Back to You, Greg

Oh, no. I've gotten a response from Greg to my post on Playground Politics -- and it's on the Swift Boat Veterans issue.

This could go on for awhile, but let me state a few things up front. Greg's post also mentions my initial objections to the idea that politics are any dirtier today than they have been in the past, and agrees that it's probably about the same. Let me say that I agree with what I believe is the general intent of his original post -- we should have political campaigns decided without skirting the line of so-called "dirty tricks." Unfortunately, human nature always seems to intrude.

As to who helps me write these posts -- I have yet to hire an intern. Thanks to the work of the "last great Democratic President" (Hillary Rodham Clinton's intro at the Boston Botox Party for her husband, with the accent on the syllable as I deem appropriate), hiring an intern is dangerous business. My fiancee might kill me if I did, and as Greg knows, the women in your life are often just as dangerous as crazed men waving bayonets. Or paper cuts, for that matter.

Jokes aside, Greg does seem rather aggravated with the Swift Boat Veterans for their actions attacking the details of Kerry's service. I recommend reading the whole thing, but here's the portion to which I wanted to respond...

What burns me up is that they decided to transfer their anger with Kerry for having spoken out against the war into questions about his wartime service. This was legerdemain of the most insidious kind, because, as Raj stated, "most of their claims are impossible to disprove." It was a classic "so, when did you stop beating your wife" tactic, coldly calculated to raise questions about something that is clearly central to who Kerry is as a person. And it is the exact same thing that was done to John McCain four years ago when he was gathering momentum in the presidential primaries against George W. Bush. That's why McCain denounced the SBV's attack as "dishonest and dishonorable."

Look, what proof do you need of Kerry's wartime service if (a) the direct support and testimony of every man he served with and commanded from his swiftboat crew, and (b) extensive documentation, including awards and evaluations written and signed by some of the same men now attacking him, is not enough for you?

It makes me absolutely sick to my stomach to think about what these people did to John Kerry. It makes me sick to think that people can live their lives so consumed with hatred that they will adopt any tactic, tell any lie, to punish someone for a personal choice that they disagreed with.

The fact is that John Kerry went and fought in a war that he didn't even believe in, and which he didn't have to volunteer for. He killed dozens of enemy soldier who were trying to kill him first and would have stuck him like a pig if given the chance. He no doubt gunned down a few innocent people along the way. He risked death on a daily basis. He saved lives under fire of men he did not know. He suffered injuries, some of which are still with him to this day. He earned recognition and accolades for his deeds and for his leadership. He walked out of Yale and into all of these things when he didn't have to, and he was probably considered insane for doing so. And when he was done doing his part for his country and for his fellow fighters, he continued to do what he thought best for his country and his fellow fighters by trying to get us the hell out of a war that he personally opposed, but had been willing to die in.

Look, I did something like 13 different posts on the Swift Boat Veterans issue. I don't want to rehash the whole thing. And I doubt anyone wants to read it.

But I don't think it was "abhorrent", to use Greg's word. I don't know if he's read Unfit for Command, or if he really wants to. Most of the details about the book are available in the press, although it depends on which press you read. For example, at least one of the men who served with Kerry on his Swift Boats (Steven Gardner) was a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), and even members of Kerry's "Band of Brothers" contradicted Kerry's fairytale of "Christmas in Cambodia." In addition, plenty of doubt exists as to when the documentation was written for Kerry's awards, and who wrote up the awards. A number of the questions raised by the SBVT could have been refuted... if Kerry had executed the proper form to release all of his own military records. Maybe the claims were "impossible to disprove", but the credibility attached to the claims turned out to be the huge issue.

But here's the basic problem with the SBVT charges against Kerry -- most of them relate directly to the heart of Kerry's campaign for President.

