Swift Boats and Political Principles

It took more than two weeks for John Kerry to respond to attacks from the the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth charging that his Vietnam War medals were fraudulent. This is remarkably inept -- the opposite of the 1992 Clinton War Room strategy of James Carville and George Stephanopoulos. But more importantly, this whole affair illustrates the unseemly, superficial nature of politics today and this year's presidential race. No one can dispute that Kerry went to war while Bush, Cheney, Clinton and many others did all they could not to. That's really all that matters.

What is actually going on, I believe, is that conservatives still cannot get over the fact that the antiwar movement of the 1960s was successful and that American foreign policy -- which for decades propped up dictators with military forces -- was irrevocably changed. They're still fighting the Vietnam politcal war, still angry that the Pentagon was shown to be an embarassing bunch of boobs, and still can't understand why Americans do not like to fight wars thousands of miles away in third-world countries when there's no real, direct threat to American interests. Maybe that's because those same crticisms can legitimately be made against today's War in Iraq.

From my perspective, anyone who did not come back from Vietnam distressed at U.S. foreign policy and ready to get the troops home was delusional. So I think that Kerry's 1971 Senate testimony challenging the rationale for the Vietnam fiasco was heroic, whether or not he deserved three Purple Hearts. The sad irony is that he's such a chicken-shit that he won't say that and refuses to stand up now for what he so passionately believed then. Perhaps because, after decades in the Senate, he doesn't believe in anything passionately anymore. That may not make him unfit to be president, but it is a good explanation for the meandering, watered-down nature of his campaign.

People don't vote for candidates who don't stand for anything. If Kerry wants to win, he's got to do way more that just counter-attack; he's got to take a stand on something important.

 Posted by glenn