Ad says Kerry lied; record says otherwise
It's a dirty ad about a dirty war.
It's an old grudge held by old men. And now it's playing a part in a dirty campaign.
A so-called independent group bought ads slamming John Kerry's war record in Vietnam. The ads scorn Kerry's medals, claim he was lying about his service, and allege he got an early ride home because of a couple of bogus Purple Hearts.
As of this writing, the White House has only half-heartedly distanced itself from these ads, which their creators hope to run on TV in all of the swing states, including Ohio.
The one Republican stalwart who objects to the ads is John McCain, a certified war hero, who is the chairman of George W. Bush's campaign in Arizona.
McCain called the ads "dishonest and dishonorable."
"I think the Bush campaign should specifically condemn the ad," he said.
But, of course, the Bush campaign won't. In an election this tight, sleaze rules.
So, in this past week on the campaign trail, the cable news bites weren't about the war we are presently fighting. They were about a war we fought decades ago.
A war, by the way, that will never leave us in the lifetimes of anybody who had anything to do with it.
John Kerry volunteered to fight in that war. The volunteer part is a big thing.
I knew people who swallowed soap or jabbed their armpits with a whisk broom or said they were bed-wetters or gay to stay out of it.
But Kerry enlisted. And by the time he was through, he had earned three Purple Hearts and a couple of medals for bravery.
After his swift-boat service - after about four months - he was flown back to the states. And then he went on an anti-war crusade. He objected to the war and the lives being lost there. And he was right.
After almost 60,000 of our soldiers died, we pulled out of Vietnam and the commies pushed in. And how have we been endangered by that outcome? Not at all.
When you read those names on that black wall in Washington, you're reading the names of gallant Americans who died because of faulty leadership. Robert McNamara, the former secretary of defense, has devoted the rest of his life to admitting that. He's a walking mea culpa.
When Kerry got home, he testified to Congress. One of the things he said was that some Americans were committing atrocities against the Vietnamese. His critics use that to claim he maligned our army.
I was a correspondent in Vietnam for just a bit over a month in 1967. I remember a time when I hitched a jeep ride north of Da Nang. A TV crew went along. And so did a two-rocker sergeant. He wasn't happy.
"I've got to go along with all the TV crews," he said, "because last month a soldier held up a necklace made of ears. Damn TV. One of these days Walter Cronkite is gonna get us all killed."
War is awful. Maybe it's not so awful if you're in the Air National Guard, hot-shotting it over the Gulf of Mexico. And maybe it's not so awful if you're the vice president, having successfully avoided it.
Kerry didn't avoid it. He ran toward it. Those were days when few ran toward it. Kerry served and was wounded and got some medals.
Nobody in the Bush entourage can make that statement.
So what their surrogates are trying to do in a dirty way is tear down John Kerry's service.
He risked his life in a war he didn't believe in, and when he came home he made his views public. That doesn't make him a traitor. That makes him a kind of superpatriot.
Now we have a new war.
When I wrote this, two Marines had died fighting for . . . what? An independent Iraq? Oil? Regime change? A base for Israel in the Middle East? Nobody is sure.
The old war and the old men with their old grudges still haunt us. But it's a new day with a new war. Babies born in the Vietnam era are old enough to fight now.
I'd rather entrust them to Kerry. Been there, done that.
Contact Dick Feagler at:
dfeagler@plaind.com, 216-999-5757