The Massachusetts Democrat curse

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | Wednesday, February 04, 2004 | David M. Shribman

[Willie Green]

You can write the Republicans' critique of John F. Kerry in your sleep: The Democrats' new star is a protege not only of Edward M. Kennedy, with whom he's served in the Senate for two decades, but also of Michael S. Dukakis, whom he served as lieutenant governor. He's not only a big-time liberal, he's also from Massachusetts, the spiritual home of big-time liberalism.

[Eva]

I can do better.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the text of William F. Buckley Jr.'s June 8, 1971, commencement address to the United States Military Academy at West Point. The speech appears here as it is in Let Us Talk of Many Things : The Collected Speeches.

The morale in the armed services was low, reflecting the impasse and progressive demoralization in Vietnam, and especially the trial of Lieutenant William Calley for the massacre at Mylai. A drastic charge, flamboyantly made by decorated veteran John Kerry (now a United States senator from Massachusetts), had been rapturously received. Kerry ascribed to our soldiers in Vietnam uncivilized, barbarous practices. I devoted my talk to asking about Mr. Kerry's charges and reflecting on their implications.

A great deal has been written lately on the spirit of progressivism at West Point. I note that a generation ago, cadets were not permitted to read a newspaper, whereas today, each cadet room receives a daily copy of the New York Times. I know now what it means to be nostalgic for the good old days.

I read ten days ago the full text of the quite remarkable address delivered by John Kerry before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. It was an address, I am told, that paralyzed the committee by its eloquence and made Mr. Kerry — a veteran of the war in Vietnam, a pedigreed Bostonian, a graduate of Yale University — an instant hero.

After reading it I put it aside, deeply troubled as I was by the haunting resonance of its peroration, which so moved the audience. The words he spoke were these:

"[We are determined] to undertake one last mission, to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war, to pacify our hearts, to conquer the hate and fear that have driven this country these last ten years and more, so that when, thirty 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 the place where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning."

"Where America finally turned." We need to wonder: where America finally turned from what?

Mr. Kerry, in introducing himself to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made it plain that he was there to speak not only for himself, but for what he called "a very much larger group of veterans in this country." He then proceeded to describe the America he knows, the America from which he enjoined us all to turn.

In Southeast Asia, he said, he saw "not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

A grave charge, but the sensitive listener will instantly assume that Mr. Kerry is using the word "crime" loosely, as in, "He was criminally thoughtless in not writing home more often to his mother." But Mr. Kerry quickly interdicted that line of retreat. He went on to enumerate precisely such crimes as are being committed "on a day-to-day basis, with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." He gave tales of torture, of rape, of Americans who "randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a 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 ravages of war."

Mr. Kerry informed Congress that what threatens the United States is "not Reds, and not redcoats," but "the crimes" we are committing. He tells us that we have "created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who have returned with a sense of anger."

Most specifically he singled out for criticism a sentence uttered by Mr. Agnew here at West Point a year ago: "Some glamorize the criminal misfits of society while our best men die in Asian rice paddies to preserve the freedom which most of those misfits abuse." Mr. Kerry insists that the so-called misfits are the true heroes, inasmuch as it was they who "were standing up for us in a way that nobody else in this country dared to." As for the men in Vietnam, he added, "we cannot consider ourselves America's 'best men' when we are ashamed of and hated for what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia."

And indeed, if American soldiers have been called upon to rape and to torture and to exterminate non-combatants, it is obvious that they should be ashamed, less obvious why they have not expressed that shame more widely on returning to the United States, particularly inasmuch as we have been assured by Mr. Kerry that they have been taught to deal and to trade in violence.

Are there extenuating circumstances? Is there a reason for our being in Vietnam?

"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 . . . the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart." It is then, we reason retrospectively, not alone an act of hypocrisy that caused the joint chiefs of staff and the heads of the civilian departments engaged in strategic calculations to make the recommendations they made over the past ten years, to three Presidents of the United States: it was not merely hypocrisy, but criminal hypocrisy. The nature of that hypocrisy? "All," Mr. Kerry sums up, "that we were told about the mystical war against Communism."

The indictment is complete.

It is the indictment of an ignorant young man who is willing to condemn in words that would have been appropriately used in Nuremberg the governing class of America: the legislators, the generals, the statesmen. And, reaching beyond them, the people, who named the governors to their positions of responsibility and ratified their decisions in several elections.

