The Character Issue Will Hurt Kerry - BADLY

Self | 1-30-04 | Jonathan M. Stein

[jmstein7]

The Character Issue: It Didn’t Hurt Clinton, But It Will Hurt Kerry

 

By Jonathan M. Stein

 

            Bill Clinton and John Kerry have something in common: they are both liars.  Bill Clinton’s lies were extrinsic to his ability to perform in office – i.e. he lied about receiving oral sex from an intern.  John Kerry’s lies, distortions, and betrayals, on the other hand, go directly to his fitness, or lack thereof, to sit in the Oval Office.  For that reason, American’s will not give Kerry the same “pass” that they gave Clinton on the character issue.

            Public opinion polls indicate that President Bush’s strongest suit is his good character.  In a recent Los Angeles Times survey, respondents stated that, regardless of his policies, they support the president because he “stands up for what he believes in,” they “know where he is coming from,” and, essentially, they “just like him.”   Therefore, it follows a priori that a democrat who hopes to challenge Bush cannot merely run on policy differences – an effective candidate must be of equal or greater character.  John Kerry is not that candidate.

            The war on terror will unquestionably be a major theme in the 2004 Presidential Campaign.  As in the days of the Cold War, the American public wants a leader who can ensure their continuing safety and protect their way of life from external malefactors.  This is a critical area where John Kerry suffers from a severe credibility gap fostered by a long history of inconsistencies.  Back in 1991, The New Republic caught John Kerry trying to play both sides of the Gulf War issue.  Two letters were sent to Kerry’s office – one in opposition to the war, and one in favor of the war.  Kerry’s response to the first letter read:

"Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition ... to the early use of military force by the US against Iraq. I share your concerns. On January 11, I voted in favor of a resolution that would have insisted that economic sanctions be given more time to work and against a resolution giving the president the immediate authority to go to war."

 

However, Kerry’s response to the second letter read:

"Thank you very much for contacting me to express your support for the actions of President Bush in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. From the outset of the invasion, I have strongly and unequivocally supported President Bush's response to the crisis and the policy goals he has established with our military deployment in the Persian Gulf."

 

The article was aptly titled "Same Senator, Same Constituent.” 

            Clearly, Kerry hopes to counterbalance his perceived dithering on critical defense issues with his service in Vietnam.  To mute criticisms of his ability to lead the nation in the war on terror, Kerry constantly, and ostentatiously, touts himself as a Vietnam “War Hero.”  His claims are nothing short of outrageous.  At best, Kerry is a mere deserter; at worst, John Kerry is a war criminal.

            John Kerry, commanding Swift Boat 44 in Vietnam, recklessly slaughtered innocent women, children, and the elderly in cold blood.  These facts are undisputed – facts that John Kerry himself said he’ll “never forget.”  In 1971, John Kerry went before Congress and betrayed his fellow servicemen.  Kerry testified that American soldiers in Vietnam committed atrocities similar to the atrocities that he admits to having committed – and he called his comrades war criminals.  Thus, by Kerry’s own definition, John Kerry himself is not a war hero – he is a war criminal.

            Kerry did not complete his tour of duty in Vietnam.  Instead, in an appeal to Commodore Charles F. Horne, Kerry abused a loophole in the rules to secure an early discharge – Kerry suffered three minor, superficial wounds.  American’s will not trust Kerry to stay the course in Iraq when they learn that he himself opted to cut and run. 

            Finally, as Senator in 1993, John Kerry betrayed and defamed the families of fellow servicemen who were MIA.  Despite strong evidence to the contrary, which Kerry was able to suppress as Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA, the Committee’s final report concluded that “there is no proof that U.S. POWs survived.”  Kerry then turned viciously on the MIA/POW families and activists, slandering them as “professional malcontents, conspiracy mongers, con artists, and dime-store Rambos.”  As a result, relations with Vietnam were normalized, and Colliers International, a firm in Senator Kerry’s Massachusetts, secured a contract with Vietnam worth billions. 

