For readers who have complained that this blog is too highbrow:




Michael Moore finds booger during
break in GOP convention in New York.




Moore worries whether cameras
caught him eating booger.




Moments later, Moore pretends
to wipe booger on baseball cap.




Confronting reporters afterwards, Moore
angrily rebuffs requests to inspect cap.

Like many New Yorkers, I’m headed out of town for the next couple of weeks. I’ve no political motive for going—it’s just that Manhattan with 7th Avenue and 34th Street closed is not a fun place to be if you want to get anything productive done. But before I go, I thought I’d share some quick impressions of yesterday’s big demonstrations (the cab will be here in a few minutes, so niceties like links and editing will have to wait for another day).

1) The umbrella group sponsoring the demonstrations perfectly reflects Kerry’s solid consistency. When they were denied a permit to march in Central Park, they (a) agreed to march in midtown, then (b) decided they didn’t like the agreement and sued, then (c) announced that if they weren’t allowed to march in Central Park, they wouldn’t march at all, then (d) changed their minds and decided to march in midtown even though they lost their bid for Central Park, then (e) decided to march officially in midtown and unofficially in Central Park. I’m sure the flipper is proud of them.

2) If I had to use one word to describe the demonstration, it’d be “boring.” “Disorganized” and “anticlimactic” are close contenders. The thing (“march” would imply that it had more purpose, “meander” is too bucolic) got off something like 2 hours late before making its pointless loop through midtown to Union Square where everyone stood around for a few minutes wondering if that was it. It certainly attracted a lot of participants, but its spectators amounted to me, Rich Galen (he says he was there anyway—I didn’t see him), 300 hungover reports and several thousand bored cops. No cheering throngs, no packed sidewalks, nada. The Macy’s Thanksgiving parade has, if I recall, something like 10,000 marchers and nearly a million spectators. Yesterday there were (generously) 100,000 marchers and me and Rich Galen. Again, a pretty good metaphor for who's watching the Kerry campaign.

3) A few days ago, some rocket scientist at the Democratic Underground floated the brilliant suggestion that the DU contingent should dress all in black. That this idea was even considered should be ample evidence (if any further evidence were needed) of how little contact the DU has with reality, as anyone who has ever spent an August afternoon frying in Manhattan’s concrete canyons can tell you. But, as their pasty white complexions testify, the average DU member has about as much experience with the sun as Count Dracula, so black it was. A fortuitous side-effect of this policy was that the most delusional element were easily identifiable. It also appears that heat-stroke suppressed the urge to indulge vandalism, so never let it be said that the DU never did good.

4) Sixties-style street theater is a lot harder than it looks. The efforts I saw yesterday were just sort of sad. A dozen unshaven young people in batik gathered at the entrance to the Sheep’s Meadow to play tambourines and bongos and sing anti-war songs. Trouble is, no-one could remember any words beyond the chorus, so the whole thing devolved into a lot of nah-nah-nahing, interrupted occasionally by an enthusiastic burst of “Stop, children, what’s that sound” or the like. Keeping time with a bongo or tambourine must also be tougher than I thought, judging from the many abortive starts (“Okay, one, two…Jingle-chuchunga-jingle…no, that’s not right, let Mary start off with the bongo…one, two…chuchunga-jingle…no, that’s not right either…) I was also amused by the dozen or so sad-looking middle aged women who mustered at Strawberry Fields to sing “Imagine.” I can only admire their commitment to diversity—which extended even to the key(s) in which they sang— but from the look of the group I couldn’t help thinking that “Eleanor Rigby” would have been more appropriate.

Of course by now everyone has heard about the silly ACT-UP group who dropped trou on 8th Avenue the other day. As a means of shocking New Yorkers, disrobing is right up there with blaring your car horn or uttering the F-word. After all, we’ve had the Naked Cowboy in Times Square every day for the past several years. [Editor's Note: New Yorkers will happily ignore the Naked Cowboy link, but anyone else who clicks on that link should give it time to load; it's worth the wait!] I also remember that a popular photographer (can’t recall his name this morning) got about two hundred people to not just disrobe, but to lie down naked on 7th Avenue a few years back. While your skin’s still crawling with the idea of coming into intimate contact with the streets of Times Square, consider this: if you’re arrested in New York, you’re not issued jail clothing until after your arraignment (this week, that could be 24 hours). That means that the ACT-UP folks got to spend a very long, naked time in the ultra-hygenic environment of a 1 Police Plaza holding cell. Poetic Justice.

5) Sloganeering is not the left’s strong suit. Some of my favorites:

“A village in Texas is missing it’s [sic] idiot.”

I didn’t get a chance to ask where in Texas the bearer of that gem was from.

“Osama-2, George Bush-0.”

Damning! Kerry could obviously be counted on to knock down at least 3 buildings full of office workers.

