Kerry's version of Gordon Liddy! LOL!!!
In Vietnam he learned that turning his Swift boat toward the riverbank and motoring toward enemy attack presented a smaller target for incoming fire and in many circumstances was safer than turning and running. The result: an informed aggression.
Firsthand service in Southeast Asia convinced Kerry that the US effort there was misbegotten. He came back a paradox: a decorated protester.
"At a young age he perceived reality, the world as it is," says Thomas Vallely, director of the Vietnam program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and a longtime Kerry friend.
This realism was combined with an education that stressed Socratic discussion. A champion debater at Yale, Kerry later served as a local prosecutor in Massachusetts. After two failed runs for Congress he eventually won a Senate seat - and the Senate styles itself as the debate chamber of the nation, after all.
The Ultimate Campaign Simulation Game
And even by Senate standards Kerry has been a honed advocate. He's won recognition not so much by legislating as by serving on quasi-prosecutorial investigative panels, such as the Iran-contra commission of the late 1980s.
"Kerry learns by arguing. It gets him in trouble sometimes," says Mr. Vallely.