Posted on 06/15/2004 7:31:57 AM PDT by L.N. Smithee
WASHINGTON (June 14) - Teresa Heinz Kerry says anger, not ideology, prompted her to become a Democrat. The wife of Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, says her emotion stemmed from the way the Republican Party, to which she had pledged allegiance, treated Democratic Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia in 2002.
Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm as an Army captain during the Vietnam War, lost his re-election bid in a bitter campaign against then-Rep. Saxby Chambliss. The GOP had raised questions about Cleland's patriotism because of his position on legislation to create the Department of Homeland Security. Cleland supported the concept behind the department, but insisted that a workers' rights provision be part of the bill.
Heinz Kerry, in an interview to be broadcast Tuesday on the "CBS Evening News," says Cleland's status as a triple amputee is enough to prove his patriotism.
"Three limbs and all I could think was, 'What does the Republican party need, a fourth limb to make a person a hero?' And this coming from people who have not served. I was really offended by that. Unscrupulous and disgusting," she said, her reference being an indirect one to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
Neither Republican served in Vietnam. Bush served stateside in the Texas Air National Guard, and Cheney received five student deferments from service during the war.
Kerry volunteered to serve in Vietnam and earned three Purple Hearts, and Silver and Bronze stars for his efforts commanding a swift boat on the Mekong Delta. Earlier in the campaign, opponents of Kerry had raised questions about his military service and whether he deserved the military honors.
Heinz Kerry had been a registered Republican until Kerry, her second husband, announced his bid for the White House. Her first husband, Republican Sen. John Heinz of Pennsylvania and the Heinz prepared foods heir, was killed in a plane crash in 1991. She inherited a fortune estimated at more than $500 million.
In the interview, John Kerry is asked about criticism of his wife, who has a reputation for being blunt and outspoken.
"When it's silly stuff, and a lot of it is incredibly unfactual, I get angry about it," he said.
Asked for three words to describe his 65-year-old wife, who is five years his senior, Kerry said: "Saucy, sexy, brilliant."
She responded: "I'm cheeky, I'm sexy, whatever. You know, I've got a lot of life inside."
A liberal interest group will begin airing a new television commercial Tuesday in four battleground states that calls President Bush "a failure of leadership" and criticizes Vice President Dick Cheney's ties to Halliburton.
MoveOn.org's political action committee will spend about $1 million over a week, a hefty amount, to run the 30-second ad in Missouri, Nevada, Ohio and Oregon.
Well, first, before we take that on, let's review what actually happened in the campaign, as recounted by National Review Online's Rich Lowry:
Meet the new Florida. He is the former Democratic senator from Georgia, Max Cleland. Just as the 2000 Florida voting fiasco symbolizes for Democrats the election-stealing illegitimacy of Bush Republicans, Cleland's 2002 reelection defeat represents their low-blow tactics on national security. Cleland, who came back from Vietnam a triple amputee, travels often with Sen. John Kerry as the leader of the presidential candidate's "band of brothers." On the campaign trail, he is considered a sainted political martyr, the embodiment of liberal victimhood in the Age of Bush.
This is trumped-up mythology based on the idea that Republicans "questioned Cleland's patriotism" in 2002. Kerry captures it best: "To this day I am motivated by — and I will be throughout this campaign — the most craven moment I've ever seen in politics, when the Republican party challenged this man's patriotism in the last campaign." Democrats make it sound as though Cleland's opponent, the four-term Republican congressman Saxby Chambliss, ran an ad something like this: "Sen. Max Cleland," — cue the ominous music — "is he a patriot? Georgia wants to know."
Of course, nothing remotely like this ran. The case for foul play rests on a tough anti-Cleland ad that Chambliss broadcast featuring Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. The ad didn't morph Cleland into either of these figures or say that he supported them. It noted at its beginning that the United States faced threats to its security as the screen was briefly divided into four squares, with bin Laden and Saddam in two of them and the other two filled with images of the American military.
It went on to explain that Cleland had voted 11 times against a homeland-security bill that would have given President Bush the freedom from union strictures that he wanted in order to set up the new department. The bill was co-sponsored by his Georgia colleague Sen. Zell Miller, a fellow Democrat. Bush discussed details of the bill personally with Cleland, and Chambliss wrote him a letter prior to running his ad urging him to support the Bush version. Cleland still opposed it, setting himself up for the charge that he was voting with liberals and the public-employees unions against Bush and Georgia common sense.
