Talk:John Kerry/Archive 12

message: Everything up until the 14th archived. Ambi 02:09, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: This article shows the danger of updating based on news during an election campaign. Our articles on other historically important politicians don't get into the level of campaign event by campaign event detail which leads to the foregoing partisan arguments. Even the Al Gore article doesn't get to this level; and for someone like Harry Truman or Winston Churchill (who also had a short military career prior to becoming a politician) it just isn't an issue.  I suggest that this article (and the George Bush one) should be left vague where the facts are in dispute until after the election because at the moment it is in danger of becoming a point-scoring exercise with an enormous level of detail in some areas of Kerry's life, those areas being driven by the latest "sound-bites" and "revelations". -- Derek Ross |  Talk 06:06, 2004 Aug 15 (UTC)
:: Are you contending that the fact Kerry is a liar in regards to Christmas '68 is in dispute? Rex071404 06:09, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: News article or Encyclopaedia article ?

message: So are we dropping the Christmas in Cambodia thing?  Or handling it neutrally ?  either is fine with me, but it would be nice to move along somewhere beyond this obstaclePedant 07:15, 2004 Aug 16 (UTC)
This is weird:
As they reached the shore, a Viet Cong soldier with a rocket launcher appeared jumped out of the brush, carrying a grenade launcher that could have seriously damaged the boat. 
was it a rocket launcher or grenade launcher or both?Pedant 07:24, 2004 Aug 16 (UTC)
:According to the citation as written by Commander, Naval Forces, Vietnam, it was a B-40 rocket launcher. --khaosworks 08:29, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  now what? 

message: :I don't know why there are multiple sets of citations.  My speculation is that he lost or misplaced the originals at some point and, as a senator, got a signed re-issue rather than a photocopy.  There is apparently even a third SS citation signed by Admiral Hyland floating around.  In any case, the wording differences are of little consequence.  But since Zumwalt pinned him, I figure that's the most authentic version.  I did, however, google up a thread over at freerepublic which seizes on this as proof of a dark plot regarding the medal-tossing thing.  
:As far as I can tell, there are less than 20 people offically involved in SBVT.  But, many more signed the letter, including Elliott.  His two affidavits were requested by and sent to SBVT steering committee members.  So, I think it's fair to categorize this as SBVT material.  If Elliott claims that some important element of his SS reccommendation was _false_ then I agree that should be discussed on the main page.  If he just changed his mind after 30 years about whether the action deserved a medal, that's a lot less compelling.  Elliott didn't give him the medal, the Navy did — based on a supposedly factual report by Elliott.Wolfman 07:56, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: There's also the problem of dates. When were these citations issued, and which is the final draft? Surely the medal couldn't be awarded three times from three different citations. The Zumwalt SS citation is not stamped "Official Record Copy" while the other CINCPAC and Secretary of the Navy ones are - what does that mean? Adding to my confusion about which is the "official" account is that according to regulations Silver Star is apparently not awardable except at CINCPAC level and above, at least during peacetime. In wartime, it can be awarded by lower ranking officers, but only when officially delegated. I do not know if Zumwalt was delegated that authority, but the letter seems to imply so. --khaosworks 08:40, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The following theory (googled up on some forum) seems reasonable to me:  The award is supposed to come with a citation suitable for framing (single page).  Zumwalt's citation was a little over, requiring two pages. Presumably, Zumwalt (as commander in chief of naval forces in Vietnam) was given de facto wartime authority to approve Silver Stars, but had to get them formalized through CINCPAC after the fact. When the award was run through CINCPAC some months later, the staff there slightly edited the citation to make it regulation size.   (An aside: SecNavy citation was by Lehman under Reagan, so it clearly came at least a decade after the events.)Wolfman 15:17, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Multiple Citations

message: Why do the numbers keep fluctuating on this chart?  Gamaliel 04:07, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Scanning the AFL-CIO link, the numbers seem misleading.  First, a bunch of the "sponsored bills" are resolutions honoring the neighbor's cat -- the sort of meaningless thing that always gets passed.  We shouldn't be counting those.  Second, bills passed seems incorrectly tallied, a lot of those measures passed.  Third, if we're going to tally this stuff, we might as well use all the data for his Senate career instead of just the past few Congresses.Wolfman 21:43, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

text: I concur. Cut it. There are 100 different ways to present this information, but in the end it's really meaningless anyway.  Gamaliel  21:57, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Tried a new tack.  Just listed some major bills; see article.  Comments? Wolfman 22:25, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The bills I listed came off the AFL-CIO web site which I erroneously assumed was comprehensive.  Since it's not comprehensive, the list might be a bit selective given the source.  Anyone is welcome to go through the listings on Kerry's Senate site to see if I missed any significant or major legislation that should be added.  It's a big list, so I won't have the time to get to it myself for a few days. Editors who want to avoid headaches should be aware that Rex is making an issue of the recent changes to this section over in arbitration.Wolfman 16:46, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  sponsorship of legislation 

