Posted on 07/30/2004 7:26:18 AM PDT by pabianice
Can John Kerry hold on to his lead?
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 After all, Senator Joe Lieberman has withdrawn, Wesley Clark's hopes are forlorn and John Edwards is resting his case on a single win, in the state of his birth.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.
Excellent commentary...
John Kerry on Defense ----
He voted to kill the Bradley Fighting Vehicle
He voted to kill the M-1 Abrams Tank
He voted to kill every Aircraft carrier laid down from 1988
He voted to kill the Aegis anti aircraft system
He voted to Kill the F-15 strike eagle
He voted to Kill the Block 60 F-16
He voted to Kill the P-3 Orion upgrade
He voted to Kill the B-1
He voted to Kill the B-2
He voted to Kill the Apache AH 64
He voted to Kill the Patriot anti Missile system
He voted to Kill the FA-18
He voted to Kill the B-2
He voted to Kill the F117
In short, he voted to kill every military appropriation for the development and deployment of every weapons systems since 1988 to include the battle armor for our troops.
He also voted to kill all anti terrorism activities of every agency of the U.S. Government and to cut the funding of the FBI by 60%, to cut the funding for the CIA by 80%, and cut the funding for the NSA by 80%.
But then he voted to increase OUR funding for U.N operations by 800%!!!
I think he is talking about the wrong Kerry. The Kerr(e)y Zumwalt was talking about was Bob Kerrey, a Navy Seal who served on the 9/11 commission. I highly doubt a LTJG serving on a PCF for 4 months is going to have time to get Zumwalts attention. It surprises me that people will print something like that without first doing a little research.
OK. Prove you are right.
"It is clear that at least one of Kerry's Purple Heart awards was the result of his own negligence, not enemy fire, and that Kerry went to unusual lengths to obtain the award after being turned down by his own commanding officer.
John Kerry has long insisted that using the three-injury loophole to leave combat early was his own idea, but Kerry's fellow Swift officer Thomas Wright, who served on occasion as the OIC (Officer in Charge) of Kerry's boat group, contradicts that claim. Wright reports that he "had a lot of trouble getting Kerry to follow orders," and that those who worked with Kerry found him "oriented towards his personal, rather than unit goals and objectives." He therefore requested that Kerry be removed from his boat group. After John Kerry qualified for his third Purple Heart, Thomas Wright and two fellow officers informed him of the obscure regulation, and told him to go home. Wright concluded, 'We knew how the system worked and we didn’t want him in Coastal Division 11.'
"Constructing a complete picture of Kerry's service is difficult due to gaps in the Naval records provided by the Kerry campaign. These gaps include missing and incomplete fitness reports, missing medical records and missing records related to his medal awards.
"For this reason we call upon Senator Kerry to authorize complete access to all his military records by filing a standard Form 180, a simple two-page release form.
"Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is in the process of researching John Kerry's time in Vietnam by conducting interviews with eyewitnesses to his activities, and we plan to add material to this section over the next several weeks as it becomes available. We will report the true circumstances of Kerry's medal awards and injuries, describe other controversial missions, and provide in-depth analysis of his fitness reports.
Kerry's Medals
1st Purple Heart: December 2, 1968
2nd Purple Heart: February 20, 1969
Silver Star: February 28, 1969
Bronze Star / 3rd Purple Heart: March 13, 1969
Other Missions
Sampan Incident: January 20, 1969.
Even Imus this morning, talking to Howard Fineman, asked about the elusive medical files! Fineman, even though he was hammering Kerry pretty hard, said that this is not an approach the President would want to take.
Of course, it is no holds barred for the rest of us!!