“Dick can lick my Bush.”

Classy and original.

“More people were killed in Iraq than at Cheppaquidick [sic].”

Okaaaay.

6) Strangely absent from the signs and banners yesterday was mention of John Kerry. Bush was everywhere ("Beat Bush," "Lick Bush," "No Bush," etc.) Cheney was even pretty prevalent (the predictable puerile plays on his first name.) But Kerry was hardly in evidence and Edwards was nowhere to be found. My running count was that for every appearance of Kerry's name I saw upwards of 20 Bushes and at least half a dozen Cheneys. I've gotta think the Kerry camp ain't happy about that.

Well, that’s gonna have to do it. My cab’s downstairs, and I’m off for two weeks in a red state!

Readers' responses to "Let It Alone," republished in The Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal under the title "Kerry's Lost Opportunity," included quite a number from veterans. (Responses posted to "Let It Alone" are here and responses posted to the WSJ version are here.) In addition to the comments posted online, I received a slew of emails. Here's a sample of the comments and emails received from vets:

Your recent WSJ story on john kerry (kerry’s lost opportunity) is the best summary I’ve read to date. It is right on glide slope. I know. I am a Viet Nam Vet, retired Naval Aviator who was there during that time. We all knew (even the enlisted men, no women back then) about fonda, clark, hayden and fullbright. They were despised for what they were doing as you described in your article. kerry & his liberal a**holes have opened a festering wound that has blindsided them . . . . for good reason. They are too deep in dodo to easily extricate themselves. To be honest, I hope they drown in their own crap.

No one wanted a Purple Heart back then, because of what it meant . . . . This is not about partisan politics. Veterans of WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, and the conflicts of the recent 15 years are all affected by what kerry has done. He will pay the price one way or another. This reaction by vets will not be over on his time schedule. He has no idea how deep his stupid idealisms have affected us. All he can do is bend over and spread his lily white buns and enjoy what is about to happen.

I'm a Vietnam vet (1965) and I believe you hit the target. I've never quite gotten over my experience there. While I never experienced any of the things that may did (PTSS, etc), I still on occasion grieve for what might or should have been. The fall of Saigon in 1975 was one of the awfullest days of my life. Seeing all our work and sacrifice evaporate when NVA tanks "liberated" the city is a sight that will always haunt me. That and the FACT that I and thousands of my countrymen were libelled and defamed by a few who cared little for the cause we had undedrtaken.

I think there are a lot of us veterans of 'Nam who have a wide range of feelings about this guy. Most of them are revulsion, anger. I really liked what you had to say in your piece "Let it Alone." It struck a real chord. I don't think that some in the public understand that at all. But I know it's not going to go away. We veterans are in a unique place this election cycle. We may well be the swing voters and Mr. Kerry now well understands that the chickens may be coming home to roost. [Read more by this vet at Another Man's Meat.]

I graduated from the Naval Academy in 19[XX] . . . . I volunteered for the PBR's in 19[XX], arrived in country in September and served a year in the delta. My closest friend in Vietnam was killed "near" the Cambodian border at Chau Doc (about a mile inside Vietnam), and I was given his command, River Section [XXX], which I assumed at Chau Doc. Neither he nor his boats, nor those same boats when they became "mine," ever crossed that border. But that is a mere detail. What is more important is that neither I nor any of my many colleagues in the delta ever saw, let alone committed, an atrocity or war crime. I have known John Kerry to be a liar and a fraud for 33 years. I have known him to be embellishing what he did, and exploiting it according to whatever was the current fashionable nuance, for that entire time. There was never a doubt in my mind that he would run for president, and never a doubt that he would base his claim to the office on his boastful, fabulist accounts of his own exploits. I have waited those 33 years for all of this to come to a head, for his very nature to be exposed, and now that it is happening if he thinks I am going to go away he had god damn well better think again.Your piece as published in the Wall Street Journal this morning is the best I have ever read on this subject. He didn't have to ask for this, but he did, and he's going to keep getting it until this thing is done.

I had the privilege of surfing in to your blog this morning and reading your essay "Let it Alone".

It was a very good - very, very good.

Your essay puts my feelings about the whole thing in an almost perfect perspective.

I was in the Navy at the very end of the Vietnam war (1972-79) and was at sea nearby when Saigon fell to the communists in April 1975. I witnessed first-hand the sufferings of the "boat people". Nevertheless, I think it goes without saying that most of us Vietnam and Vietnam-era veterans would have been willing to let the entire issue go, with the assumption that George Bush and John Kerry had both served honorably. However, as a member of the US Navy submarine service - a group that played no direct part in the fighting in Vietnam - I consider the constant din of the Democrats' criticism of George Bush's Texas National Guard service as a personal insult to me. If George Bush's service as an ANG fighter pilot was questionable, then what does it say about mine and thousands of others service?

