Vietnam
Dean
Joe Gandelman has the best summation of the Swift Boat Vets controversy I've seen yet. Go read it.
I'd like to note something that neither Joe nor Sabato noted, though: one of the reasons this has all come to dominate our politics again is because a very large segment of Americans, including Veterans, have long felt that the Vietnam experience has been wrongly portrayed by Hollywood and the mainstream media. As more than one vet of the era has told me, it didn't bother them that some people were against the war, what bothered them was when people lied about the war. Movies like Apocolypse Now and Full Metal Jacket and The Deer Hunter and so on have dominated the movie images many young people (like me) grew up with. Indeed, I would hazard a guess that most people under 40 think of the Vietnam conflict as an unending series of horrors and abuses, murder and rape of the innocent the norm, a war we involved ourselves in solely to benefit the "military-industrial complex."
Rarely, so rarely, do you see anyone in the mainstream media simply be fair to the other side of the Vietnam question: that it was a war we entered into because mass-murdering, oppressive totalitarian communist forces, backed by the Soviets and the Chinese, were threatening a helpless people. Rarely do you see it acknowledged that the U.S. won every single battle it fought in Vietnam. Rarely do you see it acknowledged that the overwhelming majority of men who fought in that conflict acted honorably, with decency and humanity, and genuinely cared about and wanted to help the people of Vietnam.
Those who did act with decency and humanity and noble aims were the norm, not the exception. War crimes (which occur in every war) were the exception, not the rule.
Vietnam veterans have endured over 30 years of feeling their character has been besmirched by their culture. And now along comes Senator Kerry, saluting, "reporting for duty," and suggesting that his 4 months as a junior Lieutenant is the main reason we should vote for him. As Larry Sabato says, Vietnam vets have long memories, and they remember Kerry as a punk who spouted a bunch of vile communist propaganda. Which is far more than just being against the war.
It is highly doubtful that this would be much of an issue if Kerry had merely come home and said, "I think this is a futile war and we shouldn't be in it." He did a lot more than that, and now as it turns out some of what he said was used to help torture prisoners of war. Kerry hasn't owned up to that, and he really should.
I continue to think that Kerry could get out from under this cloud pretty easily. Just come out and say, "Yes, I was a dumb young punk who repeated some horrible allegations that I should have been more skeptical about. I also puffed up my record a little and told some tall tales. I'm sorry for all that, and I apologize to my former brothers in arms who I offended. I am going to release my military records and let people decide whatever they want about it. Other than that, I have nothing further to say. I would like to put this behind us, and talk about the issues."
The issue would disappear for most people if he would just do that.
I rather hope he does. For if he doesn't, the specter of this will haunt him right up until election day and, if he should win, all throughout the next four years of his administration. It would be better for the country if that didn't happen, methinks.
* Update * Today's Wall Street Journal also notes that Kerry questioned Bush's service record, and looks a little funny now demanding that others who question his own should be silenced. The easy way out of this, to just release your records and confront the accusations openly, appears to be the one thing that the Kerry camp doesn't want to do. Why is that?
Mr. Kerry was on record in 1992 as against against bringing Vietnam up in presidential campaigns. So it can be said he was against it before he was for it.
KERRY SENATE FLOOR STATEMENT February 27, 1992 "On Insertion of Vietnam into the Presidential Campaign" Source: Congressional Record, 102nd Congress, page S2479.
Clarity on these issues indicates that the veterans be allowed to speak publically.
Right on the money, Dean. So why hasn't he? I don't believe the reason is particularly sinister. I think it's exactly the same reason that George W. Bush has declined to identify mistakes he's made (for which he's been much castigated). It's because his political opponents would immediately seize on it and attempt to beat him to death with it.
So we're reduced to Bob Dole and John Kerry comparing scars. What are we, 8-year-olds?
Certainly, Bush managed to weather all the "Bush AWOL" smears, Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame's lies, Michael Moore's hate-propaganda, and so on. Kerry can weather this--if he does the right thing.
Crying "daddy, make it stop!" isn't the right thing.
A nit to pick and off topic. Apocalypse Now was NOT about the Vietnam war. It was a movie version of the book Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Francis Ford Coppola merely used Vietnam as his stage. Being a big fan of the book and having read it many times (it takes about four hours to read) I thought the movie was excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, I never ever considered the movie to be any kind of depiction of what went on in Vietnam.
Read the book then rent Apocalypse Now and you'll see what I mean.
I am often struck by how often I meet people who think that the Vietnam war was little but a parade of horrors and madness, and it's movies like that one that have done the most to create such an impression.
The problem for Kerry is that as strongly as veterans feel about the Vietnam war, much of Kerry's base feels just as strongly the other way. For Kerry to admit that what he said about the war was wrong and over the top would be a massive repudiation of the world view of much of his core support. That's the real reason he can't do it.
