John Kerry is not short of troubles these days, from his 20-year Senate career that he left completely off of his resume, to his poor choice of advisors like Sandy ''burglar'' Berger, or his visible inability to settle into one solid position on any single issue. But John Kerry's real problem is just now coming into focus for many who knew little about the man, despite a 20-year high-roller Washington career and his 30-year jet-set, ski-slope, summer-in-France persona.
It’s no surprise that Kerry finds himself in the eye of a political firestorm that threatens to end his life in politics. Those of us who have watched him for 20 years or more, have been wondering when his road to the White House was going to run upon one of the many bridges he burned along the way.
It’s fitting that those brothers he chose to malign 30 years ago, lead the charge to topple his political kingdom 30 years later. Despite Kerry’s efforts to characterize their attack as some vast right wing conspiracy, the truth is much more obvious than that.
I’m reminded of the old saying, ''Watch who you trample over on your way up, because you will see them all again on your way down.''
The Swift-Vet charges only serve to bring John Kerry’s real problem into our field of vision. His real problem is his snobbish liberal elitist personality that causes him to feel superior to his loyal and not-so-loyal subjects. His handling (or mishandling) of the Swift-Vets attack is a perfect example.
Kerry knew that the guys he maligned 30 years ago were still out there and that they had not forgotten or forgiven. Yet despite his knowledge of the impending ambush he would invite, with a salute and a Hollywood style ''reporting for duty,'' he chose to pour salt into a very deep old wound by using his four months in Vietnam as the centerpiece of his bid for the White House.
He knew they would attack his self-appointed hero status, but he thought the attack would be manageable. When the attack came, a pre-planned Clintonian defense strategy was launched, as if the American people would not see through the Lanny Davis strategy and pick up on the real issue behind the issue.
Immediately, the process of maligning those he had maligned once before began. Efforts were under way to convince voters that Kerry’s truth was the real truth, and that those 254 fellow veterans, each and every one, were simply lying. This wouldn’t work anywhere else on earth, but in American politics-post-Clinton, fiction often becomes fact and anything is possible.
The plan was set in motion and next came the letter from the law offices representing the Democratic National Committee and the Kerry campaign, not written to the Swift Vets threatening legal action for libel of their client, but to television and radio networks across the country that were set to air the Vets' first ad. They were ignoring the charges themselves, and his accusers, and attacking an innocent group who would only be the messenger.
Next was phase-three of the plan, turning the Swift Vets' attack into a Bush-lead conspiracy, and attempting to draw Bush’s National Guard service into question, a process they had already started when DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe floated the idea that Bush was AWOL in Alabama, evidenced by the fact that he can’t prove he wasn’t. Still, Kerry offered no direct response to the charges, although by now, facts were beginning to quietly drip out through his handlers. Maybe that Cambodian Christmas seared into Kerry’s memory was just the fog of war.
Enter phase-four of the plan, filing a legal complaint with the FEC accusing the Bush campaign of that which the Kerry campaign had already been caught doing, working with a 527. In a swift shift of position, all of the sudden it was Kerry, who was challenging the legitimacy of 527 activities, the very team who for months earlier, defended the use of 527’s. Again, no direct response to the charges, though more information continued to drip. Maybe that first Purple Heart scratch was self inflicted after all.
Then came phase-five, a call placed by Kerry to fellow veteran Bob Dole in which Dole suggested he talk directly to his accusers and apologize for his actions. That prompted a second call placed by Kerry directly to Swift Vet Robert ''Friar Tuck'' Brant, in which Kerry asked for his help in stopping the Vets, to which Brant responds, ''I am one of them.''
Meanwhile, fellow Democrat Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa is sent out to further malign the enemy, calling Vice President Dick Cheney a ''coward'' for not serving in Vietnam at all, who had opted instead for deferment to attend college, not all that different from Bill Clinton, without the ''loathing the military'' part.
Turned away at every door, the BIG guns are brought out and former senator and real war hero, triple amputee Max Cleland of Georgia, complete with wheelchair, and the saved one, Jim Rassmann, made a secret (announced in advance to all networks) heartfelt pilgrimage to Crawford, Texas, on short notice to plead for the president’s mercy.
As anticipated, they were unable to see Bush at his Crawford ranch. It didn’t matter, that wasn’t the real purpose of the trip to begin with. What immediately followed was: a photo op of the two veterans being rejected at a Crawford checkpoint, and it went exactly as planned.
Now this is a lot of work just to avoid answering the charges of a few fellow veterans directly, publicly, which brings me to the point of this article.
John Kerry’s biggest problem is John Kerry. He can’t run on his Senate career because his voting record is opposite to his campaign rhetoric. He can’t run on his ability to run anything, a company, a state, a municipality, a Girl Scout troop, because he has never run anything. And now, he can’t run on his self-proclaimed hero status because despite the fact that he has a dozen or so willing to stand with him in this effort, there are more than 250 standing opposed, and they won’t go away.
There’s more: former POW’s tortured with his pictures and words in captivity have a September surprise of their own for Kerry.
Kerry’s implosion is completely self-inflicted and it was completely predictable. Snared by his own web of lies and cornered by all the bridges he burned over the years, he is in serious trouble.
His most fatal fault is his belief that the American people are unable to absorb or comprehend what they see with their own eyes.
He is hoping against hope that voters will not notice that despite all of his triangulated efforts to fend off his attackers, they are growing in number and strength. Kerry is depending on the American people not noticing that through his barrage of counter attacks, he has yet to answer a single charge.
What little information has dripped out thus far supports the Swift-Vet charges: not really in Cambodia for Christmas, and at least one of the wounds may have been self-inflicted.
Hardcore Deaniacs, Socialist Party members, anti-war, anti-capitalist, and anti-American voters couldn’t care less about any of this. They are upset by the self-imposed implosion of their ''anybody but Bush'' candidate, and are more than happy to accept Kerry’s triangulation of the issue and his avoidance of his accusers at face value.
But the rest of America is getting a good look at what this guy is really all about. The DNC has been saying for months that Americans just needed to get to know John Kerry.
Well, now they are…
"I heard from local radio host Dom Giordano (Phila WHPT 1210am) who is in good with the SwiftVets that the Swifties are holding a press conference in Wash. DC on Tuesday to make some type of announcement.
Perhaps this is the beginning of their Sept. mission."
Sadly this is the stage that John McCain should be on as well. McCain prospered over his confinement and turned his back on those POW's and MIA's and that I won't forget.