Your comments were thoughtful, articulate, and highly appreciated by a veteran who spent a year and a half in Vietnam. Thank you, sir. You have nailed the cowardly, whining, arrogant, flip-flopping candidate from the Democrat Party.

I appreciate the article in WSJ "Kerry's Lost Opportunity" . . . I was an Air Force pilot in Vietnam in 1970. We could have won the war if it had not been for inept political leadership and anti-war protesters like John Kerry. If "the truce is over" then let's open up the criticism of the Johnson/McNamara policies which prevented us from winning.

It is inevitable that the debate on Vietnam gets reopened from time to time. It is my hope that some resolution comes of it this time.

However, looking at the rancor that lives on as a result of the War Between the States, I don't think resolution will happen soon. Several generations will likely come and go before the passion ebbs completely.

I was in Vietnam for 14 verifiable months on the ground, and I am of several minds about the whole thing in general and Kerry's role in particular.

Thank you--I served in Vietnam Vet from February 1968 to August 1969.

Brilliant analysis! I'm a two-year veteran of Vietnam with a "real" Purple Heart and more decorations than John Kerry could lift and throw. Two points: G.W. Bush earned all of the federal points necessary for an honorable discharge, so there are no "missing months" of service, and because we had air superiority in Vietnam, we did not need the F-102 interceptor which G.W. Bush flew under the operational control of North American Air Defense Command, not the governor of Texas.

Thanks to Mr. Jacobs for the Opinion Journal piece. I am a retired lawyer and . . . a Viet Nam Vet who was in country from 5 Dec 70 to 4 Dec 71. Those dates are seared, seared into my memory because 5 Dec 70 was my 20th birthday. Your" two prong truce " was brilliant. I made a good living explaining criminal defenses to people too stupid to get off jury duty, but I could never dicuss anything about Viet Nam. Thank you very much.

I guess I am a "draft dodger" the way the Democratic Party defines it, since I joined the Air Force ROTC so I could finish my bachelors degree rather than be drafted into the Army. I was commissioned and served 20 years, from 1973 to 1993, but since I didn't spend four months in Vietnam, I am not qualified to voice opinions on military matters, according to Mr. Kerry.

One of the things Mr. Kerry was defending in Vietnam was clearly not the First Amendment. Let me first say, as a Lt. Colonel, that Mr. Kerry's service record in Vietnam would be insufficient to get him promoted to Lt. Commander/Major, let alone to Captain/Colonel. His number of decorations is on a par with thousands of other veterans. His record, even if you take his word for it, was nothing outstanding. Mr. Kerry now claims he can be an effective commander-in-chief. He is either an idiot or a liar. If he has any awareness of how his 1971 criticism of servicemen still fighting or prisoners in Vietnam is perceived by military men and women, he would know that career military members see him as a male Jane Fonda, someone who gave aid and comfort to the enemies trying to kill his fellow Swift boat sailors and every other American in Vietnam.

While officers would obey orders from the commander-in-chief, they would not go out of their way to sacrifice themselves on his behalf. They will be watching for him to stab them in the back, to condemn them as war criminals the way he condemned his Navy buddies, to blame the members of the armed forces for his stupid strategic errors (like announcing an Iraq pullout date!), to tie their hands in dealing with the enemies of America.

Mr. Kerry will get some generals to fawn over him who want promotion and more power, but the rank and file will know he is not to be trusted, because he has never trusted them. If Mr. Kerry hated Presidents Johnson and Nixon, he has some idea of how the troops will think of him.

I am deeply indebted to you for your article appearing in Opinion Journal on August 26, 2004. I came back to the US in May, 1969 after two years in Viet Nam feeling like an alien in my own country. Your piece answers questions I have held in my mind all those years.

Thank you so very much for your piece in the WSJ. Your analysis should be read by every American. I ended my 2 years service in August 1968 convinced (as most people were, by then) that the war in Viet Nam was a mistake and we needed to extricate ourselves at some point, but was absolutely aghast at the treasonous activities of most of my fellow students at UCLA. When a country is at war, the appropriate moral position is "my country, right or wrong!" The practice of aiding and abetting the enemy, so routinely indulged in nowadays by Democrats, is anti-social behavior, and should be punished. We may, indeed, through our speech and our vote, seek to change our country's policies; we may never assist our enemies, particularly when our soldiers are in harm's way. Jane Fonda belonged in jail, and so did John Kerry. Thank you for your tremendous contribution!

I read your WSJ article this morning. BRAVO ZULU!

Thanks vets!

A couple of weeks ago, when she (along with most of the rest of America) learned about the Swift Boat Veterans' campaign against John Kerry, a solidly conservative internet pal posted the following message to our discussion group:

I really wish they wouldn't do this. It's not going to be pretty and will probably backfire. And the Dems will counter with the missing months of Bush's [National Guard] duty. It was a freaking 30 years ago, let it alone.

