Posted on 02/14/2004 7:37:37 AM PST by fedupwithlibs
By RUBEN NAVARRETTE / The Dallas Morning News
It's as if common sense has gone AWOL from the presidential campaign.
Some media players and Democratic Party operatives are painting President Bush as nothing less than a deserter amid questions about whether he fulfilled his obligations to the Air National Guard 30 years ago.
No surprises here. Democrats and a lot of folks in the Fourth Estate who are cozy with them would like to give Mr. Bush a first-class ticket out of Washington. Besides, a lot of the people raising concerns about Mr. Bush's service record are baby boomers, whose defining experience in early adulthood was opposing the Vietnam War.
That the National Guard accusations have any traction at all has a lot to do with what Democrats have up their sleeve. Judging from primary returns, the plan seems to be to nominate John Kerry and sell him as a rare breed of Democrat: a warrior-statesman with oodles of experience in national security and foreign policy.
It's all about Vietnam. Democrats will transport us back to the late 1960s and early 1970s and recount stories of Mr. Kerry's heroic stint in Southeast Asia. And there'll be no peace signs on this ride. Some of the same folks who once marched for peace are now consumed with acts of long-ago heroism during the war.
Luckily for them and the Madison Avenue ad agencies they'll be employing, parts of Mr. Kerry's adventure have been captured on film. For that, they can thank the senator who, as a young man, had the foresight to take 8 mm movies of his time on a Navy gunboat.
Out with the Man from Hope. In with our Man in Saigon.
The Kerry candidacy is the perfect tribute to self-absorbed baby boomers. Many have spent the last three decades using Vietnam as a measuring stick to assess everyone who lived through it, whether they spent those years protesting the war or fighting in it.
Just don't expect much of this to resonate with my generation of Xers or the generation that follows it – those now in their teens and 20s.
We have had different experiences, and we've emerged with a different measuring stick. For my part, the decisions made by a George W. Bush as a young man – or, for that matter, by Bill Clinton or John Kerry – are of little consequence.
If the pitch is national security, all that matters is how they responded to the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Before 9-11, the baby boomers' obsession with Vietnam may have been tolerable. Now, it just seems trivial. My generation and the one that follows don't need John Kerry's home movies.
The measuring stick of Vietnam was OK for a generation that didn't live through Pearl Harbor, didn't win World War II and didn't defeat fascism on two continents. But it doesn't do much good for those who watched as their country was brutally attacked, thousands of its people slaughtered on their own soil.
I'm sick of Vietnam being the centerpiece of presidential campaigns. The only thing that candidates in both parties should be obsessed with at this point is ensuring that Americans never again feel what they did on that terrible September morning.
And is Mr. Kerry up to the task? It is hard to tell with the flip-flops.
Mr. Kerry opposed the first Gulf War but voted to authorize the second. Then, he criticized the second war. Later, he cheered the capture of Saddam Hussein. Now, amid questions over intelligence, he's back to criticizing.
All the while, Team Kerry has pushed the machismo. The candidate rides motorcycles, talks up hunting and poses with fellow vets who – he assures us – "still know how to fight for [their] country."
It's a good line. But a tad dated. What we need is someone who knows how to defend our country and who recognizes that the first line of defense is here at home.
Mr. Bush understands that. Here the media are going nuts over Mr. Bush having called himself a "war president" – presumably because they think he failed the test of Vietnam. He is a war president, not because he fought in a war but because we are now a nation at war.
If Mr. Kerry thinks he can do better, he should put away his scrapbook and start telling Americans what he plans to do to spare future generations the anguish and the cost of war.
I will never forget what President Bush said from the Oval Office on 9-13-01 when speaking of the innocent victims who lost their lives. "I'm a loving guy and I'm also someone, however, who has a job to do and I intend to do it."
Since then the liberals in this Country have done everything they can to divide us again. Our President said he had a job to do and he has done it without wavering.
IMHO, Bush had an obligation after the act of war that was 9/11 to tell the muslim world "screw you, and the horse you rode in on"
Afghanistan was the "screw you"
Iraq was the "horse you rode in on"
I'm sick of Vietnam being the centerpiece of presidential campaigns.
Just as I suspected. And I suspect not only post-boomer generations are sick of it but that also more than a few boomers are, too.
And they don't have people take home movies of them in a "heroic" pose unless their whole purpose was to use the "heroism" in their later political career.
It's a non-issue except for those who cannot debate policy intelligently, or who are afraid of Senatorial voting history, or lies told while testifying to enhance an envisioned political career...
Firstly, as Thomas Jefferson said "The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men."
Mr. Kerry's character needs to be scrutinized. What he did after the Vietnam war was traitorous.
Secondly, Mr. Kerry has .......
Voted for No Child Left Behind: now opposes it
Voted for the PATRIOT Act: now opposes it
Voted for war in Iraq: now opposes it
Voted against Operation Desert Storm in 1991: now supports it
"Opposes special interests": accepted more lobbyist money than ANY OTHER senator in the last 15 years
Mr. Kerry?
Don't vote your life on him.
I respectfully disagree. The goal is to diminish the respect and stature of a successful war time CIC by people who have thwarted our military and intelligence communities.
The DemonRats have nothing else to run on when it comes to national defense. This is all about the events in 2001 and Iraq.
I would respectfully suggest that you are both wrong and insulting.
I mis-read and thought you were referring to Kerry.
My apologies.
I don't want to exclude Kerry's anti-war activities and I want his war record scrutinized because there are plenty of unanswered questions about this "hero" who spent less than 4 months in Vietnam and initiated a request for reassignment to the US based on some questionable minor wounds. Kerry is trying to innoculate himself on Vietnam early on. We shouldn't accommomdate him.