Well in this case it would be easer to prove verify that the Zumwalt quote in about John Kerry that to have USNBandit prove Zumwalt didn’t say or mean John Kerry
With SO MUCH ammo and hard facts to go after John Kerry with one questionable unverified charge tossed in the pile only hurts us
Associated Press | Saturday, June 1, 2002 Vietnam: Kerrey Committed War Crime HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - Vietnam accused former Sen. Bob Kerrey of crimes during the Vietnam War, saying Friday that families of villagers killed by his Navy team experienced ``incomparable suffering and losses.'' It was the first time Vietnam has publicly accused Kerrey of criminal activity. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh made the accusation in reaction to a revised account of the raid in Kerrey's new memoir. Thanhdid not specify what crimes Vietnam believed Kerrey had committed. ``Whatever Mr. Kerrey says cannot change the truth. Mr. Kerrey himself has admitted that he was ashamed of the crimes he committed,'' she said. On Friday, Kerrey said he was disappointed by the government's comments,saying officials there have long blamed Americans for war-time atrocities. ``I pointed out then, and I'm pointing out now, both sides did a lot of damage in the Vietnam war,'' he said, adding the North Vietnamese used terror as one of their tools. ``You gotta get beyond it,'' he said at a Washington bookstore where he was doing a reading. ``I'm quite certain the majority of people in Vietnam want to go on with their lives.'' Kerrey currently serves as president at New York's New School University. The incident, which Kerrey first acknowledged last year, put the former senator at the center of a national discussion about U.S. conduct during the war. Kerrey said then that about 13 civilians were killed ``by mistake'' after his SEAL team was fired on and returned fire during the raid on Thanh Phong village on Feb. 25, 1969. He said he did not know of the civilian casualties until the shooting stopped. But in his new memoir, ``When I Was a Young Man,'' Kerrey writes that he was aware that women and children had begun to gather as his squad searched the village for enemy Viet Cong. Shortly thereafter, Kerrey says his men were fired upon from the direction of the women and children. The Americans fired back, and the villagers were hopelessly caught in the cross fire, he says. Kerrey acknowledged the difference in his recollection of events in an author's note, saying it changed after he met with members of his squad following news reports. After Kerrey acknowledged the incident last year, a member of his Navy SEAL unit and two Vietnamese women who said they witnessed the raid alleged the soldiers herded the women and children together and massacred them - a charge that Kerrey and five other members of the Navy SEAL team deny. Oneof the women, Pham Thi Lanh, said 20 unarmed villagers, mostly women and children, were killed.
"by killing so many non-combatant civilians"
Ironically, I just assumed Kerry was lying about being a war criminal, too. It appears that he wasn't. I heard a swift boat vet tell a story about Kerry chasing down a wounded VC and killing him-I don't know if the VC was armed or not, but he was apparently trying to get away. Shooting chi hoi's was common but everyone knew it was illegal.
Bob Kerrey's attack on the Thanh Phong village occured on Feb. 25, 1969. Thanh Phong in in the Mekong Delta. That is the same time Kerry and Zumwalt were in the Mekong Delta. So they were all there at the same time.
I am running into one problem with linking the quote to Kerrey in that so far I can only find it on partisan pinko websites, but I am still looking. It is funny that it is not part of Zumwalt's kid's quote on the Swift Boat Vets for Truth website. You would think LTCOL Zumwalt would mention that.
He says now that he fought in "Nixon's War," although Lyndon Baines Johnson presided over his deployment to Viet Nam and three out of the four months of his service. Nixon, in office less than a month on March 17, 1969, presided over his return. Democrats are simply allowed to pretend that war is peace, day night, and treason patriotism. George Orwell's "Big Brother" is their model.
Nope, you've got the wrong Kerr(e)y.
Adm. Zumwalt was in the Swift and PBR chain of command; he wasn't in the SEAL chain of command. His son (also retired Navy, a Captain I believe) is currently speaking on his behalf with the Swift boat veterans for truth group.
Admiral Zumwalt's son is a retired USMC Lt. Colonel. Sorry about that, I thought he was retired Navy.
Zumwalt was Commander of Naval Forces in Vietnam from 68-70. Kerrey's platoon was part of Seal Team One, attached to Task Force 115 was part of Zumwalt's Command.
Thanks for the chain of command correction. I'll do some searching regarding Zumwalt's comments on kerr(e?)y.
I've been trying to find some confirmation as well, but the only sources I can find to dispute this so far are what I consider left wing. It is just hard for me to believe that Zumwalt would have to pay attention to a small organization like Kerry's when the CO of that outfit, Roy Hoffman, was supposed to be a total hard ass and I would imagine that if civilians were Kerry's usual target Hoffman would have had the guy relieved.
SEALS on the other hand were even then kind of high vis. Bob Kerrey has been forced to admit that he shot up some civilians around the same time.
I just don't want this to get blown out of proportion and then be debunked like the intern thing.
I agree 100%. Allegations like this need to be totally bulletproof, preferably with multiple confirmations.
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