Bob Kerrey

Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska calls his victory in South Dakota's Democratic presidential primary his "new beginning." Judged by the numbers alone, it was a clear-cut victory. He got 40 percent of the vote, far outdistancing Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin's 25, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton's 19 and Paul Tsongas' 10. But judged by geography, it was a regional victory for a senator from an adjoining state.Mr. Tsongas' victory in the New Hampshire primary and his tie in the Maine caucuses were also due to regional considerations.

WASHINGTON -- Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, an outspoken Republican critic of the war in Iraq who this year flirted with running for president, has decided not to seek re-election, congressional sources say. Hagel informed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of his decision on Friday, according to one aide, telling McConnell that at 60 he still felt young enough to pursue other opportunities. The Nebraska senator has scheduled a news conference in Omaha tomorrow morning to announce that he will not seek either the presidency or re-election to the Senate in 2008.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Bob Kerrey, the Nebraska Democrat, has a Congressional Medal of Honor because he behaves well under fire. If he seeks his party's presidential nomination, he will draw fire, as he recently did in Tucson.The occasion was a conference on Social Security. The morning was devoted to deploying facts about the incompatibility of demographic trends and fiscal possibilities, as they pertain to funding promised benefits. Some facts and projections are:Since Social Security was enacted in 1935, the portion of the population surviving to 65 has risen from 60 percent to 80 percent.

NEW YORK - On Sept. 10, 2001, his son Henry was born. On Sept. 11, his adopted city was attacked and 2,749 men and women died in a cascade of concrete and steel. A few months later, Bob Kerrey - the high-profile bachelor senator from Nebraska who has reinvented himself as a New York college president and second-marriage "geezer dad" - wrote a Christmas-card poem that he sent to family and friends. The last two stanzas are infused with the kind of stubbornly sunny optimism that seems to shine especially bright in his native state: Hearts brought down by bitter fall Hear laughter and resist.

Sen. Bob Kerrey is being considered as a potential running mate for Gov. Bill Clinton. But he probably won't be selected. And the reason, if true, seems unfair.It has been reported that Clinton would like the Democratic convention to end with himself and wife Hillary standing on the stage next to running mate and running mate's wife.This makes for good family television, with the two happy couples waving, the lights flashing, the music blaring, and the delegates joyously cheering -- or at least trying to look interested.

Manchester, N. H.-- WHEN Sen. Bob Kerrey launched his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination, his supporters billed him as the next John F. Kennedy, complete with charisma. He was young, 48, boyish-looking and a Vietnam war hero whose exploits were at least a match for the PT-109 saga.In the following weeks, however, he seemed to turn the charisma spigot on and off, sometimes impressing crowds, more often leaving them lukewarm as he struggled to produce an effective message.

WASHINGTON -- DEMOCRATS IN Congress -- irate at President Clinton for trying to shift the blame on them for his shortcomings -- are looking forward to his re-election campaign with all the relish of a small boy facing a measles shot. They'd rather not have it, but they know it's unavoidable.No challenger hereAbout the only Democrat who might have had thoughts earlier about challenging Bill Clinton for the party's nomination, Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, has said flatly he's not going to run. Senator Kerrey insists that in spite of his recent blast against Mr. Clinton in the wake of the president's attempts at blame-shifting, his disagreements with the leader of his party are only ''at the margin.

LINCOLN, Neb. -- Sen. Bob Kerrey is reaching out to voters born after World War II and tempered by the experience of the Vietnam War in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination."

FORMER SEN. Bob Kerrey was a young Navy SEAL lieutenant when he commanded a raid against a Vietnam hamlet 32 years ago. The enemy was almost impossible to discern. Was that villager a Viet Cong spy or an innocent civilian who wanted nothing to do with war? The perilous conditions hardly justify Mr. Kerrey's action on that moonless night in Thanh Phong Feb. 25, 1969, when his forces killed at least 13 innocent women and children. They only help explain. Mr. Kerrey, a former senator from Nebraska and now president of New York's New School University, won the Medal of Honor and lost part of a leg in Vietnam.

NEW YORK - On Sept. 10, 2001, his son Henry was born. On Sept. 11, his adopted city was attacked and 2,749 men and women died in a cascade of concrete and steel. A few months later, Bob Kerrey - the high-profile bachelor senator from Nebraska who has reinvented himself as a New York college president and second-marriage "geezer dad" - wrote a Christmas-card poem that he sent to family and friends. The last two stanzas are infused with the kind of stubbornly sunny optimism that seems to shine especially bright in his native state: Hearts brought down by bitter fall Hear laughter and resist.