            John Kerry cannot be trusted, and he must never sit in the Oval Office. 

[jmstein7]

Kerry cannot be allowed, in the same breath, to call himself a hero, but curse others as criminals, for the exact same conduct.

Innocents were killed in Vietnam because it was inherent in that type of combat -- VC used women and children, often hiding behind them. Kerry, killing a kid to get to a soldier, is no more righteous in his actions than any other American killing a kid to get to a VC.

[dwd1]

He did his time. As far as I am concerned, he can say what he likes. And my question is this. When did he spit on a GI returning and call that person a "baby killer" or some of the other charming things. Did he protest Government Policy and the conduct of the war? One thing that many have to understand is that there needs to be a separation of soldiers doing their duty and government officials who order soldiers to carry out policies that are less than civil...


This is the same argument I hear when the Confederate Flag issue comes up...

We can honor the soldiers but separate them from the policies and government they supported.... And if the issue is policy, who was the CIA director back in the early 70's? ... Perhaps he could shed some light on Air America, Peace with Honor, etc... I also served with someone who got shot in Cambodia in 1969 but he did not ever get a purple heart because "we weren't there"....

The problem in this whole thing is that the Vietnam War was very divisive and this one is getting to the same point... I think everyone wanted to do whatever was necessary to stop 100 body bags a week from being filled...

I may be wrong but I think someone who was in firefights and had to take another life up close and personal should be given a little lattitude than someone who served in the Air National Guard and never heard the sound of an AK-47 round fired in anger...IMHO...

[jmstein7]

And theirin lies the problem; Kerry didn't seperate the policy from the soldiers. His indictment was of the conduct of his fellow soldiers.

[dwd1]

A politician that wants it both ways... I am shocked! SHOCKED! I say!!!

W has gotten it down good... Stand in front of police and military....

Get photo ops on MLK day... Let Ted Olsen, Clarence Thomas, John Ashcroft, Elaine Chow, Donald Rumsfeld, and others wear the black hats...

[dwd1]

Are you saying that Calley and several others were not guilty of violating the rules of war.... I know the Viet Cong did but being that we lost the war (though we won the battles) seems to indicate a loss of moral high ground... I know we did not cut off the arms of children given vaccines but let's be honest and state that there was some unnecessary killing...

I do not think a blanket should be cast over all GIs because there were far more that served honorably and did their duty as best they could in difficult circumstances.... However, if a person is offering specific criticisms of specific atrocities witnessed, I am OK with that.... There needs to be a balance between "I was just following orders"

[jmstein7]

Yes, but there is a problem with that... the "Winter Soldier Investigation", where Kerry and the others made those statements, were proven to be a sham -- as were the statements.

Daniel Ellsberg -- as in "The Pentagon Papers" -- is certainly not pro-Vietnam, but he wrote a book exposing Kerry, and the other "Winter Soldiers", as liars.

Kerry has never apologized for slandering his fellow vets.

[dwd1]

I am not familiar with the books but if you are going to say that Daniel Ellsberg is telling the truth, then you have to admit that the US government was not playing nice....

I have always been told truth is a complete defense. Have any defamation or slander suits been filed against Mr. Kerry and if so, were they successful... I would think someone who was successfully sued for slander against military personnel would be unelectable....

If not, I say again... He did his time... He can express his opinion... That is the freedom he fought for....

I may disagree with what he said but I would never say he has no right to say it... And if you look at others in elective office...

They seem to be equally unapologetic...

Seem to be a lot of books out there that show people in a bad light....

If we can forgive Bush for making mistakes in foreign policy and we can forgive Reagan for not doing all he could on domestic issues and covert ops (Iran Contra, bin Laden, supporting Hussein in their war against Iran) and we can forgive Bush 41 for not taking Hussein out back in 91, then we can forgive someone who expressed an opinion 30 years ago after killing, seeing friends die, and doing his time honorably...

