Greetings at a Holiday Party
Road Report from Jose Toirac and Danielle Forsythe
[Editor’s Note: Two of our web team members were in the Boston area yesterday and filed this report on Ted’s behalf.]
Tonight we fought our way through Boston traffic and went to the John Kerry Holiday Reception at the U.S. Presidential Museum in Worcester, MA. At the reception we filled in for Ted, the roving JK photographer / videographer.
The crowd at the event was impressive. Many local politicians and Democratic Supporters attended the holiday event and cheered John Kerry as he spoke about the Democratic victory in 2006. JK spoke about the work that the Democratic party needs to get done in Congress and outlined some of his plans for the future including the work he plans on doing in the Senate this coming year. After he spoke, JK walked through the crowd taking pictures and thanking everyone personally for their hard work in 2006.
Enjoy the pictures and check out these video interviews at the party with Doug Balder and Corey Costa. [These links are quicktime movies; we’ll update the links when the flash version is available.]
Mahalo
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Sounds inspiring for John Kerry and everyone who was there. I’m sure JK showed them his toughness and fighting spirit.
Thanks for the post, it is good to know JK is out on the road amongst his supporters!
I heard he’s on Larry King now, and I’m at work!!! What’s he talking about?
He is too cool. His answer to the thermometer question was perfect.
Great pictures. Nice to see the Senator at ease and relaxed.
JK looked and sounded great tonight on Larry King.
He is back and ready to roll all the way to the White House in 2008!
Sen Kerry was really good on Larry King. He made the important points about Iraq and did an excellent job with the inevitable questions about the ‘joke’ and the poll.
What did he say about the poll, “I would have voted myself last at the time”? lol.
He also said that he botched a joke, but Bush botched a war. That can’t be said enough.
Nicely done, Senator.
I just saw Sen. Kerry’s appearance on Larry King Live. I thought he did a good job of talking about Iraq and the recent events that show that country to be in crisis and definitely in civil war.
I think there is an even stronger case to be made today than there was in April that we need to start pulling troops out of Iraq. As the Senator said tonight, what is our military doing there if the problems we are confronting cannot be solved militarily.
I’m glad to see Kerry out on these shows. I know the dopey questions about the botched joke and so forth are going to come, but I want to see the conversation go back to topics that are actually important to the country, like Iraq, health care, environmental concerns and so forth.
Nice job. I loved that line, “I may have botched a joke, but the President botched a war.” Sadly, this is so true.
Thank you, Violet, for this refreshing post. JK looks so relaxed in the pictures.
His appearance on Larry King just now was stellar, by the way. He was sharp, focused, and was not going to get sidetracked for long about the joke, firmly letting King know that there are more pressing issues to discuss than botched jokes and silly polls.
Senator Kerry did a great job on Larry King’s show. He was able to spend a great deal of time consisely describing the civil war in Iraq. He said that he spoke to the Iraq survey group and though he wouldn’t say what their position was, he said that he told them what he has consistently said for 3 years. He also mentioned that King Abdullah of Jordan spoke of the potential of three civil wars in the area - Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq. (Senator Kerr agree with King Abdullah that the US has to move on the middle east issue too.)
It was great hearing the Senator speaking on these issues in a clear way that seems to elude the other politicians who refuse to speak the blunt truth.
He was also able in several instances to get in his long term committment to the soldiers and the veterans - mentioning recent things that he has done for them. I was impressed with the way that he said that he loved them - it was sincere and real. He then related their situation to his in Vietnam and said they owed it to the soldiers to get it right.
He was also able to speak about the need to make Congress work to achieve the goals that people voted for. This was a great way to divert the are you running question.
He made a joke of the poll question and explained that he botched a joke, Bush had botched a war and that it was important to think and speak about the war rather than the joke.
Larry showed the statements of Kerry, McCain, Hillary and Bush after the joke flared up , but oddly Kerry looked sincere and serious when he said that he would not apologize for criticizing Bush, McCain looked pompous and pasty, Hillary looked shrill and cold. Bush looked like he was out of control. Just watching it - Kerry looked like a nice guy explaining honestly what happened - even that series - embarrassing to Kerry as it was - made the other 3 look worse.
