, if he continues to boast about being a Vietnam veteran, it will make the pictures more relevant.

Contrast that with G. W. Bush's youthful DUI charge, publicized shortly before the election. It was irrelevant, since Bush is well known to have been on the wagon for years. But it almost killed his campaign.

[jocon307]

"But it almost killed his campaign."

Man, that was close!

I think the Dems are making a big mistake if they think they can sell John Kerry, or Clark, or any of them as better on national security than Bush or any other republican. Time will tell if I was right, but it was one of my first thoughts during those incoherent hours of 9/11: there'll never be another democrat in the White House in my lifetime.

The dems are pitiful, they're running on a campaign out of the 1930s, they'd try running on their 60s stuff, but it's not fashionable right now. They are really repulsive, they don't have one half of one idea of how to do anything for anybody they just want to keep hold of the levers of power. They say that absolute power corrupts, how about power for its own sake, how corrupting is that?

[mystery-ak]

This should be required reading before anyone is allowed to vote.

[chimera]

From what I see Kerry is like a potemkin candidate, looks good but nothing really there.

You're right and it could be a very apt description of Clinton in '92. There was nothing to Clinton if you discount his voracious sexual appetite. But that didn't stop the sheeple from electing him. Twice. I don't want Bush 43 to go down the same road as Bush 41. If he lets Kerry and the Rats keep on hammering him without answer, the only thing echoing in the empty minds of the majority of the electorate will be the unanswered charges and allegations of the Rats.

[Wiser now]

According to research done by Hannity the other day, Kerry gave a whopping $135.00 dollars to charity.

[CommandoFrank]

I believe one thing important is being overlooked in that the press will support Kerry. Remember, Kerry is a Kennedy democrat, versus the Clinton democrats. The Clintonistas do NOT want Kerry to win the WH, where the door will be open for Hillary in 08.

We have already seen evidence of this by the NYT publishing an article about Kerry being the biggest receptor of special interest monies in the Senate. I'll bet you Clinton pulled that trigger...

[carpio]

You know what is really odd to me? That none of these bloody handed, commie traitor, seditious, anti American scum bags like Kerry and McCain are ever outed for their crimes.

Until they oppose George W. Bush. Odd isn't it?

carpio

[maica]

Remember the events of 30 years ago?

Everyone who served in Vietnam can remember those years, and all the following years back in the USA when the war was not spoken of with patriotic pride. I do not see how any of them can envision a president of the US to be a man who reviled their service before a Congressional committee.

[chimera]

Everyone who served in Vietnam can remember those years,...

But the problem is, these probably comprise a minority of the electorate. Collectively, the majority of the electorate won't remember or care about it when the press is finished spinning. And even among those who remember, there are those who would still support Kerry no matter what he did or didn't do in Vietnam, or afterward. The only reason Kerry brings it up is to head off the criticism that Clinton got, and a warning to those who would try to paint him as someone who would be weak as a C in C in the WOT.

Remember that the press sold Clinton to the sheeple even though he was on record as a draft dodger and one who "loathed" the military. The Rats and the press spun it was unimportant or, worse, something to be held in his favor (e.g., "a man of conscience"). When you support a person on strictly ideological grounds, character, or lack thereof, assumes, at best, secondary importance.

[x]

Good article, but I wouldn't put anything past the country that elected Bill Clinton twice. There won't be a Perot in this race to tip the scale, but Kerry will do better than he deserves to.

The phony JFK's fake populism raises the question of how John Kennedy was able to make it into the White House without pretending to be a man of the people. Whatever his faults, JFK I must have lived in more honest times.

[labolarueda]

"chutzpah"

I can't find this word in the dictionary. Is it French?

[jocon307]

"There was nothing to Clinton if you discount his voracious sexual appetite."

Well, I hate to say a good word about Clinton, so let me start with: of course you are right. And with Gennifer Flowers and the draft-dodging it was obvious he was a no-good-nik. But when he first ran for pres. he did at least try to position himself as a "new" democrat. There was none of this old-hat "people vs. the powerful" crap. And heck, that would have been A LOT easier to take from Bill Clinton than it is from Al Gore or John Kerry, children of privilege that they were and remain.