In her desire to "let it alone," my online friend expresses a sentiment shared by a substantial majority of her fellow Americans. The subject of Vietnam is one that most of us--especially those of us who came of age during that era-- would very much wish to let alone.

Long ago we had given up almost every hope that the nation would--in our lifetimes--resolve upon anything close to a shared understanding of its Vietnam experience. All the arguments one way or the other had been said and heard so many times that only the most boorish could be foolish enough to think that more talk would change anyone's opinion. Age and experience might change some minds (mine for instance), but further discussion was futile. In the decade following our ignominious withdrawal, communists would potash Cambodia's rice fields with the bones of millions of human skeletons. Of the millions desperately fleeing the daily terrors of communist rule, countless thousands would perish in the Gulf of Thailand or the South China Sea when their pathetically rickety boats capsized under the their own weight. If those millions of deaths weren't enough to convince you that fighting communism in Southeast Asia was a truly righteous cause, then mere words could never persuade you.

Whenever the question of Vietnam percolated to the surface of the nation's collective political consciousness, as it did briefly during Clinton's first presidential campaign, the protagonists on either side only became yet more distrustful and disdainful of the other. And so years ago, wearied by their own arguments as much as by the arguments of their antagonists, sensible majorities of both the supporters and the opponents of the Vietnam war yielded to an unwritten domestic truce composed of two principles:

(1) Those who participated in the war, with the exception of anyone at or above the rank of general officer, are entitled to public honor for their service.

(2) Those who actively opposed the war, with the exception of the most extreme Jane Fonda-types, are not to be branded as cowards or traitors to their country.

Depending on one's political bent, one or the other of the two prongs of the domestic truce might be accepted only grudgingly, but it was accepted none the less, because most of us had become convinced that the best way to handle any question involving Vietnam was just to "let it alone." Yes, there would still be occasional flare-ups when the domestic truce would be tested. Until recently, the most notable episodes involved Dan Quayle and the aforementioned Bill Clinton, who--because they had neither very actively opposed the war nor fought in it--did not seem to be entitled to the truce's honors and amnesties. Those petty skirmishes over Clinton's ROTC dodge and Quayle's "alternative" service stirred up some old antagonisms, but quickly subsided when the larger public declined to enlist. And so, the truce held.

In perfect accord with that domestic truce, a memorial was constructed--an angled black wound cut into the very earth of the nation's capitol--bespeaking loss, but essentially silent on every other question. Even the rules of the design competition for the memorial had commanded that the winning entry must "make no political statement about the war." Thus, the official National Park Service website still proclaims, "The purpose of this memorial is to separate the issue of the sacrifices of the veterans from the U.S. policy in the war, thereby creating a venue for reconciliation," as if true reconciliation could ever emerge from a silence that prohibits public contemplation of what "the sacrifices of the veterans" were for. Of course, each of us individually might still arrive at a personal understanding of what those sacrifices were for, but in the collective consciousness of the nation, for the sake of the domestic truce, the "sacrifice of the veterans" could be attached to nothing beyond itself. Sacrifice unattached to an object is meaningless, and reconciliation cannot emerge from meaninglessness. As a consequence, that self-imposed silence, though necessary perhaps to preserve the domestic truce, has never been a communal experience of national reconciliation. It has always been a divided silence, separating on one side those still too proud to admit their error and on the other side those who know that forgiveness cannot be bestowed upon someone too proud to accept it, much less to seek it. Such silence could never bring reconciliation, but it remained sufficient to permit the continuation of the domestic truce.

Yet out of that silence, the nation's Vietnam experience did produce one apparent lesson that came to be generally accepted on all sides. The lesson was: "We must never ask our troops to fight a war without the 'full support' of the American people." Even more than the domestic truce, this dubious lesson was embraced by both sides, but for rather different reasons. The supporters of the war in Vietnam embraced this lesson because they naively believed that it would always remind everyone how anti-war protests had dispirited the nation and brought on defeat. The lesson would ensure that in the future whenever the nation embarked upon a war, protests would cease, and the nation would come together to "support the troops."

But those on the other side of the divide calculated more correctly that this "lesson" of Vietnam, if taken literally, had granted them a veto against any and every war. They knew that the "lesson" of Vietnam--that America must never fight a war without the "full support" of the people--supplies the easy logic by which a war's opponents, however few, can posit their opposition, however unwise, as the sufficient condition against that war. Understood literally (and this "lesson" of Vietnam is always accepted too literally) the lesson eventually boils down to this: "America should never go to war because there will always be some, usually substantial, domestic faction that opposes it." The historical truth is, that though he should always seek the broadest possible domestic support, it often happens that a wise statesman (Washington and Lincoln come to mind) will lead a war vehemently opposed by a substantial domestic faction. Because "full support" is an impossibility, making "full support" a condition for waging war is a debilitating policy, a policy that transforms the idiocy of Susan Sarandon and Michael Moore into self-fulfilling prophecy:

We must not fight without full support. Because Susan Sarandon and Michael Moore do not support the war, we do not have full support. Therefore, we must not fight.

