Word: kerrey
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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This is pretty disturbing. Only the most cursory (or the most Republican) look at the 1980s would yield such a cut-and-dried picture. Sure, the autocratic regime was evil. But Reagan's phrase was not intended as support for democracy in Eastern Europe, as Kerrey says and as Reagan would have us believe now. There wasn't a chance for democracy then. The Soviets weren't scared into negotiation by Reagan--in fact, his hard line was a setback for detente. Only the Soviet economic implosion, a process decades in the making, would eventually chop the Soviet Union...
...strange that Kerrey forgets that "evil empire" was the keynote for the arms buildup in the Reagan years--a buildup which doubled the defense budget in five years and which, incidentally, Kerrey believes was a mistake. Kerrey's antipolitician rhetoric may be charming, but he can seem out of touch...
...Kerrey's also a mean-spirited Japan basher, an arch-protectionist and a supporter of massive and terribly inefficient farm subsidies. There's nothing charming about any of this. Despite his touchy-feely reputation, these views are cold, calculated politics designed to get the Gephardt vote and neutralize Harkin. Too bad the U.S. cannot afford to fight a trade war with Japan--not since the American share of world trade has declined by one-third in the last 20 years...
Then there's the litany of Vietnam War-inspired policies. On his pet issue, health care (which Bill Clinton--who focuses on education--is at least as knowledgeable about), Kerrey advocates national health insurance for one major reason: "Government saved my life" in a vets hospital after the war, he told The New Republic and New York...
...sensible 1989 ruling which upheld the right to torch Old Glory (another purely political decision, which played well in Lincoln), and then supported it. Why? Chief Justice William Rehnquist pissed him off when he wrote in his dissent that people during the Vietnam War were defending the flag. Kerrey said he personally was not, and that he had therefore decided that the court was right--the flag was just a symbol...