I just watched Mr. Kerry interviewed on the Larry King show. It seemed pretty clear that the interviewer really didn’t have anything significant to ask Mr. Kerry about, so he was just fishing for random soundbites based on old stuff (the ‘botched joke’ non-issue), spun stuff (the ‘popularity poll’ non-issue), irrelevant stuff (the Frist non-announcement) and obvious stuff (the ‘civil war’ non-label).
I thought Mr. Kerry did a good job in the few minutes Larry King allotted to him (apparently interviewing some indicted reality TV personality was more important to King’s viewers, since that’s what most of the hour-long show was devoted to.)
I am hoping that at least one of the three interviewers Mr. Kerry will be sitting down with tomorrow will ask more meaningful and substantive questions at greater length, so that he is given the opportunity to present more of his valuable insights and thoughtful positions than King allowed him to do tonight.
Karynnj
Iraq is the single most important issue that we have in this country and the single most important issue that will confront the new Congress. It sometimes seems like some Dems want to sit back and let the Baker Iraq Study Group shape the argument and what happens after this.
I don’t agree with leaving this to Baker. I don’t think this will generate enough pressure on the President to really change his policy in Iraq. He will keep putting bandages this gaping wound and Iraq and the troops we have there will continue to suffer.
I am glad that Sen. Kerry met with the ISG on Monday. They needed to hear more about the ‘Go Home’ option and how it can be an effective means of moving the Iraqis and the stakeholder nations in the area to get involved and start to control the forces there.
Again, this was a very good appearance and I liked what I heard.
Well, I got Larry King on just in time to see the ‘expected’ reference to the poll and the joke.
I liked Senator Kerry’s answer to the poll thing. What else is there to say? A poll is a poll. He could have spoofed George Bush and said, “Well...I just don’t keep my eyes on those polls. I just stay the course.” But he didn’t. He responded as best one could when given such an lousy question from the media.
But I noticed how Larry King had to keep grinding the joke in. Great response: “I botched a joke. They botched a war. We have people dying as a result of them botching a war.”
What I’d love to see him do the next time they show the video is turn and say, ‘Larry, where’s the footage of Colin Powell demanding Bush stop playing semantics and admit it’s a Civil War? Where’s the video of the coffins returning home in the cargo hold of our air carriers? Where’s the video of Private ____ who served for 5 years who just came home to Walter Reed Hospital? Those are the videos that our country needs to see. If they wanted to pay $52.95 to see a botched joke, they’d turn on reruns of the Gong Show.....Now, Larry, I just attended the meeting with .....and we’re working on making life better for our soldiers. This is what we talked about....”
(Ok...so that’s my advice to JK and any Democrat in Media Management 101.)
Jk looked great on LKL. Rested and ready to move forward.
I think one of the important things to take away from this interview, is what Atrios would call the “Friedman Units” issue. In other words, the political leaders who continue this form of responsibility punting on the decision making in Iraq by saying, “Six more months” or some variation thereof. JK raises the point that this kind of Iraq War management must stop, and he couldn’t be more right.
I’ve always been impressed by Jk’s ability to make the tough choices. That’s what grown-ups do. For the last two years, as documented by Think Progress, Bush has punted on whether or not to send more troops into Iraq, and McCain, Biden others continually talk about four more months, or the next six months, as being critical, but yet fail to state what happens when this magical time period elapses.
John Kerry has the guts to say what needs to be done right now. Not in four months from now. But today. That’s what seperates him and sets him apart and above all of the others.
Fantastic appearance on Larry King Live. I thought Senator Kerry handled the questions about the infamous missing pronoun and the poll results beautifully. I hope once the Senate cranks back up again in January, these two subjects will have become a distant memories in the minds of the American people.
Posted by Casey Morris | November 29, 2006 9:56 PM
Exactly right!
Adults make choices here and now. Adults that say, “four more months...six months...” and so on are actually treating each and everyone of us with disrespect!
They are treating us like children! As if we’re sitting in a car saying, “How much longer until we get to Grandma’s Mom...”
Well, McCain is saying, “Give us more time dears...we’re almost there...”
And Biden is saying, “We need time. Go back to sleep children.”
Well, I’m not a child and neither are any of the soldiers fighting in Iraq. Their lives depend on the adults here! Their families depend on adult leadership.
It is a tremendous insult to those soldiers and their families to give the standard, “Almost there Baby...just give us 6 more months” when our soldiers and their families are risking every thing important to them.
