Posted on 05/29/2004 9:29:18 PM PDT by Kaslin
URING a major speech in Seattle on Thursday, it was hardly surprising that Senator John Kerry referred to what he had learned in the Navy. Not because the speech was kicking off an 11-day focus on national security, but because Mr. Kerry, who commanded Swift boats on the Mekong River, mentions his military service every day, practically any time he speaks at any length.
Earlier in the week, he invoked his time in uniform while unveiling his new red, white and blue campaign plane, saying the 757 would be his "freedom jet," a term American servicemen used for the buzzing aircraft overhead in Vietnam. Last month, he explained his devotion to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by recalling how he used them for barter in Southeast Asia.
On a recent visit to Jacksonville, Fla., virtually the first words out of his mouth at a riverfront rally were "great Navy town." He often spots someone in a crowd and wonders, "Is that a Navy jacket?" (No? Marines? I'm a Navy man, he reminds.) Talking about health care for veterans the other day in Little Rock, Ark., Mr. Kerry declared his commitment to the cause a moral one, "not just based on my service."
And when a local television reporter in Pennsylvania inquired how he would counter the sense that people would prefer to have a beer with President Bush, Mr. Kerry suggested, "Talk to the guys I served with 35 years ago."
The incessant reminders of his four-month combat tour are hardly accidental. They echo the core of Mr. Kerry's $25 million advertising campaign describing his "lifetime of strength and service," using what Democrats see as their best hope for neutralizing any advantage Mr. Bush has as a commander in chief during wartime.
Senator Kerry and his campaign were shocked to discover last year that half the voters in New Hampshire, despite decades of watching the Boston television stations that chronicled his career, did not know Mr. Kerry was a veteran.
"It's absolutely purposeful," Tad Devine, a campaign adviser, said of the steady stream of military references. "That experience is a central part of his life. It's really important that people come to know him and his whole story."
But Mr. Kerry typically mentions his short stint as a prosecutor only while discussing criminal justice. Stories of his starting a cookie company rarely pop up outside small-business forums.
Yet in ads and two recent speeches, Mr. Kerry talked not only of his own military credentials but of those of his father, who served as a pilot in World War II. (The campaign likes to point out that Mr. Kerry was born in an Army hospital in Colorado, a state they hope to capture in the fall.)
Several times this spring, opponents have tried to turn Mr. Kerry's military history against him, raising questions about whether he deserved his three Purple Hearts, and recalling his controversial antiwar statements and activities after his return.
But most people in the campaign did not seem to mind. USA Today published an article about whether Mr. Kerry discarded his medals at an antiwar protest, but it ran with a big graphic showing his Silver Star, Bronze Star and other honors.
Nearly every time Mr. Kerry's campaign plane takes off or lands, a dozen or so veterans turn up on the tarmac to greet him, their colorful caps and pins captured by the local news cameras. Many an audience includes a questioner who begins with, "Welcome home, brother," a familiar veterans' greeting.
Even without veterans in the audience, Mr. Kerry will not be stopped. "One thing I learned in the Navy," he said in Seattle, "is that when the course you're on is headed for the shoals, you have to change course."
Wow. I had to check and then check again. This was really from the NYT?
Surprising.
Just reading about Kerry wears me out.
This non-entity Kerry is like Niedermeyer in "Animal House." You just want to smack him.
Been thinking about Kerry's service and now think it's a good thing he only did four months. If he was there for the full tour, he could have got some of our guys killed for his medal hunt.
I hadn't heard this. Obviously, the business was a bust. People just didn't like waffle-flavored cookies, I guess.
Kerry was in Vietnam?
--- DURING a major speech in Seattle on Thursday, it was hardly surprising that Senator John Kerry referred to what he had learned in the Navy. Not because the speech was kicking off an 11-day focus on national security, but because Mr. Kerry, who commanded Swift boats on the Mekong River, mentions his military service every day, practically any time he speaks at any length.---
Will he be holding a national security conference with Gary Hart, his national security advisor, aboard the Monkey Business? Will Kerry dash ashore to dispatch any reporters reporting things they shouldn't?
"The incessant reminders of his four-month combat tour are hardly accidental."
I'll trust your checking of this, it is unbelievable that this was in the Times. Tremendous, lol, I can't believe this sentance was in the Times rather than say, National Review.
Incessant reminders, indeed!
Kerry was in Vietnam? Who knew?
"mentions his military service every day, practically any time he speaks at any length."
It's not that we are not aware of this, I hope some of his supporters see this article.
The media, like Sadr and his thugs, are starting to retreat. Once they start to realize they're not winning the propoganda war, they'll remember they are businesses, and that they have to put their political agendas on the back burner and actually report news.
My post from another thread today.
bump
Bush ought to thank Kerry for his four months of service in Viet Nam everytime it comes up. I know a few vets who are more than a little resentful of his candy-assed expectations of trying to play that card at every turn.
Vietnam? Kerry? Come oonnnnnn!!
Reading about kerry is like listening to two chalkboards mating.
He is so proud of his service to his country, which would have been great had he not followed it by going over to the side of the enemy. He did it then, and he has done it now with his anti war rhetoric.
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