Think back to Kerry in Iowa, when Jim Rassman showed up. Just about every campaign diary marked that day as a turning point for Kerry, as a point when his campaign began the ascendancy that would lead to his victory over Howard Dean. Kerry, from that point on, opted to use his Vietnam service as the cornerstone of his argument that he had the character to serve as President and would take a strong stand on national security issues. He made it the basis of the Democratic National Convention in Boston, capping it with that idiotic salute and the "reporting for duty" line. He opted to run away from his service in the Senate, which merited just a brief bit of attention in his acceptance speech.

To use Mary Beth Cahill's coarse terminology regarding Mary Cheney, this made Kerry's service record "fair game." If I someday run for President and opt to use my law school transcript to establish my intellect (now that would be an idiotic move), several people may come forward and claim that I regularly cheated on my exams (as if the professors actually graded the exams in a coherent manner, but let's pretend they did). If the people on the other side establish more credibility than I do -- let's say because some of their claims are true since I made up a story about a paper I did on Cambodian law -- than people will look askance at my claims that Harvard Law Students for Truth (pause for laughter) are just a bunch of filty liars.

No, the analogy's not even close to being dead on for these purposes, but I think the opening Kerry provided was that many people were uncomfortable with the Kerry camp's decision to make his service such a prominent issue. Look, if you're a war hero, that's great. But constantly mentioning it in every interview creeps a lot of people out. I think I heard Kerry in a campaign stop where he referenced Vietnam when he was answering a question about dairy subsidies. By doing this, he'd effectively made his service record a joke before the Swifties showed up.

In the end, Kerry's testimony before Congress was the truly haunting part of the ads -- I'm reasonably confident that any chances of picking up votes in the South went out the window when Kerry's pronunciation of "Genghis" Khan was heard. Another problem was the lack of fact-checking by his allies in the mainstream media (MSM). Attacking some of the SBVT claims upfront and showing that they were dubious, if not false, would have blunted the impact.

Instead, Kerry and the MSM chose to ignore the claims, preferring to avoid the whole unseemly issue. So it was the blogosphere, both right and left, that jumped on the story, mostly the right, and they highlighted the claims by the SBVT that did have merit, like Christmas in Cambodia. And by the time the MSM tried to ride to the rescue (I was shocked when the left-wing dishrag only focused on the SBVT after Kerry attacked them), they were swimming (or paddling, if you like) against the tide. By contrast, look at how quickly Dan Rather's story on Bush's service record unraveled, because the right-wing bloggers went at it, rather (pun intended) then opting to ignore it.

Two final points before I close. First, I could care less what McCain's opinion on the matter was, beyond the fact that he was one more veteran speaking out. That's great, he has the right to have his voice heard. But his belief that someone (like the FEC) should have silenced the SBVT ad campaign ticked me off almost as much as the asinine campaign finance "reform" bill that bears his name. It further angered me when Bush condemned all 527 groups, since he signed the damn bill into law -- although this was the proper political move (unlike Kerry's decision to send Max Cleland to Bush's ranch), it would have been nice if Bush had instead struck a blow for free speech.

Second, Kerry's testimony before Congress could have been honorable, except for the fact that he presented outright lies regarding "atrocities" committed by both him and others with whom he served. His anti-war activism, whatever the motivation, often had little relationship to the truth and resembled the effort of one seeking personal glory, and his decision to demean people with whom he served in order to achieve that glory sickens me.

With that being said, it's not my problem, and I'm willing to guess that many of those men who deeply resented (if not reviled) Kerry for his statements would have forgiven him if he'd only apologized. After all, we all do stupid things in our lives, especially in our youth (personally, I'm of the opinion that the Baby Boom generation owes us an apology for glorifying the Sixties as something more than hallucinogenic drugs, rebellious music, and horrible fashion), and Kerry's statements could well be interpreted as exaggerations in pursuit of a noble cause. But that pompous blowhard opted not to apologize, instead trying to brush the entire incident over, probably (and this is my opinion) because he still believes he did the right thing, and the truth was immaterial to his greater cause of stopping the war and advancing the career of John Kerry. Ironically, for the second goal, it turned out to have the opposite effect.