There are three facts about John Kerry that tend to stay in one's memory. The first is that he spent a total of about four months in Vietnam in 1969, and has made this one of the main issues in his presidential campaign; the second is that he has spent nearly 20 years in the US Senate (he was first elected in 1984)and hardly talks about that at all; the third is that he has had the good fortune (or foresight) to marry two extremely rich women.
Whether this will make him a good President of the US is a moot point. It may well be a totally irrelevant point. As I say, though, it's what one tends to remember about him.
The Democrats after their Convention in Boston are ratcheting up the rhetoric in an all-out effort to beat Bush and the Republicans in November. Kerry happens to be their chosen and anointed candidate but one gets the occasionally unsettling feeling that Kerry is not all that wildly popular among the Democratic faithful. He is seen as the guy who is more likely to beat Bush than the other candidates in the primaries.
This is fine as far as it goes -- four more years of Bush and his colorful but sinister crew is not something any sane person would look forward to -- but I have a feeling that the President Kerry we end up getting (if he is elected) is going to be a lot different from the President Kerry we thought we were going to get.
This is the kind of thing that worries me; if anything, this article worries me even more, particularly the quote from Admiral Zumwalt in the final paragraph!!