And the thing that everyone has to realize about these smear stories is that you open your side to it....

Kerry can say he was there which gives him a perspective and a credibility that Bush does not have.... Bush can say he was involved with helping a political campaign and that his father was running the CIA...

Also, for good or bad, he has been elected, re-elected several times, and served the public for a long time...

I think it is best to stick to policy issues because I can promise you everyone has skeletons in their closets and made mistakes in their youth...

I don't think Kerry is going to make it as a candidate anyway but I do tire of the smearing...

If you combine the disputed Florida Vote in 2000, the recalls, the acting on questionable intelligence, the bad economy and loss of jobs, questionable administration ties to certain businesses, and other problems... That is where the case can be made that Bush can handle things when they are good or bad... Attacking the opposition on character issues instead of policy issues is a clear indication to me that someone is a little too defensive...

Yes, character counts, but let us be honest and state that a boy scout has not been elected in the US since 1789...

We want someone who can get things done and takes responsibility for their decisions....

Both Kerry and Bush could use some work in that area...

[jmstein7]

"Also, for good or bad, he has been elected, re-elected several times, and served the public for a long time... "

So has Ted Kennedy. That means nothing.

"Attacking the opposition on character issues instead of policy issues is a clear indication to me that someone is a little too defensive"

Exactly -- and that is ALL the Democrat candidates have done... attack. Not a single one of them has said what they will DO; all they do is attack Bush.

[dwd1]

Makes me wonder how Kerry got elected... It would seem that perhaps he was more believable than Ellsberg... Both were insiders but Kerry was "inside" Vietnam and Ellsberg was "inside" the beltway...

I wonder if that caused any credibility problems...

[dwd1]

Correct me if I am wrong but isn't this story an attack on Kerry?

[jmstein7]

He got elected because of the liberal electorate in his home state and the fact that he is better funded than any challenger has been. Period.

"It would seem that perhaps he was more believable than Ellsberg"

Obviously you don not know much about Ellsberg.

Also, "me thinks you doth protest too much." For a "conservative", you are sure keen on sticking up for Kerry, an avowed liberal. You are also keen on bashing Bush.

[jmstein7]

An attack of FACTS, not hyperbole.

[dwd1]

I have not been electd to anything since high school but I think you will find that long serving Congressman would disagree.... Strom Thurmond, John McCain, John Glenn, etc... I am sure that they feel being re-elected indicates a certain level of power as well as a certain confidence with the electorate and party they serve...

I am not saying that new guys in politics can't be elected but let's be honest and say that serving and getting elected without federal or state corruption/election charges is no minor achievement...

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Statement: " The Character Issue Will Hurt Kerry - BADLY"

Response: This is not a true statement. In America 2004 A.D. Bad character guarantees election, millions in personal income and elder statesman status upon retirement.

[dwd1]

I have no problem with Ellsberg or Kerry and since I am from Texas, neither has concerned me up to this point... However, as you are now going to question my motives instead of my facts, help yourself.... By the way, I am a moderate... Social Moderate, Fiscal Conservative.. Independent Minded... And we are both, from our perspectives, simply stating what we believe to be facts...

I try to let facts speak for themselves... I don't know Kerry and I think Edwards or Clark would be better candidates anyway....

However, if bin Laden is captured in August as I estimate, all will be well and Bush will be re-elected...

As I said before, I do tire of the divisive and negative rhetoric and I do not see it coming from me...

I see it on too many issues and it is not necessary...

Can we simply win on the merits of the conservative platform...

My problem with stories such as this are that smear tactics, recalls, and dirty tricks may give us short term success but long term, we look like people who are drunk on power and think no one else has a right to say anything... That is what I do not want to see... That is what I am sticking up for....

[jmstein7]

(Read This - it makes my point)

Vetting the Vet Record

Is Kerry a proud war hero or angry antiwar protester?

By Mackubin Thomas Owens, an NRO contributing editor and a professor of strategy and force planning at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. He led a Marine infantry platoon in Vietnam in 1968-1969.

