Bob Kerrey
American politician and U.S. Navy Medal of Honor recipient
Joseph Robert Kerrey (born August 27, 1943) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 35th governor of Nebraska from 1983 to 1987 and as a United States senator from Nebraska from 1989 to 2001.
Before entering politics, he served in the Vietnam War, as a United States Navy SEAL officer and was awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery in combat. During the action for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor, he was severely wounded, precluding further naval service. He later faced controversy for being the commanding officer during the Thanh Phong raid, where numerous civilians were killed.
Kerrey was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992. He retired from the Senate in 2000 and was replaced by former governor and fellow Democrat Ben Nelson. From 2001 to 2010, he served as president of The New School, a university in New York City. In May 2010, he was selected to become the head of the Motion Picture Association of America. The MPAA, however, could not reach an agreement with him and chose former Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd instead. In 2012, Kerrey sought election to his old Senate seat to succeed his successor, the retiring Democratic incumbent Ben Nelson.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Bob Kerrey” as american politician and U.S. Navy Medal of Honor recipient. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american politician and U.S. Navy Medal of Honor recipient. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q39718. VIAF identifies the subject as 77118466. The Library of Congress control number is n87871973. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1943, 1983, 1987 and 1989.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bob Kerrey” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.