If you can't criticize the Senate votes of a senator in a Senate race, what can you criticize? Throughout the race, Cleland tried to hide behind the idea that his patriotism was being questioned. A columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted in June of 2002 that "this 'how-dare-you-attack-my-patriotism' ploy, replete with feigned outrage...is a device to put Cleland's voting records off-limits." It didn't work. Chambliss won the crucial endorsement of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which made its nod on the basis of the two candidates' differing records on national-security and veterans issues. The VFW wouldn't have been complicit in a gutter campaign based on smearing a Vietnam veteran...
Teresa was loyal to Republicans like Barney Frank, John Murtha, and Ted Kennedy before the GOP pulled the Max Cleland schtuff. Sure.
By the way, you may have noted while this article made sure we remembered that there are people who question how John Kerry got his medals, the writer of this piece made no mention of how he discarded them (or, as he tells the story now, pretended to discard them), or that he was a leader in protests against the war once he returned, and how some of those who served with him are some of his fiercest critics.
Nice little plug for the upcoming MoveOn.org ad smearing Halliburton, too. What media bias???
Here are the facts about Teresa's campaign contributions since 1991, when Senator Heinz died, as listed in OpenSecrets.org. She may not have left the Republican party formally until Kerry decided to run, but a fair recitation of the facts show that by the mid-90's, in her head -- and clearly her checkbook -- she was already gone.
| Contributor | Occupation | Date | Amount | Recipient | Party |
| HEINZ, TERESA | HOMEMAKER | 6/17/1992 | $1,000 | Specter, Arlen | GOP |
| PITTSBURGH,PA 15238 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | EXECUTIVE | 9/5/1996 | $1,000 | Murtha, John P | Dem |
| PITTSBURGH,PA 15238 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | HOMEMAKER | 1/13/1996 | $1,000 | Williams, Dan | Dem |
| PITTSBURGH,PA 15238 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | PHILANTHROPIST | 10/28/1996 | $1,000 | Minnick, Walt | Dem |
| PITTSBURGH,PA 15238 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | RETIRED | 10/28/1996 | $1,000 | Greenwood, James C | GOP |
| PITTSBURGH,PA 15238 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | THE HEINZ FOUNDATION | 3/30/1996 | $1,000 | Kerry, John | Dem |
| PITTSBURGH,PA 15238 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | THE HEINZ FOUNDATION | 3/30/1996 | $1,000 | Kerry, John | Dem |
| PITTSBURGH,PA 15238 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | HOMEMAKER | 5/30/1996 | $500 | Williams, Dan | Dem |
| WASHINGTON,DC 20004 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | HEINZ FAMILY PHILANTHROPIES | 10/16/1996 | $1,000 | Furse, Elizabeth | Dem |
| WASHINGTON,DC 20007 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | HEINZ ENDOWMENTS | 11/1/1994 | $1,000 | McCarty, John | GOP |
| PGH,PA 15238 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | HEINZ FAMILY FOUNDATION | 10/22/1998 | $1,000 | Boehlert, Sherwood | GOP |
| PITTSBURGH,PA 15238 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | RETIRED | 9/30/1998 | $1,000 | Murtha, John P | Dem |
| PITTSBURGH,PA 15238 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | RETIRED | 11/16/1998 | $500 | Greenwood, James C | GOP |
| PITTSBURGH,PA 15238 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | 9/24/1998 | $1,000 | Udall, Mark | Dem | |
| WASHINGTON,DC 20004 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | HEINZ FAMILY PHILANTHROPIES | 5/7/1997 | $5,000 | Women's Campaign Fund | Pro-Choice |
| WASHINGTON,DC 20004 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | HEINZ FAMILY TRUST | 8/17/1998 | $1,000 | Williams, Dan | Dem |
| WASHINGTON,DC 20004 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | HOMEMAKER | 2/23/1998 | $1,000 | Williams, Dan | Dem |
| WASHINGTON,DC 20004 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | PHILANTHROPIST | 5/20/1998 | $500 | Frank, Barney | Dem |
| WASHINGTON,DC 20004 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | THE HEINZ FAMILY PHILANTHROPIES | 5/3/2000 | $1,000 | Kennedy, Edward M | Dem |
| BOSTON,MA 02108 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | THE HEINZ FAMILY PHILANTHROPIES | 5/3/2000 | $1,000 | Kennedy, Edward M | Dem |
| BOSTON,MA 02108 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | HEINZ FAMILY FOUNDATION | 5/24/2000 | $1,000 | Udall, Mark | Dem |