He voted for Bush as Governor and President.
Dad's getting old, but his mind is sharper than Gillette. He has two degrees (BA and MFA) and was a fighter pilot, a helicopter pilot, and a good all-around Marine Officer. Stainless.
Ketchup-Boy has nothing on Dad. Ketchup-Boy can (censored) himself.
It would, however, be of interest to me (of the over the hill generation) to see quotes from Kerry's post war book occasionally. I wouldn't know how to get a copy but, from the cover and from my memory of some of the disgusting things said in the 60's - 70's, any such quotes could put mr. Kerry's beliefs out there for everyone to see.
A curious response.
The negative campaign tactic disparaging the President's military service is showing results typical of negative campaigning. The attackers are losing ground. Do you dispute this...is this what you say I am wrong about? The facts seem to be in support of my contention.
Now, as to allegations that I am insulting:
When a debate repeatedly engages matters that are not relative to determination of the truth, I assume that there is no debate, only a diversion. When the facts cannot be discussed because the facts are too intimidating to what is perceived to be true, but indeed is not true, the common tactic is to introduce diversion to prevent logical and obvious conclusion.
I'm sorry if facts are insulting, but that is not my doing.
Well when we see Kerry's full service records we'll talk.
I wonder if they agreed with Kerry back then:
Statement of Mr. John Kerry
...I am not here as John Kerry. I am here as one member of the group of 1,000 which is a small representation of a very much larger group of veterans in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit at this table they would be here and have the same kind of testimony....
WINTER SOLDIER INVESTIGATION
I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command....
They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.
I wonder who agrees with what Kerry said in his 1971 Senate testimony. His big publicity breakthrough.
I understand your desire to put it all behind and go forward. In normal circumstances, we would all want to do that. However, Kerry and the Democrats have brought this all up again for their own political reasons.
It makes no sense to let them toot their own horns, shape the debate, and then let them shut down that very debate thereby closing down inspection of their sleazy actions.
Also, there have been deafening calls for the release of Bush's military records, which he has done. Now, it is only fitting for Kerry to release all his records, including the FBI ones which deal with his traitorous conduct with the anti-war movement (and if you don't think this conduct, and those with him, had nothing to do with losing this War, ask anybody who was there).
What Kerry did thirty years ago about a war long ago and far away may be boring to you and others of your generation, but it is not moot! It certainly is not moot to those of us who served there, many of whom lost our American friends who have been unceremoniously dead these many years who never had a chance to live their lives like the rest of us and also those who suffered permanent damage - only to be traitorously stabbed in the back by Kerry and his misnamed "Band of Brothers", who were the American Wing of the National Liberation Front (the NVA and Viet Cong).
The Media gave Clinton a pass in 1992 on his anti-war and pro-communist activites, and look what that got us!
No more free rides for anti-war, anti-American Leftists. And by the way, Kerry still is one. He's never changed. Let his record show it. He only wants the public to see the one side of it he reckons will help him in his political career.
Kerry's record has been consistent, as his military and police records, writings and testimonies, personal actions and voting records will show. He has always been a left-wing sychophant, supporting the enemies of America -except when he joined the Navy so he could bolster his credentials for a future office. He has always been a self-serving pr!ck. The complete record will show that, and not just the one he wants to show us. It will also show what we can expect from him should he ever (*shudder*) be elected President.
In a word, this is all revevant to the man he once was and still is - the genuine man he is busily trying to hide or deflect attention from. He is consistent in his calumny.
However, Kerry and the Democrats have brought this all up again for their own political reasons.
Sure they have and it's because they don't have anything substantitive to say. But the real point of the article is that some unknown portion of the electorate is tuning him out because he's mired in the past and isn't talking about current relevant issues of national security. IOW, Kerry's campaign vehicle is a second-hand Oldsmobile.
No, he's just sick of Vietnam being still the only important issue for folks like Kerry (actually, they have one other issue -- Kennedy-worship.) Somehow, W has managed to win two wars without having served in Vietnam. I think he's passed the war test.
Nazis still killed Allied troops for several years after WWII; does that mean that the war really didn't end on V-E Day?
You can start with John Hersey's reports in Life magazine during that time period -- they've been posted here a number of times.
Back to what you said earlier -- you said "Both issues - Bush's ANG service or lack of it, and Kerry's postwar activities are highly relevant to whether they have the capacity to be CinC, just as Clinton's draft-dodging was extremely onpoint to his capabilities. Period." You also said, "Given the fact the Kerry is his likely opponent, I'll still probably vote for Bush unless I hear definitive proof he used his elite status not only to get into the ANG but to not even show up for a few weekends once he got such a plum assignment."
Please tell us how Bush would have handled his role as Commander-in-Chief differently if he had been in Vietnam, or if he missed a few weekends with the Guard. And also, please tell us how Kerry would have handled this differently if he were the president.
It's only the Democratic Party that has consistently maligned Guard service: that of Dan Quayle, and that of President Bush. Put a sock in it, Demopukes!
That's okay, the "new JFK" wanted to escape Vietnam while his **s was still in one piece. Perfectly understandable. Not heroic like the "original" JFK who got a PT Boat shot out from under him. But understandable.
What international goodwill? They (specifically, France and Germany, as the libs seem to think they're the sole countries who matter internationally) hated us before 9/11, felt sorry for us afterwards, and they hate us again now, partly because regime change in Iraq means no more sweet deals with Saddam for either of them. As Machiavelli once said, it's better to be feared than to be loved. Do you think Libya would be coming to the table if we hadn't won in Iraq? We're stronger as a nation than when Bush took office -- end of story.
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