Talk:John Kerry

Opinionated History Again

As someone who voted for John Kerry for President in 2004, I find a significant amount of opinionated bias in this article such as “ it appeared to be” statements which is someone’s opinionated prospective and a lack of the detail about the claims of the Swift Boaters while giving extensive detail about the positive aspects of John Kerry’s Service. Deification Of Kerry appears to this contributor to be the common theme of this Wikipedia page.

Too bad the page is locked to ensure that other opinions or prospectives are not given the same freedom of speech rights that the person or persons who where allowed to present their prospective on this page were given.

To bad we continue our rapid decline into a society of giving more rights of personal freedoms to some members then others.

As a person who always try to support Wikipedia when asked for financial support, I will discontinue that practice and allow those that Wikipedia grants “”Special” freedoms to express their opinions and prospectives as factual History to provide all the support that Wikipedia needs. Catmandu57 (talk) 20:16, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Catmandu57, "appeared to be" appears once in the article, sourced to this reliable source. which backs up the statements in the article. Nothing opinionated there. We don't give the claims of the swift boaters any weight because they were fallacious. If you have any other specific complaints beyond the bizarre claim of "deification", please bring them up with specifics, what specifically is wrong and what specifically should be changed about it. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:30, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Catmandu57, PS, your "freedom of speech" cannot be abridged by the government, but it absolutely can be by a private enterprise like Wikipedia. That's called free market capitalism. I thought conservatives liked that? – Muboshgu (talk) 20:32, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Hombre, we don't do "Opinion" on Wikipedia. The "Swiftboat" complaints are a well documented fraud, and it *doesn't matter* if you have a different opinion, what matters is whats true, and we actually know those allegations are not true. So repeating them would violate multiple wikipedia rules on articles about living people, and worse, would be perpetrating things that aren't true. Duckmonster (talk) 11:48, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 April 2021

Please add a footnote regarding the 1971 arrest on the Lexington Battle Green. The antiwar march that resulted in this arrest is the subject of a new book that Mr. Kerry, in providing a blurb, has approved. Here is the bibliographic information:

Lemire, Elise. Battle Green Vietnam: The 1971 March on Concord, Lexington, and Boston (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021).

Please link the bibliographic entry to the publisher's page for the book, provided here: https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/16230.html

Below, I've indicated where the footnote should go with an X, namely before what is now FN 62.

Kerry was arrested on May 30, 1971, during a VVAW march to honor American POWs held captive by North Vietnam. The march was planned as a multi-day event from Concord to Boston, and while in Lexington, participants tried to camp on the village green. At 2:30 a.m., local and state police arrested 441 demonstrators, including Kerry, for trespassing. All were given the Miranda Warning and were hauled away on school buses to spend the night at the Lexington Public Works Garage. Kerry and the other protesters later paid a $5 fine, and were released. The mass arrests caused a community backlash and ended up giving positive coverage to the VVAW.X[62][63][64]

I am the author and will respond to any questions about this request at elise.lemire@purchase.edu.

Thank you. Jttevl (talk) 13:16, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: If current sources already provide verification for the next, additional sources don't necessarily need to be added. Current three sources are other offline works, so adding in a fourth one doesn't help the ease of verifiability of anything. Instead I have added in an online source from Boston Globe that supports a lot of the paragraph. Also you posting a notice about WP:COI on your talk page. You aren't COI with the article subject, but if you wrote the article it might not be best for you to add the source into articles yourself. WikiVirusC^(talk) 14:18, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Official Portrait change?

Kerry's Climate Envoy portrait

There is an official portrait of Kerry as the Climate Envoy, should it be the lead image? My main point is the most recent pic/portrait should always be the lead image. --TDKR Chicago 101 (talk) 13:20, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

I think this new portrait looks better if compared to the current portrait with higher resolution. I think we should change it. --Aidilfarhn (talk) 11:15, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree that we should change to this portrait. It is the most up-to-dat portrait of Kerry. Also, it is an official portrait in his current capacity in the U.S. government, so it makes sense to use it rather than the prior one.--FeralOink (talk) 20:51, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

John Kerry and unproven allegations about his disclosure of information to Iran

I noted this addition to the article yesterday:

"In April 2021, Zarif claimed in a leaked audio that Kerry, when he was Secretary of State, informed him of more than 200 Israeli operations in Syria. Kerry called the claims unequivocally false."

