It is amazing that the national referendum on the GWOT (including Iraq) may come down to four months in VietNam. I blame the Dems as a party, more than I blame Kerry. Kerry's a one-trick pony. (Always wanted to use that phrase.) Since, during a time of war, he can't reasonably run on his record of opposing defense and intelligence upgrades and expenditures, Kerry has to bank on his service in VietNam. That's not his fault, it's all he's got. And he's fighting tooth and nail to keep what credibility remains after the SwiftVets get through with him. Once you've seen their new ad "Sellout" you'll understand why Kerry's trying to quash it. The transcript to the ad is here. The ad uses Kerry's testimony before Congress in his Vietnam Veterans Against the War days as he recounts the "war crimes" of his fellows.
John Kerry: “. . . cut off limbs, blown up bodies. . .”Ken Cordier: “That was part of the torture, was, uh, to sign a statement that you had committed war crimes.”
John Kerry: “. . . razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan. . .”
Paul Gallanti: “John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I, and many of my, uh, comrades in North Vietnam, in the prison camps, uh, took torture to avoid saying. It demoralized us.”
John Kerry: “. . . crimes committed on a day to day basis. . . ”
It's also really annoying that Kerry pronounces "Ghengis" with a soft "J" instead of a hard "G", I'm just used to hearing the latter, both are probably right.
The Dems really blew it with Kerry. They would have been better off with Howard Dean. Kerry's straddling of every issue, especially Iraq, really lives little room for anyone who's considering voting for him to have much respect for him. He's really the Anybody But Bush candidate. If the Dems as a party were so opposed to Iraq they should have went with Dean. He's a total maniac (though he said something reasonable recently) at least you knew what you were getting. There's something about Dean that, mostly in retrospect and mostly when compared to Kerry, you knew if the shit hit the fan with another terrorist attack or something he'd go apeshit and strike back; hard. With Kerry I get the feeling there will be a lot of dithering. If the Democrats are the anti-war party then they should have put up the guy (Dean) who made Kerry look silly during the primary season on the Iraq issue. Alas, we're stuck with Kerry as the Democratic Nominee. If the SwiftVets stuff keeps snowballing, it would be really hard to see Kerry being sweared in next winter.
Here's a decent wrap-up of the Kerry/SwiftBoat Vets thing. (Blog-style, of course.)
Ace of Spades HQ on the "spindoctor" hired by the Kerry campaign.
Mudville Gazzette has a series of profiles of the Vets in the new ad.
Mark Steyn has a letter from a guy who knew Kerry in the VVAW days.
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