Who is Thomas Vallely, anybody knows?

Newsweek ^ | September 05, 2004 | crushelits

[crushelits]

Sept. 13 issue - John Kerry wanted to hit back. It had been a miserable August as he took incoming fire about his military service from a gang of hostile Vietnam vets. But no, campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill and other staffers argued, the Swift Boat ads would blow over. Finally, Kerry had had enough. For three or four days, as he campaigned across the country, Kerry ripped into Cahill, furious that the mostly baseless attacks on his valor were driving his numbers down. "He was very angry," one old friend says. "The calculation had been made that this wasn't going to hurt him." Kerry's solution was to reach for an old ally. "Get Vallely," he screamed.

Thomas Vallely is the leader of the pack of vets that Kerry calls his dog-hunters, a group that has beaten back the attacks on his Vietnam record since his first Senate race 20 years ago. "He knows that I know the other players," Vallely says of Kerry's Mayday call. "He knows that I also like this stuff."

[SuziQ]

Kerrey says he wants the candidate to take pride in his antiwar protests. "It took courage to do what he did in '71," says the former senator. "John Kerry was trying to end a war so Karl Rove didn't have to go.

Give it a rest, Bob. Wrapping himself in the anti-war banner isn't going to help Kerry. The vets who've had to endure the condescension from elitist anti-Vietnam war snobs in the media and academia for the last 35 years are FINALLY going to have their say!

But frankly I hope Kerry DOES get on his anti-war high horse. Won't do anything but help the President!

[Luke21]

I remember John Vallely of UCLA basketball fame.

[SuziQ]

``I think he learned that you have to build a base. He learned how to campaign. He learned how to embrace people. He learned that you can't demand support, you have to earn support,'' Wallace said.

I don't think Kerry has learned that lesson at all. He is acting now as though he is entitled to the Presidency because he was physically in Vietnam when President Bush was serving here at home. He has made that the basis of his campaign. That's why the Swift Boat Vets ads hurt him so badly in the polls; it was all he had, and all he thought he needed.

[lainde]

It warms the cockles of my heart to know that Kerry made it a priority to provide an educational institute in his fatherland, but never once did anything for education here in his 20 years in the Senate/

I think you're onto something as a campaign tactic...Education for foreigners...Not for USA students. You should dash off that nugget to the RNC.