John Kerry, we know, is running against John Kerry: his own voting record. But there is another record that John Kerry is running against, and this has to do with his very emergence as a Democratic politician: Kerry, the proud Vietnam veteran vs. Kerry, the antiwar activist who accused his fellow Vietnam veterans of the most heinous atrocities imaginable.










John Kerry not only served honorably in Vietnam, but also with distinction, earning a Silver Star (America's third-highest award for valor), a Bronze Star, and three awards of the Purple Heart for wounds received in combat as a swift-boat commander. Kerry did not return from Vietnam a radical antiwar activist. According to the indispensable Stolen Valor, by H. G. "Jug" Burkett and Genna Whitley, "Friends said that when Kerry first began talking about running for office, he was not visibly agitated about the Vietnam War. 'I thought of him as a rather normal vet,' a friend said to a reporter, 'glad to be out but not terribly uptight about the war.' Another acquaintance who talked to Kerry about his political ambitions called him a 'very charismatic fellow looking for a good issue.'" Apparently, this good issue would be Vietnam.

Kerry hooked up with an organization called Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). Two events cooked up by this group went a long way toward cementing in the public mind the image of Vietnam as one big atrocity. The first of these was the January 31, 1971, "Winter Soldier Investigation," organized by "the usual suspects" among antiwar celebrities such as Jane Fonda, Dick Gregory, and Kennedy-assassination conspiracy theorist, Mark Lane. Here, individuals purporting to be Vietnam veterans told horrible stories of atrocities in Vietnam: using prisoners for target practice, throwing them out of helicopters, cutting off the ears of dead Viet Cong soldiers, burning villages, and gang-raping women as a matter of course.

The second event was "Dewey Canyon III," or what VVAW called a "limited incursion into the country of Congress" in April of 1971. It was during this VVAW "operation" that John Kerry first came to public attention. The group marched on Congress to deliver petitions to Congress and then to the White House. The highlight of this event occurred when veterans threw their medals and ribbons over a fence in front of the Capitol, symbolizing a rebuke to the government that they claimed had betrayed them. One of the veterans flinging medals back in the face of his government was John Kerry, although it turns out they were not his medals, but someone else's.

Several days later Kerry testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. His speech, touted as a spontaneous rhetorical endeavor, was a tour de force, convincing many Americans that their country had indeed waged a merciless and immoral war in Vietnam. It was particularly powerful because Kerry did not fit the antiwar-protester mold — he was no scruffy, wide-eyed hippie. He was instead the best that America had to offer. He was, according to Burkett and Whitley, the "All-American boy, mentally twisted by being asked to do terrible things, then abandoned by his government."

Kerry began by referring to the Winter Soldiers Investigation in Detroit. Here, he claimed, "over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam, but they did, they relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

They told their stories. At times they had personally 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, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

This is quite a bill of particulars to lay at the feet of the U.S. military. He said in essence that his fellow veterans had committed unparalleled war crimes in Vietnam as a matter of course, indeed, that it was American policy to commit such atrocities.

In fact, the entire Winter Soldiers Investigation was a lie. It was inspired by Mark Lane's 1970 book entitled Conversations with Americans, which claimed to recount atrocity stories by Vietnam veterans. This book was panned by James Reston Jr. and Neil Sheehan, not exactly known as supporters of the Vietnam War. Sheehan in particular demonstrated that many of Lane's "eye witnesses" either had never served in Vietnam or had not done so in the capacity they claimed.

Nonetheless, Sen. Mark Hatfield inserted the transcript of the Winter Soldier testimonies into the Congressional Record and asked the Commandant of the Marine Corps to investigate the war crimes allegedly committed by Marines. When the Naval Investigative Service attempted to interview the so-called witnesses, most refused to cooperate, even after assurances that they would not be questioned about atrocities they may have committed personally. Those that did cooperate never provided details of actual crimes to investigators. The NIS also discovered that some of the most grisly testimony was given by fake witnesses who had appropriated the names of real Vietnam veterans. Guenter Lewy tells the entire study in his book, America in Vietnam.

