guardian.co.uk
"...In 1970, Kerry had married Thorne's twin sister, Julia; they had two daughters, born in 1973 and 1976. According to friends, Julia was not a typical political wife. "There were times at dinner parties when John would be very pompous, unable to control his impulse to make a speech," one acquaintance said. "It was all slightly laughable, and Julia was one of those who laughed. She'd say things like, 'What the fuck did you just say?'"
Kerry is understandably loath to talk about the details of the marriage; his reticence is compounded by the fact that Julia was suffering from severe depression. She eventually wrote a book about the illness, called You Are Not Alone. It began: "February 1980, five months after my 36th birthday, my mind ravaged by corroding voices, my body defeated by bone-rattling panics, I sat on the edge of my bed minutes from taking my life ... I could no longer pretend I was of use to my husband or my children ... I knew that, once I was gone, my family and friends would be relieved of the burden of my incompetency."
They separated in 1982, after Kerry decided to run for lieutenant governor of Massachusetts. Julia's mental condition was precarious, but Kerry chose to push ahead with the race. "When I get focussed and set out to do something, I'm pretty good at staying focussed," Kerry told me. "You don't want to let yourself down, you know what I'm saying? One loss is enough. You don't have to screw up everything else." He went on to say that there were days during the campaign when he and Julia would have wrenching morning discussions about their children and their future living arrangements, "and then, in the afternoon, I'd have to put on a smiling face and say, 'Hi, I'm John Kerry, I'd like you to vote for me,' and I'd feel empty inside doing it. It was not an easy process."
Thorne calls the separation "an extended psychodrama". There were, apparently, several attempts to reconcile, but the divorce became final in 1988. Julia is now living in Montana...."
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The only way IMO to reduce the amount of corruption in political life is to throw the bums out, put in new bums and then throw them out...frequently.
Politics has become a lifelong career and the longer a politician stays in office, the more influential they become and the longer they are apt to stay in office. Pork comes more easily to those high up in committees.
American voters want pork in their hometown, just not pork in other hometowns. Throwing the bums out has to be institutionalized as it has been for the Presidency....term limits, public campaign funding, etc. etc.
It sounds undemocratic but it is, in reality, the most practical, democratic way to go. |