In this BLP of John Kerry, the passage is sourced from Fox News, Zarif in leaked audio claims Kerry informed him about Israeli operations. The original source is an article featured in The New York Times. The article is paywalled. Note that I am not casting aspersions on Fox News: they seem to have summarized and attributed the information from NYT accurately. I say that because of what I have read in coverage by U.S. political reporting specialty site, The Hill (newspaper). According to their article, John Kerry faces calls to step down over leaked Iran tapes, the tape recording consisted of the Foreign Minister of Iran making remarks about John Kerry divulging sensitive, secret information to him, concerning a U.S. ally (Israel).

These are the reasons that I am hesitant to have any additional information included in Kerry's BLP at this time:

1. the date of the recording is unknown, according to The New York Times—the information was widely known after a certain point in time (2018? 2019?) so timing makes a difference;
2. John Kerry was not recorded in the act of disclosing sensitive information to the Iranian foreign minister;
3. the recording consists of hearsay ONLY, by a high ranking Iranian official—keep in mind that Iran is an adversary of the United States;
4. other WP:RS have not reported on this (there is no mention of it in the Wall Street Journal for which I have a paid subscription);
5. there is ample reason for a foreign adversary to make such a claim about Kerry, whether true or not, as it serves to instill fear and distrust in the American people if they have doubt in high-ranking US officials such as Kerry;
6. Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif is accustomed to John Kerry"s sympathetic attitude to Iran, yet Zarif was reported to have expressed surprise that Kerry would divulge such information;
7. I am listening to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on live television right now on FOX news Pompeo emphatically says that questions should be asked of John Kerry to hear his side of the story, and any other action is premature. Pompeo also said that Zarif is not necessarily to be trusted, because Zarif is a front man, possibly a propagandist. Pompeo is NOT sympathetic to Kerry in general. Regardless, in response to direct questioning, he refused to give his support to those who wish to take immediate action against Kerry now.

My bullet points 5 and 6 are WP:SYNTH. The others are factual, to the best of my knowledge. Pompeo is a recent former US Secretary of State, so his conjectures are relevant.--FeralOink (talk) 19:35, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

When I made the addition, I specifically wrote that Zarif claimed this, and not that anything had been proven. Everything I wrote is factual. And the reason I sourced Fox News is because I do not read the New York Times. Feel free to change the reference or add anything clarifying that the allegations are completely unconfirmed. Nerguy (talk) 19:54, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I want to make sure that this is clear: I am not objecting to the current content in the article. You did just fine, Nerguy! (I am an avid Fox News television viewer.) You added a brief one or maybe two sentence description of the current situation. The source and details are good the way they are now. I merely wanted to caution subsequent editors from adding more detail until more facts are known, especially since this is a BLP.--FeralOink (talk) 20:15, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I see. Thanks FeralOink. Nerguy (talk) 22:33, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Please assist with new article about leaked Zarif audiotape

Leaked Mohammad Javad Zarif audiotape Thanks The Kingfisher (talk) 19:29, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 June 2021

In the military service section of the infobox, add United States as the 'Allegiance'. 76.71.157.66 (talk) 19:08, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

 Done. I don't think it's meant to be linked though. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk) 02:14, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Israel Bassey Asuquo

--Terjsc (talk) 19:41, 7 November 2021 (UTC)Do u guys thing i will be the next best soccer defender in the world--Terjsc (talk) 19:41, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Editing Error within this article

In the first paragraph, George W Bush is no longer incumbent president Asamerftw1232- (talk) 05:07, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

It is unlikely anyone thinks he is still the incumbent president, but he was in 2004 so this is not an error. BobKilcoyne (talk) 08:55, 11 February 2023 (UTC)