Posted by TayTay | November 29, 2006 9:50 PM
Dems are playing it safe by standing back and waiting for the ISG with Baker. However, they must remember that they were given a mandate to end this war now!
And they need to take a lesson from one of our newest Senators, James Webb. He said it to George and each and everyone of them needs to repeat it like a mantra.
“Bring our kids home NOW!”
I order Pelosi to go to Bush and say that each day.
I order Reid to go to Bush and say that each day.
Let each person with “D” and each person with a “Recovering R” go up to Bush and say, “Bring our kids home NOW!”
Eventually, Bush will hear or he’ll put his hands over his ears. BUT at least if our public servants follow the mandate they were given, then we will have a chance to bring them home.
Now, where’s that spine award for John Kerry?
Give me one reason why John Kerry is still one of the few with spines in DC?
JK was terrific on Larry King this evening. Everything that has now come to fruition in Iraq is EXACTLY what the Senator said would happen if the right steps weren’t taken. These are serious times and John Kerry is a serious man who can solve this country’s serious problems. We need his intelligence, his statesmanship, and above all, his leadership.
Brave folks - getting their picture taken with the most hated man in politics and all… /sarcasm
I’m glad he continues to make the point that committing to troop withdrawal is critical because it removes the recruiting tool of the warring factions and forces the government to take responsibility for the violence themselves and make the necessary compromises to end it.
Tia:
I agree with you. I saw the earlier post on this blog that revisited both the Oct 2005 speech at Georgetown and the April speech at Faneuil Hall. (I was present at that one, btw.)
What Sen. Kerry, almost uniquely, is bringing to the table in this discussion is the sense that our continued occupation in Iraq is a moral issue as well as a military question. Juan Cole, in his blog Informed Comment, referenced this recently as well. If we can’t do anything to affect Iraq militarily and can’t stop the violence, why are we there? If we can’t stop our troops from dying in places like Al-Anbar province, isn’t it immoral to leave them there?
I have listened to other politicians from both parties make careful arguments about Iraq that seem removed somehow from this, as if they were talking about some academic problem. Iraq is anything but an academic discussion. People are dying there. We need to do something now, not after even more of ‘our kids’ have been blown up or injured.
We have to get out of Iraq. As Kerry has said many times, not just because of what is happening there, but because of what it is doing to this nation and to our own sense of right and wrong. We cannot tolerate this, it is immoral.
CNN is reporting that the NYT is reporting that the ISG will recommend redeployment.
Didn’t Bush say yesterday that we’re not going anywhere?
This is going to get interesting.
Thumbs up to Senator Kerry for a great job on Larry King Live tonight. What a remarkable difference between this interview and the Chris Wallace mishmash. I actually walked away from the t-v relaxed and happy, instead of growling at the thought of the interviewer’s less than professional tactics.
Looking forward to tomorrow’s interviews. Keep Going, Senator Kerry, Keep Going. You’re back in the groove, and I’m so very thankful.
I am thrilled Senator Kerry has decided to do interviews again. This one tonight, with larry King was very good. The Senator appeared humble, and honest and truely sorry the “botched joke” had in any way hurt our troops. I think he made that clear. He needs to continue to do this though. The American public only half pays attention to the positive things people say, it is the negative that they remember, unfortunately. I was pleased that he mentioned all the things he has done for veterans and their families.Senator Kerry needs to make the public aware of these things- more, IMO. Sadly, it seems no one else will bring up all the good works he has done, or give him credit when it is due, so he has to toot his own horn. People need to get to know the real Senator Kerry, not the media made one.
Finally, Larry King seemed to half heartedly push the “botched Joke” piece twice, and mention that poll once, but it seemed to me at least, he really didn’t want to do either of these things. I got the feeling he knew it was all nonsense, but had to do it anyway. Maybe this whole incident is beginning to wear thin and is being seen as it should be- as nonsense.
Great job Senator Kerry! I’m am happy you have decided to do interviews again.
Sheesh—look at those pix, look at those smiles, look at all those shiny happy people—look at that Senator!