And so the the "lesson" of Vietnam guarantees that opponents of a war receive instant political legitimacy because their very existence denies the "full support" that is believe to be required according to the "lesson" of Vietnam. If a deeper examination might have yielded better lessons from the Vietnam experience, the wheat seemed not worth the threshing, and most of us thought it best just to "let it alone."

And so the domestic truce has held for decades. But in the passing of those years the nation still found no real peace on the question of Vietnam.

Yet at some brief moments it became possible to imagine, even to hope, that a president who had come of age in the Vietnam era might be exactly the right figure to bind up the nation's psychic wounds from that troubled time. For the president embodies the role most akin to a national priest or national confessor (or, if you prefer a more modern concept, national grief counselor), and so one might hope that a president who came of age during Vietnam, by his own example of transcendence, might lead the nation toward a long-delayed reconciliation. Yet for reasons that seem obvious, Bill Clinton, the first president who had come of age during Vietnam, could not bring about the healing. He could not do it because no man rightly can forgive the sins he has committed against others. Though they are such different men, George W. Bush no better than Clinton could bind up the wounds of Vietnam because he, too, did not fight in that war. So the best Clinton and Bush could do was just to "let it alone," and to their credit, that is what they both tried to do.

After Clinton and Bush, it was clear that only a man who himself had actually fought in Vietnam would be capable of healing the wounds of that war. If a man like John McCain or Bob Kerrey were to ascend to the presidency, he might possess the legitimacy to elucidate a shared communal understanding and to dispense--on behalf of all those who sacrificed--the forgiveness that would be necessary to put Vietnam behind us.

And what about John Kerry? Might he have become the man finally to bind up the wounds of Vietnam? Yes, I believe he could have performed that healing, perhaps more completely even than a John McCain or a Bob Kerrey, precisely because John Kerry was both "sinner" and "sinned against." No one could have better explained to the nation how the world looks different with the passage of time. He could have explained that, although he is remains deeply proud to have served his country in war, he is deeply sorry that in his proudly foolish youth he spoke such vile words about the other men who fought in that war, many of whom were still fighting when he defiled them. He could have explained that there were good men and women who supported the Vietnam war and good men and women who opposed it. He could have explained that, even though he still believes he was right to oppose many things about the war, he now knows he was wrong--unequivocally wrong--to say and do the fraudulent things he said and did when he returned from Vietnam. As a sinner against those who fought in the war and against the nation as a whole, John Kerry could have sought forgiveness on behalf of all those who opposed the war. As a man who fought in that same war, John Kerry could have offered forgiveness on behalf of his fellow warriors to all those who sinned against them. At one and the same time, John Kerry could have inspired forgiveness and received forgiveness.

John Kerry could have begun the healing by saying something like this:

Vietnam has been discussed and written about without an adequate statement of its full meaning.

What is ignored is the way in which our experience during that period reflected in part a positive affirmation of American values and history, not simply the more obvious negatives of loss and confusion. What is missing is a recognition that there exists today a generation that has come into its own with powerful lessons learned, with a voice that has been grounded in experiences both of those who went to Vietnam and those who did not. What is missing and what cries out to be said is that neither one group nor the other from that difficult period of time has cornered the market on virtue or rectitude or love of country.

. . . . The race for the White House should be about leadership, and leadership requires that one help heal the wounds of Vietnam, not reopen them; that one help identify the positive things that we learned about ourselves and about our nation, not play to the divisions and differences of that crucible of our generation.

We do not need to divide America over who served and how.

In fact, John Kerry did say something like that. The words quoted above are his words.

He spoke them, but he did not mean them.

Yet we do not fault John Kerry for failing to seek the reconciliation that history seemed to have placed uniquely within his power to achieve. In the absence of healing, the nation could have continued to observe the well-established domestic truce. We all would have been content to continue to "let it alone," just as we have done for the last twenty-five years.

But now we can't "let it alone." The reason we can't "let it alone" is that John Kerry won't let us "let it alone."

We can't let it alone because John Kerry has pursued a strategy that sounds out old angers with a dissonant message that takes the two prongs of the domestic truce and makes them serve his own advantage. The domestic truce had required that those who served in Vietnam should receive honor. So Kerry now exalts in that half of the truce--not humbly as befits a genuine war hero, but constantly and immodestly waving the bloody shirt of his Vietnam service in the faces of his critics whenever any connection, no matter how illogical, can be drawn between their criticism and Kerry's Vietnam service.

