We had virtually to straight-jacket [Kerry] to keep him under control (Admiral Zumwalt on Kerry)

taipeitimes ^ | Feb 11, 2004 | W. Scott Thompson

[jmstein7]

Harold Wilson, that British politician more canny than admired, usefully reminded his audience that things can change very quickly in politics.

"A week is a long time," he said, in politics, and we have seen this over and over in the American scene these past months.

After all, only nine weeks ago former vice president Al Gore blessed the insurgent campaign of Howard Dean and most pundits thought the race was over. All that was needed was the anointing of the former Vermont governor as Democratic party standard-bearer to take on US President George W. Bush in November.

Overnight Senator John Kerry, whose campaign had almost imploded late last year, turned the race upside down by winning big in Iowa's caucuses and then the weeks following in New Hampshire, Missouri and other primaries -- not only showing he has the "Big Mo" (or momentum) essential for winning in America, but a hammerlock on the nomination.

Or so it looks. After all, Senator Joe Lieberman has withdrawn, Wesley Clark's hopes are forlorn and John Edwards is resting his case on a single win, in the state of his birth.

But can it happen again? Dean's hold looked airtight until folks actually went to the polls. He had money to burn and endorsements from across the country, and now he is barely maintaining viability as a serious candidate. What could go wrong with Kerry's campaign at this point, and are there any implications for Asia?

Not a lot, but no one yet considers it over. The lanky and experienced Massachusetts senator has money to burn. No one wants to say it, but his wife's near billion-dollar fortune at the very least permits him to spend all his own, more modest, fortune to smooth his way. She can't shovel money directly into his campaign, but the mere fact of her fortune gives confidence to other contributors or lenders that they're backing a winner. He has seemingly unlimited self-confidence, despite many trip-ups in his long career.

But no senator has won the keys to the White House since John F. Kennedy.

There's a reason why senators don't tend to win. They've been on the record for too long on too many issues. There are too many interest groups they have had to cultivate and satiate to stay in politics. Sam Nunn, a powerful senator from Georgia who didn't even have to face serious re-election opposition, left the Senate in 1996 because he tired of spending his evenings entertaining his major supporters and running over to the Senate to vote. At the prime of life, he wanted to rediscover his family.

The real issue that Kerry must resolve is, however, character. Now that he is the front-runner, he must not only answer to all the charges of serving special interests that have risen and will still rise, he has to satisfy the public that he is, not to put too fine a point on it, an honorable man. There are questions.

Kerry has managed to straddle many issues and so it is difficult to discern his real beliefs -- other than in himself. He votes for the war in Iraq so he doesn't look "wet" and then votes against Pentagon budget rises, so he can please the liberal Democrats, who give him one of their highest ratings. When he looks at an acquaintance, he always seems to be looking just past, to see if someone more important lurks behind his interlocutor. Of course that's just standard politics. But people want something more.

He now makes much of his decorations from the war in Vietnam, to appeal to centrists and conservatives, without reminding those audiences that he for long was a leader of Vietnam veterans against the war. Indeed, assiduous searchers, looking for his vulnerabilities, will find much of interest in that period of his life. For example, the fabled and distinguished chief of naval operations (CNO), Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, told me -- 30 years ago when he was still CNO -- that during his own command of US naval forces in Vietnam, just prior to his anointment as CNO, young Kerry had created great problems for him and the other top brass, by killing so many non-combatant civilians and going after other non-military targets.

"We had virtually to straight-jacket him to keep him under control," the admiral said. "Bud" Zumwalt got it right when he assessed Kerry as having large ambitions -- but promised that his career in Vietnam would haunt him if he were ever on the national stage.

It is that sort of thing that senators don't have to worry about. But if they become a front-runner for president, the whole ball-game changes. Their past is scrutinized with a fine-tooth comb. In Kerry's case, for example, he has shown precious little interest in Asia since his tour in Vietnam, and there is little doubt that he will follow the standard Democratic party, pro-Beijing, line. But every word he's ever spoken on it will be scrutinized.

That is why it is not only true that a week is a long time in politics. But, as they say in American politics, "It ain't over until the fat lady sings."

W. Scott Thompson is an adjunct professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Boston, and a former assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration. He has visited Taipei eight times and now lives in Bali.

[colorado tanker]

The key is to nail down whether Zumwalt meant Kerry or Kerrey. Both were Navy, Senators and in VVAW.

[oldgrunt]

Amen. He got a Silver Star for leaving his command post on the boat and going ashore to execute a wounded enemy soldier and returning with said dead soldier's equipment.
In the army, we didn't kill wounded enemy soldiers, we treated them as we would our own.

[mylife]

This is for certain

W. Scott Thompson
Adjunct Professor of International Politics
Education:
BA, Stanford Univeristy;
DPhil in politics as a Rhodes Scholar and Danforth Fellow, Oxford University.

