Kerry Accuses Bush of Stifling Dissent

WASHINGTON — Invoking bitter memories of the public tumult over the Vietnam War three decades ago, Sen. John Kerry is accusing the Bush administration of stifling dissent about its failed Iraq policies by branding critics as unpatriotic.

"The spirit of intolerance for dissent has risen steadily, and the habit of labeling dissenters as unpatriotic has become the common currency of the politicians currently running our country," Kerry, D-Mass., said in remarks prepared for delivery Saturday at Boston's Faneuil Hall.

"We have even heard accusations that this dissent gives aid and comfort to the enemy," said the senator, who was the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee and is a potential 2008 contender for the post. "That is cheap and shameful."

Kerry's remarks came exactly 35 years after he posed a haunting question during a speech before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as a young anti-war Vietnam veteran wearing military fatigues.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/politics/3811996.html