Thus, when Dick Cheney criticized Kerry's positions on national security (an obvious and fair target given Kerry's voting record on defense issues), Kerry responded by "saying it is 'inappropriate' for Cheney to criticize his military service when he 'got every deferment in the world and decided he had better things to do.'" The man who not long ago high-mindedly observed that it is wrong to "divide America over who served and how," now tells us:

I think a lot of veterans are going to be very angry at a president who can't account for his own service in the National Guard, and a vice president who got every deferment in the world and decided he had better things to do, criticizing somebody who fought for their country and served.

Never mind that Cheney has never breathed a word of criticism of Kerry's military service in Vietnam. Also never mind the fact that Bush and Cheney have never even breathed a word of criticism of Kerry's anti-war activities. For them to criticize Kerry's anti-war record would violate the second prong of the domestic truce. So in questioning the service, or lack thereof, of Bush and Cheney, Kerry attempts to turn to his advantage the curious fact, mentioned above, that although the domestic truce grants honor to those who fought in the war and grants amnesties to those who actively opposed it, those in the middle (like Bush, Clinton, Quayle, and Cheney) receive no protection.

As the above story illustrates, long before the SwiftVets arrived on the scene, Kerry all by himself had succeeded in demeaning his service by transforming it into a crass non-sequitur. As one vet put it, "Nobody who claims to have seen the action he does would so shamelessly flaunt it for political gain." In his run for the presidency, Kerry's Vietnam references became so ubiquitous that one clever pundit adopted the practice of never mentioning Kerry's name without the aside that he had "by the way served in Vietnam." With far less humor, Howard Dean and Kerry's other Democrat primary rivals made the same point, noting that his Vietnam record had "become the stock answer for almost every issue for Kerry's campaign."

The predominant quality revealed in Kerry's spinning and unspinning his personal history in the Vietnam era is that, like everything else in his political life (from the SUVs he owns but doesn't own, to the medals he tossed but didn't toss, to the war in Iraq he supports but doesn't support), he's trying to have it both ways. But because of how the Vietnam era tore this country apart and still cripples the nation's political soul, Kerry's trying to have it both ways about that war is so much more telling than his SUV moment or even his flip-flops on the current war.

When Kerry came back from Vietnam, he said:

we are ashamed of and hated what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia. And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia, or Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom . . . is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy.

But now he sounds rather proud of what he did in Vietnam, when he proclaims:

We fought for this nation because we loved it . . . I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as President.

Please tell me which statement was true. If we believe Kerry's statement from thirty years ago that the war in Vietnam had nothing to do with the preservation of freedom, much less with the defense of America itself, then how can we possibly take him at his word now when he brags constantly that he "defended this country" by fighting in that war? Isn't that exactly the kind of assertion that young John Kerry called "criminal hypocrisy." But old John Kerry has never retracted young John Kerry's claim that the war in Vietnam had nothing to do with the defense of America's freedom. To the contrary, when given the opportunity to explain what he meant back then, old John Kerry contends that young John Kerry's claims were "honest":

Needless to say, I'm proud that I stood up. I don't want anybody to think twice about it. I'm proud that I took the position that I took to oppose it. I think we saved lives, and I'm proud that I stood up at a time when it was important to stand up, but I'm not going to quibble, you know, 35 years later that I might not have phrased things more artfully at times.

So you see, for old John Kerry the only thing really blameworthy about young John Kerry was that he didn't always phrase things "artfully" (i.e., in a way that would make it easier for old John to have it both ways). The fact that these statements are coming back around to haunt old John is just a problem with young John's inartful phrasing.

As for his "band of brothers,"here's a little of what Kerry said about them in 1971:

There are all kinds of atrocities and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free-fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50-caliber machine guns which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search-and-destroy missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare.

As the SwiftVets have now reminded us, in preening senate testimony before the eyes of the nation Kerry publicized accusations that his comrades had:

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 . . . . not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.

And specifically with regard to the actions of the Swifties with whom he served," here's what Kerry said in 1971 about their service:

We established an American presence in most cases by showing the flag and firing at sampans and villages along the banks. Those were our instructions, but they seemed so out of line that we finally began to go ashore, against our orders, and investigate the villages that were supposed to be our targets. We discovered we were butchering a lot of innocent people.

How can it possibly be that his actions thirty years ago, which Kerry himself described as shameful war crimes, are now so undeniably honorable that no one is allowed to question Kerry's account of those actions, not even the very men whom Kerry accused of committing war crimes?