So what can I say, Clinton was bad, but Kerry is unbearable. A rich phoney, a toff as the Brits say.

Bush better beat his hiney, and he won't get it done without the base. I hope W's ready to fight the culture wars, because I think they are going to be a big factor this year.

[Theodore R.]

Bush and the 'Pubs better get off their duffs and start working to remind people of these things, or they'll find themselves exactly in the spot that Bush 41 was in in '92, spending all their time between the convention and the election trying to crack 40%.

Apparently, the Bush forces are locked at 45 percent, according to the new Newsweek poll carried now by Matt Drudge. The administration seems to be quiet as a mouse about Kerry's rise in voter popularity -- nearly asleep at the switch.

[lainde]

bttt

[lainde]

bttt

[kcvl]

'Irish-American' Kerry's Jewish roots revealed

February 9, 2003

BY LYNN SWEET SUN-TIMES WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF

WASHINGTON--Presidential candidates find their lives--and their lineage--are put under a microscope.


In the case of Sen. John Forbes Kerry, new scrutiny led to the discovery that the grandfather of the Massachusetts Democrat was Jewish, born Fritz Kohn in a small town that was once part of the Austrian empire and now is in the Czech Republic.

The revelation is interesting because Kerry is most often taken as a Boston Brahmin, mainly because his mother comes from the upper-crust Forbes and Winthrop families, who are well-known in New England. Kerry is also a practicing Catholic. His name and his home state, which contains the nation's biggest Irish-American population, have led people to conclude that he is something he is not.

"People assume," said Kerry spokesman David Wade. "Your name is Kerry, you are from Massachusetts, the land of the Kennedys."

It remains to be seen whether any issue will develop over whether Kerry tried hard enough to wave people away from the assumption that he was Irish-American. Several friends of Kerry who were interviewed said they assumed him to be Irish-American.

Kerry learned about his grandfather's heritage last month from Boston Globe reporter Michael Kranish, whose research led to Kerry discovering the details of his grandfather's 1921 suicide in a Boston hotel washroom.

The son of a diplomat, "John has talked a lot about how he grew up in different places, how he did not have a sense of connectiveness," said Wade. Since the story was published last Sunday, Kerry found it "great to have a sense of family history he did not have before."

Kerry told the Globe he had found out about 15 years ago that his paternal grandmother, Ida Lowe, was born Jewish. But he said he knew nothing about his grandfather's roots. Wade said Kerry said he remembers his grandmother as a "zealous Catholic."

The Globe pieced together Kerry's genealogy through Ellis Island immigration records, other documents in Chicago and records from the former Austrian Empire. The paper hired Felix Gundacker, director of the Institute for Historical Family Research in Vienna, to examine and translate the German-language records.

Kerry's grandfather, who emigrated to the United States in 1905, was born in an Austrian town once known as Bennisch, which today is called Horni Benesov in the Czech Republic. Gundacker found birth records noting the 1873 birth of a Fritz Kohn and another record noting Kohn changed his name to Frederick Kerry on March 17, 1902. The Globe quoted Gundacker as "1,000 percent certain" that Kerry/Kohn was born to a Jewish family because the church records were on a page listing Jewish families.

Ironically, Kerry's younger brother, Cameron, a Boston lawyer, converted to Judaism in 1983, when he married a Jewish woman.

Kerry grew up in the dark over the circumstances of his grandfather's suicide. "He knew his grandfather died when he was very young,'' Wade said.

Kranish, the Globe reporter, showed Kerry copies of Boston newspapers from Nov. 23, 1921, headlined with the news that a merchant killed himself with a single shot from his revolver.

"God, that's awful," Kerry told the Globe after reading the article. "Oh God, that's awful. That is kind of heavy."

Wade said Kerry's father, who died in 2000, never talked much about his father's suicide and that the senator only was told about the suicide during his father's "last years, when his father was very ill," Wade said.

The revelation, said Wade, "turned on a light bulb for John Kerry on why his father was so understandably reticent to talk about it," and it "helps John Kerry understand his father much more and what his father went through."