Beyond Glory: Medal of Honor Heroes in Their Own Words, by Larry Smith. Norton. 320 pages. $26.95. Smith, long an editor with The New York Times and then managing editor of Parade, interviewed 24 of the living 142 recipients of the Medal of Honor, the U.S. top decoration for gallantry. Six served in World War II, six in Korea and the rest in Vietnam. Smith's interview pieces are largely direct quotations, though he writes descriptive and transitional material very articulately. The stories are compelling, dramatic and often amazingly modestly told.

WASHINGTON -- Someone asked an editor of the Washington Post the other night how long he thought the Bob Kerrey story would run. He answered: "As long as we're alive." By "we" he meant our generation, actually more than a single generation, who experienced the war in Vietnam -- or experienced "the '60s." Then a couple of nights later, in a different setting, David Laventhol, the former publisher of the Los Angeles Times, asked a couple of people why so many people considered Mr. Kerrey a hero but thought William Calley was a criminal.

Soldiers in Vietnam had to view everyone as a potential enemy David D. Perlmutter's column "Who commits a war crime?" (Opinion Commentary, May 3) angered me. I surmise that he spent no time in Vietnam but, like many who speak from ignorance, is willing to judge those who lived the experience. The combatant in Vietnam who assumed that any "civilian" did not have the capability to kill was a fool. Doing so placed his life and his comrades' lives in danger. When a unit took fire, everyone was suspected as an enemy.

Using a wheelchair doesn't alter the right to enter public places As a disability-rights organization, we find the Velleggia's Restaurant issue ("Restaurant, disability rights advocates at odds," April 16) and two subsequent letters ("Velleggia's restaurant doesn't discriminate against handicapped," April 27) regarding accessibility for persons with disabilities negative and patronizing. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is really about human rights. The fact someone uses a wheelchair or has conditions that prevent him or her from getting through narrow entrances or up steps does not preclude his or her right to independent access to a place of public accommodation such as a restaurant.

Who's lying? It's the question that surfaces from the conflicting accounts given by former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey and another man of a bloody episode involving the killing of civilians during the Vietnam War. The answer, say experts in the science of memory, may be that neither is. Both men may be honestly recalling events that occurred 32 years ago on a horrifying night in the Mekong Delta. But memories are often wrong when they are formed, and tend to shift each time they are retrieved, considered, discussed and tucked away.

FORMER SEN. Bob Kerrey was a young Navy SEAL lieutenant when he commanded a raid against a Vietnam hamlet 32 years ago. The enemy was almost impossible to discern. Was that villager a Viet Cong spy or an innocent civilian who wanted nothing to do with war? The perilous conditions hardly justify Mr. Kerrey's action on that moonless night in Thanh Phong Feb. 25, 1969, when his forces killed at least 13 innocent women and children. They only help explain. Mr. Kerrey, a former senator from Nebraska and now president of New York's New School University, won the Medal of Honor and lost part of a leg in Vietnam.

CONCORD, N.H. -- Freakish summery heat is turning nearby snowbanks to water as Sen. Bob Kerrey, in shirtsleeves, mingles with New Hampshire Democrats at an outdoor reception."

Who's lying? It's the question that surfaces from the conflicting accounts given by former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey and another man of a bloody episode involving the killing of civilians during the Vietnam War. The answer, say experts in the science of memory, may be that neither is. Both men may be honestly recalling events that occurred 32 years ago on a horrifying night in the Mekong Delta. But memories are often wrong when they are formed, and tend to shift each time they are retrieved, considered, discussed and tucked away.

WASHINGTON -- Standing at the Vietnam War Memorial wall the other day, Keith Parks, a salesman from Kansas City, was asked whether he thought former Sen. Bob Kerrey should give back the Bronze Star he got in 1969 for a mission in which the Navy SEAL squad he led killed more than a dozen Vietnamese women and children. "I think Senator Kerrey served his nation," Mr. Parks said of the man who later lost part of his leg in another firefight. "He did probably what he had to do. You can't judge him in today's light on what happened 30 years ago. When the Army ... can give his leg back, I think he can give the medal back."

How 'bout we bombed their embassy and they hijacked our plane and now we're even? Sen. Bob Kerrey - another Democratic alternative to Al Gore in '04 down the tube. Refusal to indict the Geckle brothers dealt a grievous blow to burglars' rights. Whoever said the abortion issue is settled just wasn't paying attention. The Champ fights out of Harford County. Get used to it.