Matthews: Kerry Has 'Hanoi Jane' Problem

MSNBC "Hardball" host and longtime Democrat Chris Matthews said Tuesday that a photo showing Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry protesting the Vietnam war with "Hanoi" Jane Fonda is a real problem for his party's top candidate.

While offering sharp criticism of President Bush for not serving in Vietnam, Matthews told radio host Don Imus Tuesday morning: "You've got the Jane Fonda problem on the other side. The thing with her is, she was on the other side - she was on Hanoi's side during that war."

"And I'll tell you," Matthews continued, "everybody I knew, including me, who was against the war - I wouldn't have anything to do with a person who supported Hanoi."

Kerry, then head of the radical anti-war group Vietnam Veterans Against the War, worked closely with Fonda on two war protests: a September 1970 rally in Valley Forge, Pa., where Fonda and Kerry spoke from the back of the same pickup truck, and a January 1971 protest they called the "Winter Solider Investigation," where fabricated testimony of U.S. war atrocities was presented.

Asked about the NewsMax.com photo showing Sen. Kerry protesting the war with "Hanoi" Jane at Valley Forge, Matthews observed, "That will be in the Republican [campaign] ads."

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