Kerry's 1971 testimony includes every left-wing cliché about Vietnam and the men who served there. It is part of the reason that even today, people who are too young to remember Vietnam are predisposed to believe the worst about the Vietnam War and those who fought it. This predisposition was driven home by the fraudulent "Tailwind" episode some months ago.

The first cliché is that atrocities were widespread in Vietnam. But this is nonsense. Atrocities did occur in Vietnam, but they were far from widespread. Between 1965 and 1973, 201 soldiers and 77 Marines were convicted of serious crimes against the Vietnamese. Of course, the fact that many crimes, either in war or peace, go unreported, combined with the particular difficulties encountered by Americans fighting in Vietnam, suggest that more such acts were committed than reported or tried.

But even Daniel Ellsberg, a severe critic of U.S. policy in Vietnam, rejected the argument that the biggest U.S. atrocity in Vietnam, My Lai, was in any way a normal event: "My Lai was beyond the bounds of permissible behavior, and that is recognizable by virtually every soldier in Vietnam. They know it was wrong....The men who were at My Lai knew there were aspects out of the ordinary. That is why they tried to hide the event, talked about it to no one, discussed it very little even among themselves."

My Lai was an extreme case, but anyone who has been in combat understands the thin line between permissible acts and atrocity. The first and potentially most powerful emotion in combat is fear arising from the instinct of self-preservation. But in soldiers, fear is overcome by what the Greeks called thumos, spiritedness and righteous anger. In the Iliad, it is thumos, awakened by the death of his comrade Patroclus that causes Achilles to leave sulking in his tent and wade into the Trojans.

But unchecked, thumos can engender rage and frenzy. It is the role of leadership, which provides strategic context for killing and enforces discipline, to prevent this outcome. Such leadership was not in evidence at My Lai.

But My Lai also must be placed within a larger context. The NVA and VC frequently committed atrocities, not as a result of thumos run amok, but as a matter of policy. While left-wing anti-war critics of U.S. policy in Vietnam were always quick to invoke Auschwitz and the Nazis in discussing alleged American atrocities, they were silent about Hue City, where a month and a half before My Lai, the North Vietnamese and VC systematically murdered 3,000 people. They were also willing to excuse Pol Pot's mass murderer of upwards of a million Cambodians.

The second cliché is that is that Vietnam scarred an entire generation of young men. But for years, many of us who served in Vietnam tried to make the case that the popular image of the Vietnam vet as maladjusted loser, dehumanized killer, or ticking "time bomb" was at odds with reality. Indeed, it was our experience that those who had served in Vietnam generally did so with honor, decency, and restraint; that despite often being viewed with distrust or opprobrium at home, most had asked for nothing but to be left alone to make the transition back to civilian life; and that most had in fact made that transition if not always smoothly, at least successfully.

But the press could always find the stereotypical, traumatized vet who could be counted on to tell the most harrowing and gruesome stories of combat in Vietnam, often involving atrocities, the sort of stories that John Kerry gave credence to in his 1971 testimony. Many of the war stories recounted by these individuals were wildly implausible to any one who had been in Vietnam, but credulous journalists, most of whom had no military experience, uncritically passed their reports along to the public.

I had always agreed with the observation of the late Harry Summers, a well-known military commentator who served as an infantryman in Korean and Vietnam, that the story teller's distance from the battle zone was directly proportional to the gruesomeness of his atrocity story. But until the publication of the aforementioned Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and its History, neither Harry nor I any idea just how true his observation was.

In the course of trying to raise money for a Texas Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Burkett discovered that reporters were only interested in homeless veterans and drug abuse and that the corporate leaders he approached had bought into the popular image of Vietnam veterans. They were not honorable men who took pride in their service, but whining welfare cases, bellyaching about what an immoral government did to them.