The point I want to raise is this: If America is everything that John Kerry says it is, what is it appropriate for us to do? The wells of regeneration are infinitely deep, but the stain described by John Kerry goes too deep to be bleached out by conventional remorse or resolution: better the destruction of America, if, to see ourselves truly, we need to look into the mirror John Kerry holds up for us. If we are a nation of sadists, of kid-killers and torturers, of hypocrites and criminals, let us be done with it, and pray that a great flood or fire will destroy us, leaving John Kerry and maybe Mrs. Benjamin Spock to take the place of Lot, in reseeding a new order.

Gentleman, how many times, in the days ahead, you will need to ask yourselves the most searching question of all, the counterpart of the priest's most agonizing doubt: Is there a God? Yours will be: Is America worth it?

John Kerry's assault on this country did not rise fullblown in his mind, like Venus from the Cypriot Sea. It is the crystallization of an assault upon America which has been fostered over the years by an intellectual class given over to self-doubt and self-hatred, driven by a cultural disgust with the uses to which so many people put their freedom. The assault on the military, the many and subtle vibrations of which you feel as keenly as James Baldwin knows the inflections of racism, is an assault on the proposition that what we have, in America, is truly worth defending. The military is to be loved or despised according as it defends that which is beloved or perpetuates that which is despised. The root question has not risen to such a level of respectability as to work itself into the platform of a national political party, but it lurks in the rhetoric of the John Kerrys, such that a blind man, running his fingers over the features of the public rhetoric, can discern the meaning of it:

Is America worth it?

That is what they are saying to you. And that is what so many Americans reacted to in the case of Lieutenant Calley. Mistakenly, they interpreted the conviction of Calley as yet another effort to discredit the military. And though they will not say it in as many words, they know that if there is no military, it will quickly follow that there will be no America, of the kind that they know, that we know. The America that listens so patiently to its John Kerrys, the America that shouldered the great burden of preserving oases of freedom after the great curtain came down with that Bolshevik subtlety that finally expressed itself in a Wall, to block citizens of the socialist utopia from leaving, en route even to John Kerry's America; the America that all but sank under the general obloquy, in order to stand by, in Southeast Asia, a commitment it had soberly made, to the cause of Containment — I shall listen patiently, decades hence, to those who argue that our commitment in Vietnam and our attempt to redeem it were tragically misconceived. I shall not listen to those who say that it was less than the highest tribute to national motivation, to collective idealism, and to international rectitude. I say this with confidence because I have never met an American who takes pleasure from the Vietnam War or who desires to exploit the Vietnamese.

So during those moments when doubt will assail you, moments that will come as surely as the temptations of the flesh, I hope you will pause. I know, I know, at the most hectic moments of one's life it isn't easy — indeed, the argument can be made that neither is it seemly — to withdraw from the front line in order to consider the general situation philosophically. But what I hope you will consider, during these moments of doubt, is the essential professional point: Without organized force, and the threat of the use of it under certain circumstances, there is no freedom, anywhere. Without freedom, there is no true humanity. If America is the monster of John Kerry, burn your commissions tomorrow morning and take others, which will not bind you in the depraved conspiracy you have heard described. If it is otherwise, remember: the freedom John Kerry enjoys, and the freedom I enjoy, are, quite simply, the result of your dedication. Do you wonder that I accepted the opportunity to salute you?

---

[jwalsh07]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1070333/posts?q=1&&page=101

[SunkenCiv]

JFK scheduled back surgery to coincide with the vote of censure against Joseph McCarthy, because McCarthy was so popular in Massachusetts. IOW, lots of things haven't changed in Massachusetts. The roots of anti-Republicanism in Massachusetts reach into the Civil War, and exist for the same reason they persisted in the South until recent years.

[SunkenCiv]

Ahead by 17 points in the national polls...

...Dukakis was revealed to be a person without any strong convictions, a party-line weathervane, married to an alcoholic. In the debates he shrank to insignificance. As George Will said back when, after excoriating Dukakis in the campaign, at the debates Bush pummelled him with niceness.

[SunkenCiv]

Tsongas was the guy who wanted to attack the deficit; he was famous for calling Bill Clinton a "pander bear."

That's odd. I thought Clinton gave us years of deficit free government. There are some partisan shills who need to keep their lies straight.

[SunkenCiv]

Remember that the last four governors of Massachusetts, no bastion of conservatism, have been Republicans, which is more than Kansas, one of the most Republican states in the Union, can claim. Its current governor, Mitt Romney, is so compelling a figure that he's likely to be a strong contender for the GOP presidential nomination four years from now. (No one will say he's a stalking-horse for Ted Kennedy.) The state, moreover, has not been untouched by a taxpayers' rebellion that echoes across the political landscape still.

