Veterans for Kerry Rally

I attended a Veterans for Kerry rally here in Milwaukee today, at the war memorial on the lakefront. Jim Rassman, the Green Beret vet whom Kerry saved to earn his Bronze Star, was the featured speaker. I didn't have a notebook, so I can't give exact quotes. It was a very small crowd. The rally was at lunchtime, and there were certainly less than 50 people there, plus some news cameras.

Rassman related that he was a registered Republican for 33 years, but this year changed his registration to Democrat so he could vote for John Kerry. He said he felt abandoned by the Republican Party, being a fiscal conservative and social liberal. Much of his speech was taken up by recounting the story of his rescue by Kerry, substantially the same as he has given in print. After relating the story, Rassman declared that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were liars, motivated by a hatred of Kerry for speaking out against the Vietnam War when he returned. "It was a war we should have all spoken out against," Rassman declared to applause. Rassman characterized Kerry's efforts as having a dramatic impact on ending the war, saying that without Kerry and his colleagues, Nixon would likely have continued to the war much longer.

The climax of Rassman's speech was to draw comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq. Vietnam was a mistake, Rassman said, that the nation endured for ten years. Iraq is a mistake, he continued, that we should not wait ten years to address. Rassman repeated many times that Bush is lying to the American people about the state of affairs in Iraq and that our troop are poorly trained and ill-equipped for the task. One soundbite statement from Rassman was that Bush's concept of "command responsibility" was to "dodge responsibility" for everything.

Being a veterans rally, Rassman also talked about Bush's treatment of veterans. He said the list of US veterans applying for disability is growing but that Bush is cutting the number of VA investigators, whose job it is to declare the veteran is disabled.

A notable theme in Rassman's speech was addressing the character assassination techniques of the Republican Party, and the Bush family specifically. He gave a passionate defense of Max Cleeland, asking how a man who served his country faithfully, losing three limbs in the process, could have his patriotism questioned. He has seen his own reputation shredded by Republicans and their proxies for supporting Kerry. He related many stories about the smear campaign by then Governor Bush against John McCain during the Republican primaries in the 2000 campaign, including appeals to racism ("McCain has a black baby") and besmirching McCain's service in Vietnam (he's the Manchurian Candidate, having been imprisoned and brainwashed by the North Vietnamese).