Rare treat: 1990 MA Senate Debate with JK (C-Span Video)

[ObamaKerryDem]

Found while digging around the C-Span archives (which are pretty incredible)-had never seen this one before! :):

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/SenateDeba

[karynnj]

1. WOW - It is amazing how much this sounds like 2010!

I knew Kerry's opponent had been a member of the John Birch Society, but hearing him, he was an original tea partier. It was interesting to see how consistent Kerry is on his key beliefs. However, you can also see how much better Kerry has become in stating them - though he was pretty good back then. It surprised me how aggressively he attacked Rappaport, though I suspect that Kerry was sincerely offended by Rappaport's personal business actions.


Complete diversion:

One thing that I found interesting was how Rappaport tried to use the New Republic article against Kerry. The New Republic was bought in 1974 by Marty Peretz, who for decades irrationally hated Kerry - even to sounding almost like a SBVT in 2004, in spite of being "liberal". Here's his biography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marty_Peretz

The NYT magazine did a cover article on Peretz earlier this year. IMO, he is a psychological mess, who even in old age was dealing with father issues. In the article, he spoke of meeting with Kerry.

Peretz returned after a few minutes, fully dressed, and padded into the kitchen to make some tea. We made small talk about politicians. John Kerry’s name came up. Peretz remarked: “For 35 years, I’ve hated him. He would say I sucked up to Al, and I would say Al is a much more interesting guy. He called me last year, and we had dinner. Now we’re fine, it turns out most of our problems were personal, not political.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/magazine/30Peretz-t.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1

Al refers to Al Gore, who Peretz met when Gore was a student at Harvard and per the article bonded over being sons of difficult fathers. As to personal problems, reading the entire article lets me completely assign the personality problems to Peretz. (I suspect that Kerry's elite background, coupled with the fact that Kerry became the voice of the "antiwar, anti-communist faction of the Vietnam antiwar movement (that didn't want to destroy institutions) rather than the less charismatic Harvard Professor might have been part of the "35 years of hatred". Peretz likely resented Kerry's credibility, looks, eloquence, and incredible charisma and the fact that he may have resented Kerry as a Forbes/Winthrop descendant. )

The article is fascinating as it shows the warped personality of a man, who through his magazine, was able to affect the way many on left thought of many people. ("The Publisher" a book on Luce, who owned Time, Life and other magazines did the same for a more influential Republican, who influenced people for decades.) Today, we have an Australian right winger with magazines, Fox News etc doing the same.

[ObamaKerryDem]

2. You know, it really does!

Interesting, a kind of full circle, and literally 20 years later too! JK was terrific then but has only gotten more so with time. Always an excellent debater, though. :)

Very interesting also about Peretz. And the fact that he openly says he hates JK..wow! Interesting to see it come from a fellow "liberal". I think it's personal too (and obviously so, as he again openly admitted he "hated" him). Maybe jealousy?

[karynnj]

3. I suspect jealousy or just that Peretz had so many issues

with people more elite than he was that he never looked past his biases/stereotypes and simply hated Kerry.

I suspect jealousy just because he hated the 1972 Kerry. I can understand the far left hating him as Kerry made enormous efforts to focus the veterans behind working within the system and veterans rights and benefits. For many who actually though we were moving towards revolution, he was working against them. But Peretz was coming from about the same place and he clearly resented Kerry - even arguing that he was wrong to have gone to war.

It is funny that he let that hatred fester even as he himself became successful through links to money. The article is fascinating - he is a genuinely weird character.