James Carroll (Boston Globe) argues that Kerry has not spoken enough of the immorality of Vietnam [View all]

http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/01/14/vietnam-afterlife-evident-john-mccain-scrutinizes-john-kerry-chuck-hagel/LFnnlfsfHnJL2eKBqtwSKM/story.html

He basically says that, though Kerry spoke of the atrocities in 1971, he hasn't since. This ignores that he did speak of it - at least in the Senate where at least once he spoke of the fact that the military even changed rules due to what happened in Vietnam. It also ignores that having very publicly spoken of the fact that the war was wrong, he really does not have to repeat it. He did however, affirm what he did on the 35th anniversary with his speech at Faneuil Hall on the right and responsibility to dissent. What he has seemed to speak of, when needed, is the fog of war that the soldiers were put in - whether the soldiers were Bob Kerrey or US soldiers in Iraq. (He also testified on agent orange.)

More importantly, he ignores that Kerry did answer in 2004 in the debates when he thought it just to go to war. His answer was the global test - which from the Pepperdine speech was essentially what entails a just war. In that answer, in 2004 or 2006 with the Pepperdine speech ( http://www.pepperdine.edu/pr/releases/2006/september/kerry.htm ), Kerry implicitly called the Iraq War immoral. (His repeated "it was not a war of last resort" also said the same thing.) I really do not think there was ever a case where a party's nominee called a current war immoral. He explicitly used the word in the Take Back America speech in 2006.

It almost seems that because he risked his entire future in 1971, there are some who want to hold him to acting at that level permanently - when few do it at all. The fact is that Kerry speaking out as he did may well have cost him the Presidency - yet from his 2006 speech, he still is proud that he did.