| PITTSBURGH,PA 15238 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | RETIRED | 1/24/2000 | $1,000 | Greenwood, James C | GOP |
| PITTSBURGH,PA 15238 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | TERESA HEINZ PHILANTHROPIST | 7/14/1999 | $1,000 | Sanders, Wade Rowland | Dem |
| PITTSBURGH,PA 15238 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | HEINZ FOUNDATION | 9/5/2000 | $1,000 | Lugar, Richard G | GOP |
| WASHINGTON,DC 20004 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | HEINZ FAMILY PHILANTHROPICS | 4/19/2000 | $1,000 | Murtha, John P | Dem |
| WASHINGTON,DC 20007 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | HEINZ FOUNDATION | 7/19/2002 | $1,000 | Walters, David Lee | Dem |
| BOSTON,MA 02108 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | HOUSEWIFE | 2/15/2002 | $1,000 | Blinken, Alan John | Dem |
| PITTSBURGH,PA 15238 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | HOUSEWIFE | 2/15/2002 | $1,000 | Blinken, Alan John | Dem |
| PITTSBURGH,PA 15238 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | PHILATHROPIST | 12/24/2001 | $1,000 | Strickland, Tom | Dem |
| PITTSBURGH,PA 15238 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | PHILATHROPIST | 12/24/2001 | $1,000 | Strickland, Tom | Dem |
| PITTSBURGH,PA 15238 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | SELF/PHILANTHROPIST | 5/15/2002 | $1,000 | Frank, Barney | Dem |
| PITTSBURGH,PA 15238 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | TERESA HEINZ/PHILANTHROPIST | 9/27/2002 | $1,000 | Kouri, Chris | Dem |
| PITTSBURGH,PA 15238 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | PHILANTHROPIST | 3/14/2002 | $1,000 | Carnahan, Jean | Dem |
| WASHINGTON,DC 20007 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | PHILANTHROPIST | 3/14/2002 | $1,000 | Carnahan, Jean | Dem |
| WASHINGTON,DC 20007 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | PHILANTHROPIST | 5/3/2002 | ($1,000) | Carnahan, Jean | Dem |
| WASHINGTON,DC 20007 | |||||
| HEINZ, TERESA | PHILANTHROPIST | 5/3/2002 | $1,000 | Carnahan, Jean | Dem |
| WASHINGTON,DC 20007 | |||||
|
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She left the Republican Party the day (or night), she took John Kerry into her bed.
She's nutty as a fruitcake. :) She makes Martha Mitchell look demure.
A bald-faced lie. The GOP raised the issue of how Cleland VOTED on numerous issues, which is a very legitimate campaign issue. Never once did the GOP say that Max Cleland was unpatriotic. Never.
However, the Dims spent a LOT of time saying that the GOP was saying Max Cleland was unpatriotic.
P.S. Now that I think of it, it was probably at night because I can't think of anybody who would go to bed with him in daylight.
Are any of those GOP members actually conservatives, or all RINOs like Specter?
It's B.S.
The Kerry campaign is obsessed with imagery confirming their patiriotism and war experience.
By association with Cleland Kerry vicariously feels his own medals were worthy, best I can figure.
I don't know anything about Greenwood, Bohlert, or McCarty. We all know Specter (sadly), and Dick Lugar said some things last week that made it sound like he was auditioning for Kerry's VP after McCain turned him down.
More likely that she left the Republican Party when she got control of her husband's estate.
Thought this was interesting.
I'm stunned - STUNNED - to see she gave money to our senior senator from PA.
Not only that, she's spreading the same lie about Cleland.
His patriotism wasn't questioned, his VOTES were.
If they want to discuss smears, how about Cleland smearing Duke Cunningham as a chickenhawk?
Cunningham won perhaps the only fight in which the top two aces of countries at war faced off against each other. Colonel Tomb has 13 kills against American planes in the Vietnam War, but he was Duke's FIFTH kill (at the time of the enagagement, Duke Cunningham was tied with Robin Olds at four kills).
Got a Navy Cross for that, as I recollect...
The article also goes out of its way to point out that Cleland lost his limbs as a Captain in VietNam, yet fails to mention how, exactly, he lost those limbs.
Kerry just described his wife attempting to explain why she is a democrat.
There is listed in OpenSecrets another donor named Teresa Heinz, of Geneva, Ohio. She gave exclusively to the GOP.
Precisely my point. She calls herself "sexy," inferring that it's how she made it to the top.
Well, by marrying for money, at least she's now found a spouse with whom she has something in common.
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