[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 56 (Wednesday, April 28, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H2465]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       COMPARISON OF VOTING RECORDS IN REGARD TO NATIONAL DEFENSE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Barrett of South Carolina). Under a 
previous order of the House, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. 
Wilson) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman 
from California.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding. 
I have been watching the national debate and, of course, all of the 
talk shows and all of the discussion about Senator Kerry's service to 
the country, the President's service to the country, who is patriotic, 
who is not patriotic. I think that it is important to lay out in lines 
of demarcation across what is fair political comment and what is not. I 
think that, first, service to our country gives any Member who has 
served, especially in a war like Vietnam, the platform, the right, to 
certainly have a position, a credible position on what we should do 
with respect to national defense. On the other hand, service in the 
military does not by and of itself mean that you are not accountable 
for, if you are elected to Congress, your voting record.
  What I would like to do is to simply say that I have no quarrel with 
Senator Kerry's having served in Vietnam. I think that is a good thing 
and I think that being a veteran is something people should be 
commended for. On the other hand, I think it is very important to say 
that that is not a substitute for a strong defense voting record. I 
heard several people attacking the President the other day and Vice 
President Cheney in particular, saying that Vice President Cheney had a 
poor voting record on defense and that Senator Kerry had a good voting 
record on defense. So what I did was go to the Almanac of American 
Politics, which puts together a series of ratings on Congressmen and 
Senators. It is done by the National Journal. It is considered to be 
nonpartisan. It is considered to have a great deal of credibility. They 
give people ratings by groups that they think are good, honest brokers 
of where you stand in particular areas.
  For example, I have, I think, a fairly low AFL-CIO rating. Other 
Members of Congress have a high rating. That rating is in the National 
Journal, where people can open it up and see my rating. Senator Kerry 
also has a rating from the American Security Council. He has a rating 
that was given at the same time that he was in the Senate that the Vice 
President, Richard Cheney, was in the House of Representatives, and in 
which a real barometer for being a good, strong defense Democrat, Sam 
Nunn of Georgia, was in the Senate. I looked at this rating. The rating 
at the time when they were all three in Congress, Vice President 
Cheney, at that time Congressman Cheney, had a 100 percent American 
Security Council rating for being strong on national defense as 
reported by the Almanac of American Politics. Sam Nunn, Democrat from 
Georgia, had a 100 percent rating for being strong on national defense 
under the American Security Council rating system as reported in the 
Almanac of American Politics put out by National Journal. Senator Kerry 
had a zero for a national defense voting record as rated by the 
American Security Council, as reported by the National Journal's 
Almanac of American Politics. Once again Vice President Cheney, 100 
percent in votes in support of a strong national defense. Sam Nunn, 
Democrat from Georgia, 100 percent for a strong national defense. 
Senator John Kerry, zero.
  I do not think we should continue to debate ad nauseam Senator 
Kerry's record with respect to Vietnam. I think his words when he 
testified to the Senate and said that American servicemen had murdered 
200,000 people, I think he should be accountable for that. I think he 
should be accountable for the statement when he said that 80 percent of 
them were stoned on pot 24 hours a day and that they ravaged the 
country like Genghis Khan. But I do not think that we should ad nauseam 
debate his service. We should, though, debate his voting record and 
whether that voting record portends well for the United States of 
America in terms of a strong national security should he become 
President of the United States. I think that we ought to go to the 
record, we ought to get off this who shot John and who is bad and who 
is good and who served and who did not, but go to the voting record and 
analyze who would be best in terms of making a strong national security 
apparatus for our country. In my estimation, that is not Senator Kerry.
  I again thank the gentleman for yielding.

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