Row, Row, Row Your Boat (Into Cambodia)

James Lileks has an interesting take on the whole issue of Kerry, Swift Boat vets, and Cambodia. I agree with him, normally this would be trifling stuff, if Kerry hadn’t made his time in Vietnam the crux of his entire campaign. As Lileks notes:

If Kerry’s story is a lie, it’s significant, but not because we have a gotcha moment – gee, a politician reworked the truth to his advantage, big surprise. This is much larger than that. This is like Bush insisting that he flew an intercept mission with the Texas Air National Guard to repel Soviet bombers based in Cuba, and later stating that this event was “seared in his memory – seared” because it taught him the necessity of standing up against evil governments, such as the ones we face today. In other words, it would not only be a lie, but one that eroded the political persona he was relying upon in the election. Kerry has made Vietnam central to his campaign. If he’s making crap up, it matters. But the story of the CIA agent he ferried into the Heart of Darkness gives the gotcha a curious twist; as lawyers say on TV courtroom dramas, it goes to state of mind. What sort of man bedecked with genuine decorations feels compelled to manufacture a story like this one?

And that’s the issue. Kerry is using his service as a shield, arguing that four months in combat makes him a more effective Commander-in-Chief. Now, I don’t fault Kerry’s service. There’s no question he served in Vietnam. However, even even half of the Swift Boat Vet’s allegations are true it’s a pretty damn big deal.

See, character counts in an election. Kerry is arguing that his service makes him more patriotic than the President. He doesn’t use such blunt language, but the insinuation is there. Yet if Kerry is deliberately lying about his service, as he clearly is in his Senate testimony about being in Cambodia, it speaks to his character. The Democrats have accused Bush of “lying” about uranium in Africa (a charge that was completely untrue). They’ve accused him of “lying” about WMDs when it is clear that everyone else (including those making the charges) believed the exact same thing. They’ve accused him of being a serial liar – but when Kerry gets caught in a lie that is actually provable, all of a sudden it’s simply beyond the pale that anyone would say such things.

And that’s why the Democrats just can’t be trusted. Look at the way they’re behaving. All Kerry would have had to do is let the issue go and it would have gone away on its own. But he’s had his campaign staffers launch a blistering assault on the Swift Boat Vets, threatening lawsuits, and apparently planting fake news stories claiming retractions that never existed. The result of this: the story has grown legs it never would have grown had Kerry simply ignored the issue.

Kerry made his service an issue. If he didn’t want people examining and questioning it, he shouldn’t have brought it up. They say all’s fair in love and war – that goes doubly so for politics. Kerry has had some serious charges levelled at him – and if the only response he can offer is with ad hominem attacks and lawsuits, it only makes it appear like those charges have merit.

16 thoughts on “Row, Row, Row Your Boat (Into Cambodia)

  1. As goofy and irrelevant as this would-be scandal is, I must say that like the swift boat veterans bashing Kerry on Bush’s latest attack ad, it’s kind of refreshing to hear criticism of Kerry from ACTUAL veterans….as opposed to the usual critics of Kerry and other veterans who are primarily chickenhawks and/or descendants of chickenhawks, launching character assassination after character assassination from their fetal position in the dark corner of their air-conditioned offices.

  2. Ah yes, the old Democratic tactic of calling people names. How clever.

    If you wish to state for the record that you support a military dictatorship in which only the military is allowed to make defense policy, just state it outright. Elsewise, you may take the term “chickenhawk” and shove it.

  3. Watch out or the wind might blow away your strawman. I have no problem with cowardly chickenhawks spouting attacks on war opponents or veterans….but I reserve the right to point out how limited the credibility of such attackers is. As I said, it’s somewhat refreshing for me to hear attacks on Kerry’s war record, however slanderous and untrue they may be, coming from those who actually served their country. It’s seldom the case that such vitriol is leveled by veterans because they tend to recognize a real enemy when they see one while the attacking class of draft-dodgers and chickenhawk cowards are more likely to view their enemies as Democrats at home.

  4. To Mark
    Democrats aren’t the ememy most of them are just confused a bit. You sound like you have a lot of pent up anger.

  5. It is very revealing that the Kerry Kamp and their surrogates have not offered one fact to rebut the Swift Vets charges. All they can do is engage in ad hominem attacks and vague outrage.

    Mark proves the point…he has no answer to explain Kerry’s lies.

    There can be absolutely no doubt that in his Christmas in Cambodia story that Kerry is lying…he has been caught. What will be telling now is how the media reacts to this.

  6. This is a big story, whether the media wants it to be or not. Kerry has been caught in a big whopper of a lie, and not just once, but one told repeatedly over a sequence of years to make a certain political point.

    There is really no way he can explain his way out of this one.

  7. Hey Mark: I served in the Marine Corps and was honorably discharged. My guess is you did not. Therefore, my argument is better than yours.

    Oh, and my dad can beat your dad too. Nice try, sport.

  8. Nice try, sport.

    Funny, though, that you guys are dismissing the argument when it’s the exact same one you used against Clinton all those years ago:

    A hint of this came Thursday, the day before the vote, when Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson rekindled 7-year-old attacks on Clinton’s lack of military service. Nicholson’s called a press conference to launch a pre-emptive attack on Clinton’s post-impeachment agenda.

    “Unlike (Clinton) I’ve seen real combat,” said Nicholson, a decorated Vietnam War veteran.

    Of course, it wouldn’t be conservativism if you couldn’t spell it “hypocrite.”

  9. “Therefore, my argument is better than yours,” The Lapsed Randian

    I think a very important first step you may wanna make before declaring your argument victorious is to actually make an argument. 😉

  10. Of course, it’s very revealing that no liberal troll has offered any defense of Kerry’s “Christmas in Cambodia” lie…the actual topic of this thread.

  11. Mark: you missed my point. I was trying to be ironic, i.e., because I’m a veteran, my argument is automatically better than yours, substance be damned. You might call it a “reverse chickenhawk” principle.

  12. Of course, it’s very revealing that no liberal troll has offered any defense of Kerry’s “Christmas in Cambodia” lie…

    Well, Nixon was the president in 1968, so that part of the criticism is false.

    I don’t really know anything else about the controversy; maybe Jay or someone else could provide a link?

  13. Nixon was elected in 1968.

    Right, making him the President-Elect in Christmas Eve of 1968, and referred to in casual speech as “the President” or “the new President”, just as we do today. You guys make it sound like Kerry couldn’t possibly have heard “Nixon” and “President” in the same sentence on the radio on Christmas Eve; that’s simply not true.

    If the best you have against Kerry’s story is this little bit of semantic hair-splitting, please.

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