[petitfour]

I'm a bit young to remember or know some of this stuff. What does John Tower have to do with Kerry?

[alloysteel]

John Tower of Texas was on of the Senate hawks (along with Strom Thurmond and John Stennis) who were to be targeted by the VVAW. Sen. Tower had a serious drinking problem (not an uncommon affliction among Senators), and he had been turned out of office by the voters of Texas in 1984. He was later engaged by the Reagan Administration in the Iran-Contra negotiations. He was nominated for Secretary of Defense for the first Bush Administration, and was turned down by the Senate because of apparently too-close ties with the military-industrial complex. In a flight through Georgia, in 1991, the small aircraft in which he and his daughter were riding went down, no survivors.