Why must we treat it as acceptable for John Kerry to have demeaned the honor of thousands of his former comrades in 1971 while those men were at that very moment still in Vietnam's swamps and jungles fighting for their lives, but now, when John Kerry himself is well out of harm's way sleeping comfortably every night on the cushion of billions his wife inherited from her dead Republican husband, it's politically incorrect for the men Kerry called war criminals to raise a question about his anti-war activities?

Why are we are not permitted to consider the possibility, supported by the testimony of credible witnesses, that a man who said he was ashamed to have been involved in war crimes against innocent civilians would not have taken advantage of a few very minor scrapes to extricate himself from further participation in activities he considered to be shameful war crimes?

Why is that in 1971 it was patriotic dissent for John Kerry to tell young men to avoid going to Vietnam (because it was dishonorable), but now an official web site of Kerry's Democrat Party suggests it was dishonorable for George Bush not to go to Vietnam that same year? Yes, the official DNC web site throws down the gauntlet with the statement: "Kerry vs. Bush: Compare their service." To help us make that comparison, the Democrats have for years questioned every last detail about Bush's National Guard record. But as soon as anyone points out the contradictions in Kerry's actions during the Vietnam era, Kerry hides behind his tiny "band of brothers" and wraps himself in the flag with neopatriotic statements like this:

We call her Old Glory. The stars and stripes forever. I fought under that flag, as did so many of those people here tonight and all across our country. That flag flew from the gun turret right behind my head. It was shot through and through and tattered, but it never ceased to wave in the wind. It draped the caskets of men I served with and friends I grew up with.

Is that the same Old Glory displayed in so mocking a fashion on the cover of Kerry's anti-war book, "The New Soldier"?

Yes, thirty years have passed, it was a long time ago, and many people who opposed that war have quietly changed their views without ever publicly apologizing for the things they did back then that were so harmful to the men who were still fighting in that war. The best Kerry can come up with in the way of an apology for the disgusting things he said about his former comrades is a cravenly vapid statement that his anti-war activities were "a little bit excessive . . .. a little bit over the top." Joe Crecca, whose six years in as a POW must entitle him to some respect on the question, does not recall Kerry's anti-war activities as quite so benign:

The rigors and hardships of being a POW aside, I remember the so-called "peace movement" and peace marches and rallies that were taking place back home in the United States.

Our captors were more than willing, within their means, to provide us with any and all anti-U.S. and anti-Vietnam War propaganda. Without a choice in the matter, we listened to the "Voice of Vietnam" broadcasts by "Hanoi Hannah" and were shown newspaper and magazine photos and articles about those opposing the war back in the states.

One of the peace marchers' standard slogans was, "Bring our boys home now and alive." The warped thinking of such people was that by demonstrating against U.S. involvement in Vietnam, they'd be shortening the war and reducing the number of American casualties. These demonstrators would also try to make one believe that their efforts would bring POWs like me home sooner. They were utterly wrong on both counts, not to mention the detrimental effect their actions had on the morale of our troops and our POWs.

John F. Kerry was not just one of these demonstrators. He was leading them.

These demonstrations for peace had the exact opposite effect of what they purported to accomplish. Instead of shortening the war the "peace movement" served only to protract the conflict, resulting in a vastly greater number of Americans killed and wounded, greater economic burdens and longer periods of incarceration for Americans held captive in Vietnam. The war would have been over much sooner and with a much more favorable result if those in the "peace movement" would have rallied behind the commander in chief to accomplish our mission and then withdraw.

Many fewer names would be engraved into the black granite of the Vietnam Memorial if these people had supported our efforts instead of trying to derail them. After all, fighting against a political regime that up to that time had murdered more than a hundred million people couldn't have been all bad. But Kerry thought and acted differently. How many more names on the wall can he take credit for?

After the war ended, some of the war protesters hung on to their anti-war postures for a while. Some of them realized the errors of their ways almost immediately, but it took others 20 to 25 years.

Some, like Kerry, have not realized there was anything wrong with what he did. Instead, he hopes we will see him as a courageous Vietnam veteran. I do not. He hopes we will admire his bravery. I do not. I remember him more for his misdeeds upon his return from Vietnam.

Jim Warner, also a POW for five years, personally experienced the direct effects of Kerry's anti-war activities:

In late May, two months after our arrival in the punishment camp, I was called out for interrogation. I entered the interrogation room to find a junior officer, a Communist's helper, whom we called "Boris." For some time, Boris rambled on about the anti-war movement and of my "crimes." . . .

. . . .

We sparred for about an hour. Then Boris reached behind his back and pulled out some clippings from a left wing newspaper in the U.S. He showed me several articles about an event, which had been held in Detroit, called "The Winter Soldier Hearings." He left me to read the articles while he left the room. The articles reported alleged "testimony" from people who claimed to be Vietnam veterans who allegedly claimed that they had done things which, if true, would have lead to courts martial for each of them. That is, they were typical communist propaganda.