Recent Publications:
Rapid Economic Growth and Political Conflict in Southwest Asia (1998); The Philippine Road to NIChood (1996); The Price of Achievement: Coming Out in Reagan Days (1995); Philippines in Crisis (1992); From Weakness to Strength: National Security in the 1980s (1980). Articles have appeared in Foreign Policy, International Security, Orbis, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Professional Activities:
Former White House Fellow and Assistant to the Secretary of Defense (1975-77); Associate Director, Policy and Programs at the USIA (1982-84); Presidentially appointed member of the Board of Directors of the United States Institute of Peace (1985-present); Member, Advisory Board, Search for Common Ground, council on foreign Relations, International Institute for Strategic Studies; Director, Program in Southeast Asia Studies.

Research Interests:
Politics of Southeast Asia; psychohistory; US foreign policy; Third World conflict resolution.

[moodyskeptic]

The Democrats seem to have found a baby killer they can love.

[oldgrunt]

He never saw napalm (naptha and palm oil with a congealing agent to make it cling) or smelled it!

[mercy]

Kerry's a war criminal and the press will not touch it. Judas Priest! The world sucks! We need a civil war in this country.

[mylife]

My post 63 was from the Tufts facuty site at Tufts.edu

[ampat]

I don't know if Thompson has his kerry's right. His article is based on a verbal conversation. Senator Bob Kerrey was in VN at the same time as John Kerry. Bob Kerrey had admitted publicly that he had killed civilians when he was in VN. Unless Thompson can clear up which Kerry or Kerrey Adm. Z was referring to, this may be a non-story.

[mabelkitty]

Leaves more questions than answers bump!

[oldgrunt]

It is so. Department of the Navy (includes Marine Corps) regs were such that it took three wounds to be excluded from combat duty. Any wound requiring medical attention was a Purple Heart award. In the Army (I did four years in the Infantry, Korea and Viet Nam), two would get you non-combat status but not shipment home.

[hoosiermama]

Here's the information on the first item where his work is published:..........Interesting?

Association of National Security Alumni. Unclassified. (Published quarterly since 1989; edited since 1994 by Verne Lyon; last issue appeared in 1997.)

The Association of National Security Alumni is an organization that seeks to expose and curtail covert actions because they "are counter- productive and damaging to the national interest of the United States, inimical to the operation of an effective national intelligence system, corruptive of civil liberties, ... and they contradict the principles of democracy, national self-determination and international law to which the United States is publicly committed."

David MacMichael, the person who started ANSA and was Unclassified's first editor, is a former CIA analyst who resigned rather than falsify his reports for political reasons. "Unclassified" was valuable for those who follow various judicial and legislative efforts to investigate or remedy abuses within the intelligence community. ANSA helps whistleblowers and tracks current scandals, particularly those that have achieved some official attention (Iran-contra, BCCI, October Surprise, Inslaw, etc.). They are nonideological and nonpartisan in terms of left-right, Democrat-Republican, preferring to stay on the mark by encouraging concrete reforms as a response to recognized problems.

[mylife]

Very interesting. If this is true, It doesnt look as if it will require any freeper assistance!

[oldgrunt]

You could use an education. Maybe a change of diet or climate. Maybe southern California or Communist China.

[hoosiermama]

That's what I was thinking.....If the gentlemen is indeed a man who ife is based on "doing the right thing" It will come out..... Sit back and enjoy the show. OTOH bookmark this sight and his name.....

[oldgrunt]

Lying dirtbag! His only nightmares would be getting caught in any of his liasons.

[mylife]

If it has any legs it will come out after the nomination

[jmstein7]

Please click here to fight back against the media coverup of Kerry's record!

[There's millions of'em]

I would normally tend to agree with you, but I allow for the longshot chance here that Z did know Kerry for a couple of reasons:

It is possible that Kerry's file had a "political flag" on it due to his family's relationship with the Kennedys. If it did, Z would have been briefed on K's assignment. This may be one of the reasons that K refuses to release his Navy files.

It is possible that K was given preferential treatment in obtaining the swift boat assignment, because of high level connections.

It is possible that K came to Z's attention because of his being in the swift boats, and the swift boats having such a high profile mission. Since K volunteered, and he was on a volunteer 2d tour, and he was a Yalie, and he was politically connected... I think it is possible.

[mylife]

Looks like Edwards is leading Kerry by 2% in Wisconsin

[oldgrunt]

You guys don't know about the "brown water Navy", I do. I served with them. I was with 3rd Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment,9th Infantry Division in the Mekong Delta in 1967 in what was called the Mobile Riverine Force (they have a web site MRF.com). Those Navy guys were armed to the teeth and they shot the living hell out of everything including us.
Kerry was involved with this "shoot the the hell of them" business. He never went to the beach unless it was to the Officers' Club.