Kerry and BCCI

When the media reports about Kerry's career in the Senate, they usual don't say much other than touting the GOP talking points. Misrepresenting his votes on everything from taxes to war to portray him as a flip-flopper, yada yada, yada.

So it's helpful to remember that during the greedy 80s, when times were a-boomin' for the rich and pretty much no one else, it was the Junior Senator from Massachussetts who pursued the institution that funded both terrorists and Texas Senators' sons in money-losing ventures. No one else was touching it with a ten-foot pole, and despite both heavy bureaucratic resistance and threats to end his career in politics from both sides of the aisle, he pushed hard and in the end, brought down the biggest terrorist-backing institution in the world. The fact is, Kerry was talking terrorism years before it was fashionable to do so and what's more, attacking them in one of the most effective ways possible: by squelching their funding.

Excerpt from "Follow the Money" by David Sirota and Jonathan Baskin:

Second, the BCCI affair showed Kerry to be a politician driven by a sense of mission, rather than expediency--even when it meant ruffling feathers. Perhaps Sen. Hank Brown, the ranking Republican on Kerry's subcommittee, put it best. "John Kerry was willing to spearhead this difficult investigation," Brown said. "Because many important members of his own party were involved in this scandal, it was a distasteful subject for other committee and subcommittee chairmen to investigate. They did not. John Kerry did."

The next time some asshole conservative questions Kerry's integrity or courage or willingness to serve the people's best interests, you shove BCCI in their uniformed faces and tell them to stuff it.