Talk:Bob Kerrey

message: In May 2001, Kerrey admitted to his role in the killing of civilians in the isolated peasant village of Thanh Phong, Vietnam on 25 February, 1969, while serving as a Navy SEAL in the Vietnam War, for which he got the Bronze Star.
Can someone clarify- did he get his Bronze Star for this particular incident? The sentence is confusingly constructed. -FZ 16:03, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Quotes listed in WP, particularly those that could be construed as controversial should have their source included. --Blainster 16:45, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Source needed

message: Navy SEALs are not special forces. There is just one "special forces" in the US military, and that is the US Army Special Forces. Navy SEALs are referred to as "special operations forces". Special Forces is an official title of a unit, not a description. Its wide use as such is incorrect.
:Special Forces (note caps) is a particular unit in the U.S. military; special forces (note lowercase) is a generic term used worldwide to designate units like Navy SEALS. To avoid confusion with Special Forces, the U.S. military officially uses the term special operations forces to describe SEALS etc., but as a reference work with a global audience, there's no reason why WP has to use this rather awkward terminology. Nareek 12:12, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Navy SEALs

message: The "Biography" section needs to be revamped. I suggest creating a separate "Political career" section and including the information on his stint in the Senate and as governor there. --38.100.43.50 19:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, that post was made by me...forgot to log in --Ball&Chain 19:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Needs reorganization

message: Kerrey became the focus of attention in 1993 when he became the key vote that would decide whether Clinton's first budget would pass or not. I can't remember what it was exactly, but it was reported that on the last day or the next-to-last day before the vote, Kerrey was still undecided, and spent the day making up his mind. It was reported that he went to the movies (what movie did he watch? This is the sort of thing people look to Wikipedia for). And liberals became very annoyed at him for a period. It was a significant moment in his career.Priceyeah (talk) 20:24, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: 1993 budget vote

message: I reverted 2 edits without submitting them here for discussion first, because I was unable to comment here from my phone and thought the page was full. I'm pretty new at this, so bear with me, ladies & gents. My explanation for the 1st revert: "POV: deleting interview and juxtaposing '...shot them.' and 'bronze star' implies a point of view, violating the spirit of the policy without accomplishing the goal of it." I believe including Kerrey's interview presents a more balanced POV than omitting it, and that, when omitted, the previous paragraph ending in "...and shot them." is juxtaposed with "Kerry was awarded the Bronze Star..." inferring lack of remorse, which doesn't seem to b the case. It was a terrible war as all wars are terrible, and it's best to remember that the survivors are often also casualties, even those physically unscathed.
The second reversion was shorter, "Regardless...," and might well be omitted, but we will actually never know what happened, and "the views of 2 do not a concensus make, esp. if one is recruited by the other, which seems entirely probable in this case..." Nuff said. What do others think? I'm very new to editing and to WK. Maybe I'm all wet.
Ragityman (talk) 01:53, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems fairly reasonable. Kerrey himself claims that he thought they Vietcong that fired at him were adults and turned out to be kids. The communist propaganda from Hanoi claims he deliberately slaughtered old men and little kids. ---------User:DanTD (talk)  05:37, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: reverted 2 POV edits in "Massacre" section

message: Sms97 (talk) 05:18, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Notes