Not been untouched? I guess that means they'll vote against John Kerry, who wants to raise taxes but doesn't want to say so if it's going to bother anyone? Drew Carey (a Democrat) said, "Massachusetts has never failed to elect a Kennedy, no matter how many women they kill or rape."

Bush will (probably) lose Massachusetts, but will win the election by at least ten per cent.

[Seruzawa]

My dad dislikes "pot smoking hippie draft dodgers".

I'm a vietvet too. Show your dad the facts about Kerry's VVAW activities in which he tried to depict the average US Trooper as a pot smoking baby killing mother raping atrociteur.

See what he says then.

[x]

Dukakis was cheap in his personal life and chose to take the subway to work, but that didn't translate into his politics. In fiscal questions Dukakis looks like a typical politician: he inherited a deficit and a budgetary crisis from his predecessor, cleaned it up, and stayed in office long enough to saddle his successor with another deficit and fiscal crisis.

While Dukakis wasn't more profligate than other politicians, neither was he on the whole thriftier. Bush's father may have overdone the anti-Massachusetts rhetoric in 1988, but if the election was about "competence" it's clear why Dukakis lost: the state budget was starting to come apart in Dukakis's last administration.

I don't think it's about Massachusetts. That's "shorthand" -- a one word phrase to sum up the discomfort many people feel with Kerry. Taking the symbol for the thing it represents would be a mistake. The point is, Kerry's record and life choices suggest plenty of reasons to vote against him, wherever he happens to live.

Yet Kerry's youthful radicalism and decadent lifestyle may be too hot to handle, and as we learned in 1992, voters who want to throw out the incumbent may overlook such severe character flaws. So it's only natural to fall back on an epithet like "Massachusetts Democrat." It looks like a smear to liberals, but in Kerry's case it's probably a euphemism that doesn't fully convey the real reasons why he's so objectionable.

[rudypoot]

Kerry's lifetime rating: 93
Kennedy lifetime rating: 88
Vermont's Patrick Leahy lifetime rating: 93
California's Barbara Boxer lifetime rating: 96

How does the Americans for Democratic Action calculate the liberal score? From the website (adaction.org):

ADA's Legislative Committee selects 20 votes it considers the most important during that session. ADA's National Board and/or National Executive Committee approves those votes. Each member recieves 5 points if he/she voted with ADA, and does not receive 5 points if he/she voted against us or was absent. The total possible is 100.

[Heatseeker]

Agree completely. I live in Maryland so I know a thing or two about life in a "peoples multicultural republic" (although our Republican guv seems to be doing OK so far IMO).

Bottom line: there will be a huge push in the media to paint Kerry as a "moderate" or "mainstream". Nothing could be further from the truth.

[Boxsford]

Thank you so very much. I'll glean from those sites and educate my father in law.

[Boxsford]

I've decided a list definitely needs to be formed and then those of us who need to convince family/friend 'Kerry voters' can copy and handout. I'll keep you posted. Meanwhile, send any facts, evidences on Kerry my way.

[Boxsford]

This is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you very much!

[Boxsford]

Just don't anyone say 'He's toast!" (Kerry) Every single dang time someone says that here on FR it doesn't happen.

[Boxsford]

Wow! Great post. Thanks.

[goldstategop]

Michael Dukakis had to to campaign on competence cause he knew if he ran as a liberal, he would lose by an even bigger margin. Jean F. Cheri is going to do everything he can to hide the fact he's a liberal. He'll still lose in November.

[SamAdams76]

Actually Dukakis was a fiscal conservative on a personal basis. That is, he threw his own nickels around like they were manhole covers. But he felt obliged to spend taxpayer money like a drunken sailor. That's the way most Massachusetts liberals are. They love to spend money, just so long it is other people's money. Joe Kennedy Sr. taught his sons to walk around with no money at all so that others could keep picking up the tab. It's the way they were raised to think.

[Boxsford]

Thanks for posting. It's perfect to use to convince those Dan Rather listeners that Kerry is as liberal as they come.

[dwd1]

Let us not forget Willie Horton...

[Heatseeker]

Yes, I remember famously over-publicized snowblower.

Along the same lines, it's my experience that most liberals are not pleasant people. Seems to come from the notion that because they believe in feeding the poor, saving world, etc., it's OK for them to behave like total jerks personally. (There are exemptions: a know a couple.)