Fed up, Burkett did something that any reporter worth his or her salt could have done: he used the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to check the actual records of the "image makers" used by reporters to flesh out their stories on homelessness, Agent Orange, suicide, drug abuse, criminality, or alcoholism. What he found was astounding. More often than not, the showcase "veteran" who cried on camera about his dead buddies, about committing or witnessing atrocities, or about some heroic action in combat that led him to the current dead end in his life, was an impostor.

Indeed, Burkett discovered that over the last decade, some 1,700 individuals, including some of the most prominent examples of the Vietnam veteran as dysfunctional loser, had fabricated their war stories. Many had never even been in the service. Others, had been, but had never been in Vietnam.

Stolen Valor made it clear why John Kerry's testimony in 1971 slandered an entire generation of soldiers. Kerry gave credence to the claim that the war was fought primarily by reluctant draftees, predominantly composed of the poor, the young, or racial minorities.

The record shows something different, indicating that 86 percent of those who died during the war were white and 12.5 percent were black, from an age group in which blacks comprised 13.1 percent of the population. Two thirds of those who served in Vietnam were volunteers, and volunteers accounted for 77 percent of combat deaths.

Kerry portrayed the Vietnam veteran as ashamed of his service:

We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped their memories of us. But all that they have done and all that they can do by this denial is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission, to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war, to pacify our own hearts, to conquer the hate and the fear that have driven this country these last ten years and more, and so when in 30 years from now our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say "Vietnam" and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory, but mean instead the place where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.

But a comprehensive 1980 survey commissioned by Veterans' Administration (VA) reported that 91 percent of those who had seen combat in Vietnam were "glad they had served their country;" 80 percent disagreed with the statement that "the US took advantage of me;" and nearly two out of three would go to Vietnam again, even knowing how the war would end.

Today, Sen. Kerry appeals to veterans in his quest for the White House. He invokes his Vietnam service at every turn. But an honest, enterprising reporter should ask Sen. Kerry this: Were you lying in 1971 or are you lying now? We do know that his speech was not the spontaneous, emotional, from-the-heart offering that he suggested it was. Burkett and Whitley report that instead, "it had been carefully crafted by a speech writer for Robert Kennedy named Adam Walinsky, who also tutored him on how to present it."

But the issue goes far beyond theatrics. If he believes his 1971 indictment of his country and his fellow veterans was true, then he couldn't possibly be proud of his Vietnam service. Who can be proud of committing war crimes of the sort that Kerry recounted in his 1971 testimony? But if he is proud of his service today, perhaps it is because he always knew that his indictment in 1971 was a piece of political theater that he, an aspiring politician, exploited merely as a "good issue." If the latter is true, he should apologize to every veteran of that war for slandering them to advance his political fortunes.

[dwd1]

Kerry is worth 500M plus because he had the good sense to seduce someone that is a little on the wealthy side(Heinz)... He married well...
I don't think I will ever meet him on the bus....

[dwd1]

Just for the sake of argument, say this is all true... Sounds like more of an indictment of the organization... Please tell me if Kerry is still a part of that organization...

Also, please tell me why something that happened 33 years ago that one could argu say is a mistake is relevant now... Lott disavows his segregationist past, Strom Thurmond changed, George Wallace changed... Isn't a better question "Why did you this then and what is your position now?" I think that the question that you wish to pose, if all you say is true, will be asked by Chris Matthews or Matt Drudge.... I, like you, would like to hear the answer....

However, you have to understand that these "Then, and now" questions are a double edged sword.... I am sure that Kerry and Bush have done some things as elected officials and candidates they are not proud of...

[dwd1]

Correct me if I wrong but isn't lying to congress a federal offense... When was Kerry convicted of this offense and how much time in a federal penitentiary did he serve before being elected to office?...

[jmstein7]

Perjury is perjury. Clinton perjured himself before a federal grand jury... how much time did he do?