Posted on 08/22/2004 6:19:16 PM PDT by buccaneer81
Bush re-election machine busy tearing down another war hero Sunday, August 22, 2004 JOE HALLETT
If John Kerry wins the Democratic nomination, I mused on Jan. 17, President Bush will do back flips to avoid comparisons of their respective military records.
On a stage in Des Moines, Iowa, that night, I watched a retired policeman embrace the Massachusetts senator, creating the most poignant moment of the Democratic campaign for president.
Jim Rassmann had come from Oregon to tell the world that 35 years earlier, then-Navy Lt. Kerry, wounded, turned his swift boat around against enemy fire and fished Rassmann out of the Bay Hap River in Vietnam.
‘‘He could have been shot and killed," said a teary Rassmann, a Republican. ‘‘I figure I owe this man my life."
Kerry was given a Bronze Star for that heroic act. He also got a Silver Star and three Purple Hearts for his service in Vietnam.
Score one for Kerry, I thought, standing amid the cheering Iowa Democrats. With questions lingering about Bush’s stateside service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, military records weren’t likely to top Bush’s discussion agenda during the campaign.
And it didn’t help that influential hawks in his administration — Vice President Dick Cheney, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Defense Department Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz — found ways to avoid military service during the war.
But then, I had forgotten some recent history and once again underestimated just how good Karl Rove & Co. are at winning elections.
As Bush scores with voters by lauding the heroism of troops he sends to war, his allies systematically tear down old war heroes for political gain.
In 2002, Republicans painted Sen. Max Cleland, a Georgia Democrat, as unpatriotic. Nevermind that Cleland lost two legs and his right arm in the Vietnam War. Cleland’s GOP opponent, Saxby Chambliss, ran a television ad showing Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Cleland, contending that Cleland ‘‘voted against the President’s vital homeland security efforts 11 times." Chambliss won.
Two years earlier, in the bitter 2000 South Carolina presidential primary, Bush supporters sponsored a rumor campaign against Sen. John McCain of Arizona, suggesting he was loony from five years of torture in Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camps.
A couple of weeks ago, McCain saw a 60-second TV spot sponsored by a group called ‘‘Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." The ad, financed by Texas Republicans and aired in Ohio and two other battleground states, said Kerry lied to get his Bronze Star. Livid, McCain referred to Bush backers and said, ‘‘It was the same kind of deal that was pulled on me." He called on the Bush campaign to repudiate the ad; it declined.
Voters in key states now are debating whether Kerry really earned his Vietnam War medals. Exhaustive reporting by the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and other newspapers has discredited most statements made by the ‘‘Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." But Bush’s ubiquitous AM talk-radio surrogates loyally and doggedly fan the fire.
At the Veterans of Foreign Wars annual convention last week in Cincinnati, vets were buzzing about Kerry’s war record. It was clear that Bush backers were successfully doing to Kerry what they tried to do to Cleland and McCain: sully the honor of war heroes.
With practiced discipline, Bush allies adroitly had shifted the discussion away from Bush’s lack of a war record to whether Kerry’s is bogus.
Realizing he was being hurt, Kerry fired back Thursday, accusing Bush of using front groups ‘‘to do his dirty work." Kerry said if Bush wants to ‘‘have a debate about our service in Vietnam, here is my answer: ‘Bring it on.’ "
At the VFW convention, Peter Rebold, 61, a Cincinnati lawyer who had led U.S. and South Vietnamese troops into battle as an Army captain, said the effort to smear Kerry won’t work.
‘‘All you have to look at is one thing: Kerry was in Vietnam. Bush wasn’t there. Cheney wasn’t there. Kerry volunteered."
Kerry’s postwar protest activities and his Senate voting record on defense issues are fair game for critics. But twisting his valorous war record for political purposes is shameful.
If the tactic works, none of the men and women now fighting in Iraq can trust that the medals they earn won’t someday be used against them.
Joe Hallett is senior editor at The Dispatch.
jhallett@dispatch.com
They hate guns, love gays and despise the President.
Ping the Ohio list, please.
Mr. Kerrry you are on video tape acting as the ad hoc representative of the enemy in 1971, and are on record presenting the Communist surrender demands directly to the United States Senate.
Coupled with Madam Binh's "Eight Point" surrender demand you leveled bizarre, baseless and scurrilous accusations against the decent men of the United States military in VietNam.
You have no excuses - there can be no excuse.
Click the logo to donate to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth!
I wonder where and when Joe Hallet served.
Obviously, Joe Hallett needs to get out more. Although it is hard to learn the facts with one's head buried in the sand.
You cannot tear down what never was!
oooooooh...those wascawwy Wepubwicans.
The libs are freaking out and don't know what to do. This guy is more restrained than the folks over at DU. I can only imagine its bedlam there.
Uhhhhhhh....okayyyy.
Then what, exactly, is the problem here?
Hallet's hypocrisy is oozing. We have no right to criticize Kerry as a fraud but its okay for him to trash vets and call them liars. The liberal mindset at work.
Here you go. Something for your enjoyment.
The cool morning mist settled over the Cambodian border. The engine hummed, moving the swift boat slowly through the mined river. They weren't supposed to be here. It wasn't supposed to be this way. An illegal war conducted by President Nixon. It didn't make sense. Everything about this mission was wrong.
Lt. Kerry's mission was an impossible one. Find and silence Colonel Kurtz. Why had Colonel Kurtz fled to Cambodia? What madness had driven him to this? And why had they chosen him?
It didn't matter now. Now he had to find Colonel Kurtz. He had to silence this loose cannon. Something had to be done. Was he the man to do it? He didn't know. The personal demons had haunted him for far too long. He wanted to be patriotic. He needed to be patriotic. But a political career lay in wait for him back in the States.
Suddenly, the swift boat left the air from the thrust of the mine. Lt. Kerry didn't hestitate. He didn't second guess. He floored the throttle in retreat, hearing a scream from the stern. He looked back to see Jim Rassman in the water.
Could he leave him? Jim was just along for the ride. A ride taking them deep into the Cambodian jungle in search of a madman. The second passed, but Lt. Kerry knew he could leave no man behind.
The fifty caliber machine gun fire barked loudly from the shoreline. Then, he remembered it. He reached in his duffle bag at his side and pulled out his 8mm camera. He jerked the steering, turning the boat around and yelling, "Let's go boys. We're only gonna have one take at this!"
:) HA!
My husband has been a Ranger four over 15 years and has been awarded several medals. The difference is Kerry used them to get out of service while my husband is still serving in Iraqi.
I've wondered about that myself. Kerry wanted this debate, he got it. I don't understand for the life of me why liberals are so upset. He's a war hero, after all.
Perfect.
"Nevermind that Cleland lost two legs and his right arm in the Vietnam War. "
Obviously these folks think going for a beer is war. They must think going for a glass of Chablis is hell incarnate..
James Carville told me that you weren't on the same boat as Mr. Kerry, so you are not qualified to comment.
Your editorial shows that you are willingly allowing Mr. Kerry to make you look like his obsequious courtier, rather than the gravelly, hard-bitten reporter I'm sure you really are.
'signed'
The writer ignores Georgia Republican Saxby Chabliss' unforgetable rejoinder:
"I'm not questioning your patriotism. I'm questioning your judgment."
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