Oh, please, have you such utter disregard for everyone under 40. Under 40?????????? Under 20, maybe, but even then I doubt many even think of the Vietnam War.
If you're judging people's responses just by the movies out there - the Hollywood record is more balanced then you let on.
Heck Forrest Gump to pick just one (And I am the exact opposite of a movie expert) was at least anchored by a very positive portrayal of Vietnam.
Hamburger Hill? Platoon? Weren't these - yes violent - but ultimately positive portrayals of American soldiers?
I mean who the f*** had even heard of John Kerry's Senate testimony before 2004? Very few. Granted the percentage of Vietnam veterans who would have is higher. But they are over 50.
Its not a good analysis for the simple fact that it implies there may have been collusion between Bush/Cheney and SBVT - there is not an iota of evidence that there is any such collusion. Why can't people just understand that the anger of the Vietnam vets is real and that it wouldn't be too tricky to find a financial backer even without so much as a wink or nudge from Bush/Cheney?
If I were rich, I would have provided the $100,000 in seed money for SBVT - and it wouldn't have taken a secret message from Karl Rove for me to write the check; I'd have written the check because I agree with the main purpose of SBVT - to keep a man who called American soldiers war criminals out of the White House.
Any analysis which contains within it the baseless accusation of collusion between Bush/Cheney and SBVT is not worth the bandwidth its taking up...
It was not a mistake. He was right then and he is right now and the vast majority of America agrees with me.
Conservatives will never change their mind about this, but at some point they have to realize they are not going to change anyone elses mind either.
Kerry has already said something to the effect that he recognizes now that his rhetoric was overblown and might have given the wrong impression and that he was young and fired up from having just returned from Vietnam. That is the closest you are going to get to him "admitting he was a punk" and I think the closest he should get to it.
If he's right now, then his opposition was a mistake. If he was right then, then it wasn't a mistake, and he's wrong now to say that it was.
So which is it?
Will you please explain to me why Kerry wants to portray himself as a war hero in an unjust war? It would have been a vastly better move for him to stick to his guns and continue to be against the Vietnam War. To turn around and play the Purple Heart card is schizophrenic, at best.
He cannot be "right then" and "right now". He cannot be against the war and then for it.
On the other hand, he has been for a war before he was against it.... so there is precedent, of a sort.
No, not really. Most people on that side of the issue ("conservatives" all, according to you but not them) would much rather Kerry admit that his slander of his fellow soldiers was a mistake. "Mistake" or not, it was certainly incorrect, as has been proven in other venues.
I suppose it's funny to see the party of Clinton utilize "the politics of personal destruction" as their primary strategy, or MoveOn.org, a group originally founded to persuade people to "move on" from the Clinton sex scandals, now scandal-mongering itself.
When the bulk of the previous consensus was 'It was a French war, and our reasons for being there were not well articulated (as one battle in the Cold War), but we lost when we lost the political will to continue.' Tragedies ensued in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, as predicted.
And here we have someone vowing to get our troops out of Iraq within a year. North Vietnam got the message last time, Syria and Iran will get the message this time.
I offer you the following possibility. In those records there is something that would damage him far worse that the current flap or possibly make the flap much worse. I freely admit that, given how this is already playing, I can't imagine what that could be.
If Kerry continues to be forced to back away from a statement every few days. It will only feed the frenzy. Every day there is the possibility that the mainstream press will have had enough and cease attempting to under cut the swifties and actually pursue Kerry on the topic.
The press gave the Christmas in Cambodia retraction pretty much a pass. This expected retraction on the first purple heart will be harder for the press to over look. You may be confused about your position in wild country. Its a little harder to be confused about getting shot at let alone forgetting that you were wounded by enemy fire.
1988. Pretty much the entire Gaurd Section is in the lounge watching 'Platoon'on HBO. Gunny Watson, on duty as the O.D. for the base, strolls into the room, and the man who won a Bronze Star for intrepid gallantry in the face of a horde of determined NVA when he was 19 years old, watched for a quiet minute and (and this is remarkable for a man who cussed only when needed) said "Bunch of f***in bull-sh*t." and stomped out.
BRING. IT. ON.
I don't think that even the avalanche will do it, Oscar. They'll continue to be dangerous regardless of wether they win or lose this election. Losing, even or maybe especially by a landslide, I'd expect to see another 4-8 years of an even more vicious display of anti-Bush and anti-Conservative hatred than we have to date.
I don't think that Kerry winning will ease that either - I'd almost bet that the vindication will be taken as an excuse to try and destroy the possibility of a future conservative Whitehous victory.
It's gonna get ugly no matter which way this election goes. I can feel it in my bones.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.