The John Kerry Post of the Day

My latest discovery about my favorite cheese-eating surrendermonkey-looking Ketchup King cum Presidential candidate:

I'll be doing much more on the Swift Boat Saga later tonight, but this article in the Wall Street Journal was sent to me by two of my few readers. Both RB and the Featured Instigator noted several key points, but take a look at the quote that opened the article first...

The issue here, as I have heard it raised, is was he present and
active on duty in Alabama at the times he was supposed to be. ... Just because
you get an honorable discharge does not in fact answer that question.

--John Kerry, questioning President Bush's military-service record,
February 8, 2004.

As RB pointed out, take a look at the last phrase there. If someone read that quote to you, wouldn't you think it might be the Swift Boat Vets talking?

Kerry's campaign has spent the last few days accusing the Bush Adminsitration of coordinating the attacks by the Swift Boat Vets. Mind you, they have no proof, but the whining is officially tiresome. As the same article notes:

What did Mr. Kerry expect, anyway? That claiming to be a hero himself while accusing other veterans of "war crimes"--as he did back in 1971 and has refused to take back ever since--would somehow go unanswered? That when he raised the subject of one of America's most contentious modern events, no one would meet him at the barricades? Mr. Kerry brought the whole thing up; why is it Mr. Bush's obligation now to shut it down?

Simply because some rich Bush-backers are funding Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is hardly an adequate answer. Some rich Kerry-backers are spending far more to attack Mr. Bush's record, and the Senator was only too happy to slipstream behind Michael Moore's smear that Mr. Bush was a Vietnam-era "deserter."

In any case, anyone who spends five minutes reading the Swift Boat Veterans' book ("Unfit for Command") will quickly realize that their attack has nothing to do with Mr. Bush. This is all about Mr. Kerry and what the veterans believe was his blood libel against their service when he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the spring of 1971 that all American soldiers had committed war crimes as a matter of official policy. "Crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command" were among his incendiary words.

Mr. Kerry has never offered proof of those charges, yet he has never retracted them either. At his recent coronation in Boston he managed the oxymoronic feat of celebrating both his own war-fighting valor and his antiwar activities when he returned home. This is why the Swifties are so incensed, and this is why no less than World War II veteran Bob Dole joined the fray on the weekend to ask that Mr. Kerry apologize for his unproven accusations.

As Bill Lannom of Grinnell, Iowa, one of the Swifties, told the Washington Post last week: "He's telling untruths about us and his character. He's talking about atrocities that didn't happen. And then he's using that same experience to promote himself. He can't have it both ways."

That last line defines Kerry in a nutshell: he wants to have it both ways. In his view, he's a hero, so don't you dare question his judgement. But he's free to question yours, as I noted last month...

Bush also took issue with Kerry's pronouncement this week that he and running mate John Edwards were proud of the fact that they opposed in the Senate the $87 billion aid package for Afghanistan and Iraq. Kerry said they had done so because "we knew the policy had to be changed."

"He's entitled to his view," Bush said. "But members of Congress should not vote to send troops into battle and then vote against funding them, and then brag about it."

Kerry's campaign responded that Kerry had served in the Vietnam War and questions linger about Bush's wartime service in the Texas Air National Guard.

"Considering that George Bush actively avoided combat duty and has pursued policies that have made the nation less secure, he is on very shaky ground when it comes to questioning the commitment that Vietnam vet John Kerry has to our national security," said former Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., a Vietnam War veteran and frequent Kerry surrogate. "This is just more attack-dog politicking by an increasingly desperate, partisan White House."

Kerry allowed his surrogates Wesley Clark and Stansfield Turner to dot he same thing last week, and won't disown them, as noted on Meet The Press Sunday...

MR. RUSSERT: ..."Hours after that statement, the Kerry campaign organized a conference in which two high-profile ex-military supporters simply parroted the MoveOn commercial's line. Bush `scrambled and used his family's influence to get out of hearing a shot fired in anger,' said failed presidential candidate Wesley Clark. ...Added Stansfield Turner, retired admiral, Carter CIA director, `[Bush] used his family influence to get into the Air National Guard and avoid going to war.'" It's the same message.

MR. DEVINE: First, that's factually inaccurate. The press conference occurred in the morning. The statement was issued in the afternoon. So it wasn't--you know, one occurred after the other not before. And they did occur in the same day. That's absolutely true. Let me say this...

MR. RUSSERT: So senator--let's be clear. So Senator Kerry condemns the comments made by Wesley Clark and Stansfield Turner?

MR. DEVINE: No, he doesn't.

MR. RUSSERT: Are they inappropriate comments?

MR. DEVINE: The general and the admiral, who served, have the right to speak out on this issue. Senator Kerry wants to focus on the real issues of this campaign, but when he is attacked by lies, by people like the authors, for example, of this book, who have been demonstrated to be both liars and bigots, he will stand up and he will speak out. And that's what's going on right now.

Pathetic. Apparently, Cleland, Clark and Turner are entitled to spread lies, while the Swift Boat Vets, who have proved that Kerry lied about his Cambodian excursion, should be silenced. Are they really saying that only veterans who agree with John Kerry have earned the right to have their voices heard?

This is the crux of Kerry's campaign: he served in Vietnam, so he knows what to do in Iraq. We're not sure what's dumber -- choosing this theme for his campaign, or the fact that he thought this theme would work.