How anybody who’s ever been anywhere near him in person could possibly believe the envious right-wingers’ claims that John Kerry is too aloof, too reserved, or too elitist is completely beyond me.
shaking hands and kissing babies,
Otter
I saw the interview. It was pretty good. The Senator looked very relaxed compared to the Wallace interview. I also liked how he answered the “botched” joke questions and the comment about running again.
Only complaint was that the interview was not long enough and did not focus on more serious issues. Who cares about Frist not running or the “joke.” The main thing is that Bush botched a war and Kerry botched a joke. Hopefully the interviewers will let him talk about his solutions about Iraq, healthcare, small business, and so on, though I know the joke questions will come first.
Overall, it it nice to see him making the media rounds again.
I expect the Senator to be tough, grown-up and able to deal. Always. Relaxed was a plus.
My nervousness is usually about just how unfair.
So, I see Catherine Crier with the botched joke lead-in, then Larry King, showing it more than once. Underneath, the rolling headlines (or whatever they’re called) mentioning botched joke and last in popularity poll. Switching them. Labelling like an axmurderer.
You would that is the only news story of import, and the contrast of what he was trying to say was marked. Hope others saw it that way.
Great to have JK back on the tube again! He’s been sorely missed. Good interview—nah, great interview, very timely given the news out of Iraq and the NY Times breaking the Iraq Panel strategy in the Thursday edition. Very timely indeed.
Iraq is totally out of control, more so everyday. JK saw this all coming so many months ago. It’s astounding that things could already be different. Just have to say what I’ve said so often on the Dem Daily about JK, Kerry was right. He was right about Iraq, he’s been right on so many issues and it’s no small wonder why he’s got the ire of the wingnuts.
Looks like a great holiday party in MA, too. Good to see this here.
Posted by Karynnj | November 29, 2006 9:37 PM
Karynnj, I agree with you completely that McCain, Hillary and W. came off much worse than Sen. Kerry in those (eternally) rebroadcast snippets, and your adjectives for each were right on the money!
Like others here, I also was annoyed by the CNN attempt to beat the joke thing to death. But, for whatever it may be worth, I had the impression that Larry King might actually have been embarrassed by his part in that. JK did a good job keeping the discussion focused on important issues as much as possible.
I thought Senator Kerry was excellent on Larry King last night. The Iraq Study Group has now come out with their plan; although it doesn’t go as far as I would like, it at least seems to be going in the right direction—troop withdrawal. Perhaps Senator Kerry did have an impact as he said he spoke with them on Monday.
The joke thing is just something he will have to deal with for some time. I thought his humbleness last night was the right way to handle it, and I think he should continue on that score. My issue with the media was not bringing it up, but CONSTANTLY bringing it up like it’s the biggest story of the year which it most certainly is not. But that’s the media environment we’re living in. I think Senator Kerry will do excellent work in the Senate which little by little will chip away the false image the media is projecting of him. Yes, it was one bad moment, but that’s in the context of thousands of great moments, not to mention a historical moment—his Dissent speech back in April.
Question to the mods: Is there any chance that you will put up the video of JK’s appearance on Larry King here? I’m in Europe and couldn’t watch it because they don’t show LKL on CNNi anymore. BTW, thanks for all the other videos of John Kerry’s TV appearances. As my only possibility to watch US TV is the Internet, that’s very much appreciated.
Word has it that it should be available shortly. We’ll post the link when it is. In the meantime, the transcript is available here.
Thanks, Violet, I’m looking forward to it. Thanks anyway for all your great work here.
Yes, it’s most refreshing to have the Senator out on the “trail” again, I’ve been worrying for weeks now about why everything seemed to shift into nuetral.
Tia: Your last two posts hit it EXACTLY. The first one about his response of “Why don’t you show the footage of........” was perfect. Not to mention the style of answering the questions with not only his own answer but by also showing the “other guy” at his worst is vintage JK. He’s nailed everyone from O’Niell to Bush over the last 30+ years with it and it’s still a trademark IMHO.
EuropeGirl: In case you haven’t spotted it yet here’s the LKL video:
http://video.johnkerry.com/video/flash/112906_larryking.html
Javelin, thanks for letting me know about the LKL video. I’m grateful that they have all these videos now here at the JK Community. In 2005 it was totally frustrating when I was never able to see any of Kerry’s TV appearances because all the liberal blogs who put videos on their sites totally ignored John Kerry. I’m glad this time is over now.