[kcvl]

Jennifer Anne Perez also writes in A Jewish Czech in John Kerry's Court in Reform Judaism Magazine about this story from her base in Prague. Her story is much richer and more detailed than the one from the Globe. In addition, her piece follows the amazing sleuthing performed by European Jewish genealogists which uncovered the Kerry-Kohn secret past. Every genealogist or person interested in genealogy should read this account of a 'Hail Mary' search for a family's roots which succeeded despite great odds.

Perez summarizes the Kerry family saga in this way:

The story begins in the Czech hamlet of Horni Benesov on May 10, 1873--the day Benedikt and Mathilde Kohn had a son they named Fritz.

Like his father, Fritz became a brewer. Yet it was difficult for him to succeed in an area dominated by German-speaking Catholics. Many Jews hid their religious identity, posing as Gentiles. "It was easier to do business as a Christian," says Prague-based genealogist Julius Miller, who specializes in tracing Jewish lineage. "Many Jews just stopped practicing Judaism during this period and had no belief at all."

On March 17, 1902, before his 30th birthday, Fritz took his wife Ida and infant son, Erich to a government office in Vienna and changed their family name. Fritz Kohn would henceforth be known as Frederick Kerry.

The Kerry family settled for three years in Austria before embarking on May 4, 1905 for America.

Ellis Island records note that upon boarding the ship, Kerry identified his family as Germans from Austria, their former place of residence as Vienna. By the time the ship arrived in New York City on May 18, 1905, Frederick Kerry had left his Jewish heritage behind.

Kerry became what we'd call a business consultant and helped conduct a major reorganization of Chicago's Sears & Roebuck. Eventually, his family moved to Boston where he became a shoe manufacturer.

Perez describes Kerry's tragic death in this way:

Frederick Kerry's American dream ended mysteriously on November 21, 1921 at the age of 48. According to front-page news reports, the now virtually bankrupt husband and father of three walked into the lobby washroom of Boston's posh Copley Plaza Hotel, put a loaded revolver to his head, and pulled the trigger. He left behind $25 in cash, $200 in stocks, and a Cadillac.

The suicide cast a shroud of silence over the family history for more than fifty years.

John Kerry's father, Richard, would have been five years old at the time of his father's death. One can only imagine the terrible effect that it would have on such a boy's emotional development. In the article, Kerry describes his strained relationship with his father in the context of this new revelation:
That explains a lot. My dad was sort of painfully remote and shut off, and angry about the loss of his sister [she had died of cancer] and lack of a father.
Richard Kerry had great difficulty confronting the issue (for understandable reasons) and never told his son about the grandfather's suicide until Richard himself was confronting his own mortality:
Not until the late 1990s, when John's father Richard was suffering from cancer, did he finally disclose to John that his grandfather had shot himself to death. "[That] turned on a light bulb for John Kerry on why his father was so understandably reticent to talk about it," Kerry spokesman David Wade told the Boston Globe. "[It] help[ed] him understand his father much more and what his father went through."

Richard Kerry died in 2000. He never revealed that his father had been a Jew. Born in the United States and only 5 years old when Frederick died, it is likely that Richard did not know of his grandfather's hidden past.

For Kerry, this story has come as a revelation:
"This was an incredible illumination," Kerry says. "It really connected the things I'd talked about for years but now understand more personally. I never really knew why my grandfather left Austria or why he underwent such personal transformation, but we do know many of the things that were happening under the old Hapsburg Empire. We know what life was like for too many of them, and the ultimate turn for even greater tragedy it would take not much later."
As for the deeper psychological motivation for a man like Fritz Kohn to turn his back on his religious heritage, adopt Catholicism and start life over again in a strange land, Perez' genealogist expert puts this in context:
As for why Fritz Kohn chose the path he did, Prague-based genealogist Julius Miller believes he was a man who, like many other European Jews, looked to start over and build a better life for himself and his family. "Thousands of European Jews abandoned their past," Miller says. "The story of Frederick Kerry, alias Fritz Kohn, mirrors the histories of many Jewish families who came to America in the early 1900s."