He ignored facts and as President Reagan said, “facts are stubborn
things”. I remember in the early 1970s, Kennedy, a leading advocate
for amnesty for draft dodgers, took questions at a public event (at
least he had the honor to do this unlike current politicians). A man
got up, told him he’d lost his son in Vietnam and asked just how he
could be such an advocate for amnesty when his own brother, JFK,
started the Vietnam War and his brother’s appointees (MacNamara, Rusk,
Westmoreland) had so thoroughly botched it. Ted mumbled something
incoherent and called on someone else with a friendlier question.
Facts are stubborn things.