I'm currently watching C-Span 1 where they're running a 1971 Dick Cavett Show on which John Kerry, then a Vietnam activist, debated a fellow Navy veteran, John O'Neill. The thrust of it is that Kerry charges that a vast amount of war crimes were committed in that conflict by American forces, while O'Neill is there to charge that Kerry is wrong. It reruns (I think) later tonight at 12:30 Eastern and 9:30 Pacific. And if you miss it there, there's a RealVideo file on the C-Span website.
It's kind of an interesting reminder of the tensions of that time. I think history has not been kind to the claim that the war protesters were generally in the wrong but it also has not supported a lot of their specific charges, and Kerry's charges of extensive war crimes seem to be among those. One of the things that made the protests so ugly and unconstructive was the gross exaggeration and the unwillingness of both sides to acknowledge the slightest nugget of merit to the other faction's position. I was, at different times, on both sides of that debate. And in both cases when I marched, I marched among people to whom "the enemy" meant not the Viet Cong but other Americans who saw the war differently. In both cases, I was among people who got hysterical if you suggested that the other side was, say, only 99% wrong.
I presume this old program is not being resurrected because someone thinks America now wishes to revisit that debate. I presume it's on now because someone thinks it tells us something about John Kerry. I don't know that this is true or that it has any more to do with the guy currently running for president than revisiting George Bush's days of cheerleading and drunk driving tells us about the guy running for a second term. But it's fascinating to see this program and I wish some channel would buy and rerun all those old Dick Cavett Shows.
On the other hand, I've just seen a great example of the problem of discussing important issues on network television: In his opening statement, O'Neill called Kerry a liar and every other insult just short of traitor. But then before they could get to Kerry's response, Cavett had to stop for a commercial from Calgon Bath Oil Beads.