Kerry's character comes through

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http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=558910

Kerry's character comes through

Not long after the "botched joke" blew that gaping hole through John Kerry's political ambitions, I called a Democratic friend and made a promise: I will never, ever, say anything nice about Kerry again.

Promise made, promise broken.

Within a few days, Kerry is to offer the Senate yet another chance to consider what always have been his well-informed -- and often wise -- ideas for how to manage the disaster that is Iraq. The media shorthand will be that Kerry calls for "withdrawal." The Massachusetts senator is, indeed, working on a measure that will most likely set deadlines for redeploying American troops and outline a diplomatic thrust that is so urgently and obviously needed to quell a civil war that threatens to become a regional conflagration.

It is worth noting that when Kerry proposed a similar approach last June, most of the political commentariat ridiculed him as pandering to anti-war activists, a supposedly crucial bloc of support needed for a 2008 Democratic presidential run. Kerry's resolution went down by a vote of 86-13. Republicans were still echoing White House talking points that ridiculed all alternatives as "cut and run." Most Democrats were still cowering.

Now, having given up his dream of becoming president, Kerry is more public servant than politician. He has reached down inside to tap that same quality that led him to volunteer for duty in Vietnam when he did not have to, when others of his social status found safe havens from the fight. It is the same impulse that led him to win medals for his valor, the same courage that led him to return home to protest a dirty war when he could have tucked away his medals and marched off to law school.

It is, in fact, a quality we are always saying we want in a president: character.

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