Posted on 05/04/2004 3:12:05 PM PDT by Liz
In this presidential campaign year, reams of paper and miles of videotape have already been devoted to explicating the differences between two prep-school prepared, Yale-educated, Skull-and-Bones-tapped elder sons of diplomats. But the differences between John F. Kerry and George W. Bush are thrown into high relief by this vigorously researched new biography of the Democratic challenger.
There are of course the much remarked upon contrasts in Austin and Brahmin language and bearing: Mr. Bush's down-home, frat boy, cheerleader demeanor versus Mr. Kerry's lugubrious, patrician deportment; Mr. Bush's blunt, sometimes garbled pronouncements versus Mr. Kerry's highly nuanced, often irrepressibly windy musings.
There are also their very different temperaments and very different approaches to decision making. Biographies and newspaper articles have drawn a portrait of President Bush as a towel-snapping kind of guy, quick with the joke and wisecrack; he is the prodigal son, whose rise to power after years of wandering seemed to stun even members of his own family. John Kerry, in contrast, emerges from this book as an ambitious, self-conscious outsider, so set on following his hero John F. Kennedy's path into politics that his Yale classmates would sometimes play "Hail to the Chief" on the kazoo when they saw him coming.
Mr. Bush is well known for being an instinctive politician who likes to go with his gut. Mr. Kerry was a debate champion at Yale, and that experience, the authors of this book argue, would shape his methodical, even tortured approach to decision making: "For John Kerry, all major decisions were Socratic exercises," they write. "He would seek advice from many quarters, examine all the angles, and raise every doubt."
"John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography," by The Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish, Brian C. Mooney and Nina J. Easton, grew out of a seven-part series that ran last June in The Globe, a unit of The New York Times Company. This series was significantly tougher-minded than a similar one David Maraniss did on Bill Clinton for The Washington Post in 1992.
While the later sections of this volume (detailing the candidate's views on the war against Iraq and his tough primary run) will be largely familiar to anyone who has been following the presidential campaign, the rest of the book energetically fleshes out the details of Mr. Kerry's life and career. The book provides the out-of-state reader with a visceral sense of the Massachusetts political world in which Mr. Kerry came of age, as well as an understanding of how he slowly evolved from a tone-deaf neophyte into a more practiced, if still stilted, politician.
The book draws a carefully shaded portrait of Mr. Kerry as a man of many contradictions: a diplomat's son who grew up around a world of wealth and privilege but always felt like an outsider ("part of a landless aristocracy that one might find in a Jane Austen novel"); a politician who "often proved himself to be a crusading and articulate investigator and lawmaker willing to stand up to prevailing winds" but who was also "trailed by a reputation for political opportunism"; a man who was known for his diffident, aristocratic manner but who also showed unusual daring in war and sports.
Some of Mr. Kerry's traits, cited in this book, eerily recall those of Al Gore: cautious, competitive and frequently accused of self-promotion, zigzagging on the issues and embellishing his accomplishments.
Of his 1984 Senate race the authors write: "Kerry also puffed up his Democratic Party credentials, exaggerating both his campaign work for John F. Kennedy in prep school and his involvement as a Yale student in the Freedom Summer of 1964, when white volunteers headed to the South to help blacks push for voting rights." They add that his "involvement with JFK's 1960 campaign was minimal, at best," and that his role "in the struggle to register black voters in Mississippi was confined to the Yale campus in New Haven."
The first section of the book provides a fascinating portrait of the young Mr. Kerry and his family's remarkably swift assimilation and assured pursuit of the American dream. In the opening chapter (based upon a news-making report by Mr. Kranish that appeared in The Globe in February 2003) we learn how Mr. Kerry's paternal grandfather reinvented himself before emigrating from the Austrian Empire to America — the former Fritz Kohn, a Jew, became Frederick Kerry, a Catholic — and how he later committed suicide in the Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston.
--SNIP-- read rest here
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/04/books/04KAKU.html
I did not read it all; does it mention Kerry's cookie business?
What a bunch of hooey.
I think Kerry's legendary debating ability is merely a legend. If he was such a great debater, why did he eliminate most of the debating at the Yale Political Union?
As president, Kerry officially extinguished debate during the 1960s, transforming the Union into a lecture series.
And it's obvious that Kerry makes major decisions by determining which path will bring him the most money.
If that is too difficult, he flips a coin.
Then flips it again :-)
I still wonder why Fritz Kohn/Frederick Kerry left his car's engine running when he went into the men's room to commit suicide.
(I mean, how does one speak of a Purple Heart for a 'wound' that required no more than a band-aid. . .for starters. . .)
Surely all those 'Nafta' haters; outsourcing critics. . .should understand and appreciate; that Kerry may have been born in America; but he was not 'made'.
LOL.
Your so kind!
No doubt, article researched from 'talking points' and Kerry's own biography edited for 'campaign, 2004'.
'Hooey' by any number of nouns and adjectives. . .
"He would ........ raise every doubt."
Sounds like j-FORBES-k.
He HAS been raising lots of doubts - and there's more to come!
LOL on Kerry for sure. The fact of this; surely 'prompted' - mandated - the Kerry effort on his 'plane over Israel' or Israel upsidedown story - Rush played today.
Kerry probably brought up to speed. . .
'you're NOT connecting!
Okay; lets try this. . .you tell them a STORY!
ANYone can tell a story; right John?.
So just get out there; and 'connect' to these people, with a story.
You can do it. . .
The Brahmin with the - did she say, windy(?) voice could not.
[I flew a jet plane. He said John! If you don't turn left; you will fly to Egypt. I did loops. . .upside down was best; he let me steer; I flew a jet plane.]
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