"We could come back to this country and we could be quiet. We could hold our silence. We could not tell what went on in Vietnam. But we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, not reds, not red coats, but the crimes which we are committing are what threaten it, and we have to speak out. I would like to talk to you a little bit about what the result is of the feelings these men carry with them after coming back from Vietnam. The country doesn't know it yet, but it's created a monster. A monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history. Men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped. As a veteran and one who feels this anger, I would like it talk about it. We are angry because we feel we have been used in the worst fashion by the administration of this country."

I see nothing there to be regretted, nor that I think he would regret. It was a helluva speech, but it was given in 1971. This is 2004, and we are in a different moment of time, and if he speaks more moderately now than then, why is it surprising? If he's trying to be effective, he has to be a rallying point for the center.

A