. . . .

When Boris returned he asked me what I thought. I told him that I was from Detroit, but did not recognize any of the names so I assumed that they were Communists brought in from around the country. "Not so," he cried. Look at this. He showed me a picture of an unforgettable face. "This man was an officer in your navy. He says that the war is illegal, immoral and unjust. Read what he says." I read the words of John Kerry.

What John Kerry said, according to the clippings, was that the U.S. should abandon South East Asia, unilaterally and immediately. This, of course, would not only leave the Prisoners of War in the hands of the Communists, but far worse, there was not a sane person in the universe who did not know that the instant the countries of South East Asia were abandoned, the blood bath would begin. I told Boris "this man should be punished. He says that he did criminal things. America is a free country and a free people do not allow such crimes. We are not like Communists." I told Boris that there would be a blood bath if we pulled out unilaterally.

Boris got angry and began threatening me. He said that my own countrymen, Jane Fonda, Sen. Fulbright, and the subject of the article, John Kerry, insisted that the threatened "blood bath" was a myth invented by the reactionary government of the United States. He told me that Kerry had admitted that we were criminals, as the communists never ceased to tell us, and that we should be punished. The interrogation continued for another hour. Finally, Boris, frustrated, put me back in my cell, while still muttering threats at me. It was the longest interrogation I had without torture. . . .

When John Kerry said that Vietnam vets were criminals, did he not know that the Communists would use his words against the POWs? He feels insulted when someone questions his patriotism. What other conclusion would you come to, if you were in my shoes?

Yes, it's true that under the strict terms of our long-standing domestic truce, John Kerry was not required to apologize for the things he said thirty years ago, even though he himself had more recently tested that truce with his attacks on George Bush's National Guard service. But then in January of this year, to burnish his credentials as a war president, Kerry's authorized biography reported a story implying that his Swift Boat comrades had fled the scene of an enemy attack while he alone returned to rescue the wounded. Honor being such an insignificant thing to John Kerry, he probably had no idea that--with his biography reviving war crimes accusations and, more specifically, implying cowardice on the part of his fellow swiftees--he had broken the domestic truce.

The truce is over. The Swift Vets and all the other vets John Kerry has freshly maligned are determined that this time around he is not going to have it both ways. Men like Michael Benge, Kenneth Cordier, Joseph Crecca, and Jim Warner, who have already lost too many years of their lives to the Vietnam war, would have much preferred that Kerry had not restarted this fight. But now that he has, they are not going to let it alone.

[Note: Because it's been too long since my last post, I've decided to post the above item in a rough draft condition. Some links might not work, and the spelling and grammar are probably sorely deficient, but I'll clean it up as time permits. -- Adeimantus]

QUESTION: After the inauguration, what would be your first action as president?

Kerry: I will send to Congress a health care plan that stops spiraling costs, covers every child in America, and makes it possible for every American to get the same health care as any member of Congress.

(The tax bill will be mailed later. )

Kerry: The very first thing I will do, as soon as I’m sworn in as president – I’ll even begin the process before that, but I will not be empowered to do anything until I take office, is to convene an international conference, with the Europeans co-chairing, and the Arab countries co-chairing.

(And with the Americans wearing white gloves and serving soup.)

Kerry: The first thing John Kerry will do is fight his heart out to bring back the three million jobs that have been lost under George W. Bush.

(Can you get a medal for that?)

Kerry: The first thing I’d do is appoint an attorney general of the United States who’s obviously not John Ashcroft.

(That truly courageous decision narrows the field considerably. But, John, do you really feel comfortable boxing yourself in like that?)

Kerry: If elected, [my] first act as president of the United States would be an executive order reversing President Bush on embryonic stem cell research.

(So you can clone yourself from the undead!)

Kerry: [I] would immediately begin bilateral negotiations with North Korea -- a goal the Pyongyang government has long sought.

(When America and her trusted allies get rid of Saddam, it's "unilateral." When Kerry plans to cut our allies out of negotiations with North Korea, that's "bilateral." And when Kerry serves soup to the Europeans and Arabs, that's "multilateral.")

Kerry: The first thing I would do is get rid of the failed Bush economic policies and that means rolling back the tax cut.

(Why don't you have the guts to just come right out and say you're going to raise taxes?)

Kerry: [My] first act as commander in chief would be to add 40,000 troops to the Army's ranks of 480,000 active-duty soldiers.

(Forty-thousand Republican votes!)

Kerry: [My] first executive order [would be to] reverse the Mexico City policy on the gag rule so that we take a responsible position globally on family planning

(Let's spend our hard-earned dollars to enrich third-world abortionists.)

Kerry: The first thing I’ll do when I get into office is to issue an executive order pardoning you for anything you did on spring break!

(Raising taxes and granting pardons . . . sound familiar?)