message: Hi. I'd quite like to make a valuable contribution into making this an even greatier article. Unfortunately nothing comes to mind now, so I'd like to point out how much attention Kerry's past must have gotten in the media circus surrounding the presidential race to result in such an extensive Wikipedia article. Quite ironic compared to the amount of attention the question who would actually make a better president gets, ain't it? -- Kizor 19:40, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Utter derail 

message: A couple weeks ago I posted here a proposal to rewrite the "Family background" section to reduce the level of detail.  Nothing happened; basically, my suggested language was buried under all the other disputes that were going on back then, and the Talk page was archived.  I still think the current article text is too detailed, so I'll try again.
The genealogical information should be saved, for the sake of any reader who wants to pursue that subject.  I created a stub for Kerry's maternal grandmother at Margaret Tyndal Winthrop, and copied the last paragraph (with Governor Winthrop et al.) into it. (Even as stubs go, it's pretty sloppy, so anyone who wants to fix it should.)  That step preserves the link between Kerry and his Colonial forebears.  With that protection in place, here's a possible rewrite. It ended up being longer than I'd expected.  I left in a fair amount of detail about Kerry's Jewish roots (on his father's side), because I think that's been the subject of some attacks on him (for allegedly concealing it). I didn't want to drop the reference to opium for fear of being accused of bias, but I really think it could go, given that there are links to articles on James Grant Forbes and the Forbes family.  Mainly what I cut was all the Olde New England stuff, except for his distant relationship to Bush, a fact too piquant to leave out.  My proposal: 
:Kerry's paternal grandfather, Frederick A. Kerry (born Fritz Kohn), was born in the town of Horní Benešov, Austria-Hungary (in what is now the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic), and grew up in Mödling (a small town near Vienna, Austria). His wife Ida (née Loewe) was born in Budapest, Hungary. They immigrated to the United States, arriving at Ellis Island in 1905. The Kerry-Kohns were German-speaking Jews, but the family concealed its background upon migrating to the United States, and raised their three children, including Kerry's father, as Catholics. A Czech historian has shown that Ida was a descendant of Sinai Loew, one of three older brothers of Rabbi Judah Loew (1525-August 22, 1609), a famous Kabbalist, philosopher and talmudist known as the Maharal of Prague. Two of Ida's siblings, Otto Loewe and Jenni Loewe, died in the Nazi extermination camps (Theresienstadt and Treblinka, respectively), after being deported from Vienna in 1942. 
:Richard John Kerry, John's father, was born (c. 1916) in Massachusetts. After a stint in the U.S. Army Air Corps, he worked for the Foreign Service and served as an attorney for the Bureau of United Nations Affairs in the U.S. Department of State. In 1937, he met Rosemary Forbes, a member of the wealthy Forbes family. One of eleven children, she studied to be a nurse, and served in the Red Cross in Paris during World War II (she also was a Girl Scout leader for 50 years). The couple married in Montgomery, Alabama in January 1941. 
:John Kerry's maternal grandfather, James Grant Forbes, was born in Shanghai, China, where the Forbes family of China and Boston accumulated a fortune in the opium and China trade. He married Margaret Tyndal Winthrop, who came from a family with deep roots in New England history. Through her, his maternal grandmother, John Kerry is related to four Presidents, including, ironically, George W. Bush (9th cousin, twice removed).  
These three paragraphs would replace what's now a five-paragraph section on "Family background".  Comments? JamesMLane 07:08, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds all right - except that I would cut out the "maternal grandmother" phrase in the last paragraph (it's obvious who she is from reading - to make it clearer, use "Forbes married" instead of "he married" in the second sentence), and specifically mention John Winthrop, as he is a very important early American. I freely admit though, that the last bit is because of my own bias as a fledging Early American historian. Aside from that and maybe some tweaking of the language later, works for me. -khaosworks 11:52, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This is the siren song that leads to detail clutter, I'm afraid -- "Let's add just this one more interesting little fact."  Yes, Winthrop is important, but is Kerry's relationship to Winthrop important?  Given that Kerry has "deep roots in New England history", does it matter which specific early Americans he's kin to?  I don't object to your rewording otherwise.  JamesMLane 13:02, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, I'm not insistent on the last one - like I said, it's personal bias. It'd be nice, but I agree not vital. -khaosworks 13:07, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

text: Looks fine by me. Though there is an article on Kerry's father, Richard Kerry, that could be linked to. older ≠ wiser 11:58, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It's linked to in the first paragraph under the heading "Early Life and Education" (which I just noticed has too many caps in it), a couple paragraphs before where this section would begin. JamesMLane 13:02, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Trying again on the genealogy