message: I'm curious if the display transcript at the War Remnants Museum regarding what happened at Thanh Phong should be included, or expanded upon. I feel that more corroborating evidence is needed, particularly with respect to the details of the massacre.
Having visited the War Remnants Museum myself, I wholeheartedly agree with the following quotation from the wikipedia page about the museum: 
"According to one travel report, the exhibits are 'blatantly one-sided' with 'many exhibits in the museum contain[ing] a heavy dose of anti-American propaganda.' Another states that the museum is 'a no holds barred barrage of propaganda, overwrought with emotive language and typical propaganda buzzwords.'"
The display photo in question very strongly implies that Bob Kerrey ordered these atrocities (slitting the throats of the elderly and disemboweling children) or carried them out himself, and then admitted to it in 2001, while there is nothing in the rest of the wikipedia article to substantiate such statements. The NYT article discussing Thanh Phong isn't conclusive regarding who did/ordered what actions when (although Kerrey does repeatedly take responsibility for the actions of his unit as a whole), in large part because the people involved 1) wouldn't talk about it, 2) had widely divergent stories, 3) were recalling events 30 years in the past, and/or 4) likely used coping mechanisms which altered their recollection of events. The parts of the museum display most likely to elicit an intensely visceral response (disemboweling children, shooting pregnant women) are only referenced on the display. Given my experience at the museum, I would greatly prefer to see more nuance in the use of the display, or attribution from a more reputable source.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Akrunner (talk • contribs) 23:07, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I've changed "in which three children were hiding before being killed" to "in which three children allegedly hid before being killed" in the photo caption, as more arm's-length phrasing.  Apart from that, I don't think we need to change too much. Our phrasing and our use of a blockquote makes it fairly clear that this is the War Remnant Museum's version and not received WP truth.  Before the bit about the museum, we've got two paragraphs that're largely given over to Kerrey's description of the event and his reaction thereto, plus a quote from Kerrey's Bronze Star citation; NPOV seems to demand some kind of account from the Vietnamese perspective. — Ammodramus (talk) 06:27, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  It is a BLP violation, and reminds me of the apocryphal story of the campaign advisor in the Deep South who urged that the opposition candidate be accused of having sex with a pig. When he was informed that there was no evidence to substantiate such a claim, the advisor objected to the rejection of the tactic, saying, "We just need to get him to deny it." The quote says Kerrey "confessed" to alleged crime, but there is no basis for that contention. It even says he was in the U.S. Army when he was in the Navy. Activist (talk) 18:24, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not the first editor to do so here, but I've already pointed out that there were major inaccuracies in the account sourced to the War Remnants Museum. The account that has come from the Museum exhibit is not from a RSS, a "reliable secondary source." Certainly if Kerrey had "confessed" to the alleged crime, there would have been reporting on it that could be included in the article. There is none, and including it is a serious BLP violation. Not by any means to dismiss the horror of that war, the SPA IP edits are without value. The location of the IP editor's address is Bedminster, New Jersey, perhaps coincidentally, the location of the Summer White House. Just after winning his election to U.S. Senate in November 1988, he sang the famous anti-war ballad, "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda," to his supporters, including five men who had served with him in Viet Nam. Quite coincidentally, it was played on an evening news program on Memorial Day, Monday, May 25, 2020. The song captures his feelings regarding the futility of, and his disgust for, war.  Activist (talk) 08:35, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vietnamese Propaganda? 

message: There is an RfC on the question of using "Religion: None" vs. "Religion: None (atheist)" in the infobox on this and other similar pages. 
The RfC is at Template talk:Infobox person#RfC: Religion infobox entries for individuals that have no religion. 
Please help us determine consensus on this issue. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:04, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Template talk:Infobox person#RfC: Religion infobox entries for individuals that have no religion|Request for Comments]] 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Bob Kerrey. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20100603203619/http://www.hollywoodreporter.com:80/hr/content_display/film/news/e3idbde8a913c8837420f1e05c074daf37d to http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3idbde8a913c8837420f1e05c074daf37d
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Bob Kerrey. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20080308024847/http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/25/magazine/25KERREY.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=3db9255f522f13f6&ex=1138251600 to http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/25/magazine/25KERREY.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=3db9255f522f13f6&ex=1138251600
*Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20080526141025/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2001/04/25/magazine/25KERREY.html?ex=1138251600&en=3db9255f522f13f6&ei=5070 to http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/25/magazine/25KERREY.html?ex=1138251600&en=3db9255f522f13f6&ei=5070
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 08:56, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified