Sun, 28 May 2006

Kerry Pressing Swiftboat Case, Long After Loss

I don't care where you stood on John Kerry's policies or candidacy, the 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' campaign was the low point for the political dirt machine. It was such an obvious political play that I was frankly incredulous that nobody saw the wider implications. Nobody disputed that John Kerry was in Vietnam, in the Navy and in harms way. Nobody disputed that George W Bush was sitting in Texas in the National Guard, well out of harms way.

Therefore, according to Republican pundits and political hacks, John Kerry was a lying, cheating, cowardly bastard who didn't deserve his Bronze Star, and George Bush was a hero. Uh, excuse me?

As a veteran myself, this was what tipped me into pulling the handle for Kerry in November of 2004. Without this smear campaign I probably would've voted Libertarian, even though their candidate was an obvious moonbat, or not bothered with voting for President at all. I was ashamed that the major American veterans organizations let politics get in their way and said nothing in Kerry's defense. This was a fight about facts, and the facts were clear, and the lies won.

What really set them off was this quote from a book Kerry wrote soon after he returned from Vietnam:

We will not quickly join those who march on Veterans' Day waving small flags, calling to memory those thousands who died for the "greater glory of the United States." We will not accept the rhetoric. We will not readily join the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars--in fact, we will find it hard to join anything at all and when we do, we will demand relevancy such as other organizations have recently been unable to provide. We will not take solace from the creation of monuments or the naming of parks after a select few of the thousands of dead Americans and Vietnamese. We will not uphold the traditions which decorously memorialize that which was base and grim...
We are asking America to turn from false glory, hollow victory, fabricated foreign threats, fear which threatens us as a nation, shallow pride which feeds of fear.
John F. Kerry
Epilogue to The New Soldier (1971)

For the record, I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. If I'd have been writing books in 1975, after I got out of the military, I would've said pretty much the same thing. This doesn't denigrate the soldiers who served: it denigrates the national hubris and political climate that makes wars such as Vietnam (and Iraq) possible.

The fact that Kerry's still fighting to clear up this mess, long after it's lost any relevance to his political future, is a testament to his political and personal integrity. I don't agree with alot of his politics, but I gotta give credit where it's due - and in my mind this has proven that John Kerry is an honorable man, whatever else he may be.

The battle over John Kerry's wartime service continues, out of the limelight but in some ways more heatedly.

(link) [New York Times]

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