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This is just a portion of the article, but says a lot.
This is the real John Kerry:
From:
The Two John Kerrys
Will We Get the Populist or the Lord of Special Interests?
by Doug Ireland
www.dissidentvoice.org
February 10, 2004
First Published in the LA Weekly

In this week’s Newsweek, crack investigative reporter Michael Isikoff — in an article entitled “Cash and Kerry” — unveils letters from Kerry to Johnny Chung, a star of the 1996 campaign-finance scandals, who pleaded guilty to giving $28,000 illegally to Kerry’s and Bill Clinton’s campaigns (the money turned out to have come from wire transfers by the head of Chinese military intelligence). In 1996, Kerry — in the fight of his life for re-election against then-Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld — helped grease the way for getting a corporation run by one of Chung’s cronies listed on the stock exchange by arranging a private meeting with the SEC. Kerry’s reward: Chung raised him $10,000 at a Beverly Hills fund-raiser. Kerry has always claimed he never knew Chung until the fund-raiser — but the Newsweek revelations show Kerry, in a handwritten“Dear Johnny” letter, wrote to Chung months earlier that “It means a lot to have someone like you on my team as I face the toughest race of my career.” Newsweek adds that Kerry used his position as a member of the Senate Finance Committee to collect $3 million from firms with an interest in the committee’s work.

With all this sort of thing in Kerry’s past and present, it’s no wonder that the Center for Responsive Politics’ director, Larry Noble, told the Washington Post that “it’s harder for someone like Kerry to take on” Bush over special interests “because he’s taken money from . . . a lot of the same” corporate sectors. The fat cats have flocked to Kerry: 55 percent of his presidential campaign’s cash comes from $2,000 contributors, meaning he’s closing in on Bush (who gets 73 percent from such big-check writers), according to The New York Times. There’s more. Kerry the “populist” voted in 2000 to shred the Community Reinvestment Act, which obliged banks to service impoverished areas and lend them money. Kerry voted just two years ago to repeal the Public Utility Holding Company Act, designed to keep energy prices to consumers low by forbidding utilities companies to invest speculatively in businesses outside the energy field.

Kerry’s Janus-like profile isn’t confined just to serving the special interests while denouncing them to win the Democratic nomination. He voted for the blank check for war in Iraq — and now denounces Bush for “lies” he once believed. On October 9, 2002, Kerry told the Senate, “Why is Saddam Hussein attempting to develop nuclear weapons when most nations don’t even try? . . . Iraq has chemical and biological weapons . . . Iraq is developing unmanned aerial vehicles capable of delivering chemical- and biological-warfare agents.” Of course, every single one of those statements about Iraq has since been proved to be empty rhetoric.

So, the question before Democratic voters is: If you cast your ballot for John Kerry, which one will you get?

Doug Ireland is a New York-based media critic and commentator whose articles appear regularly in The Nation, Tom Paine.com, and In These Times among many others. This article first appeared in the LA Weekly.