Posted on 09/22/2004 7:24:01 AM PDT by SJackson
Time to ask forgiveness for having slandered US vets
It is becoming increasingly clear that John Kerry will lose this presidential election, principally because he violated one of the most important religious laws, inculcated within nearly every Jewish child from the youngest age, namely, the commandment not to slander innocent parties and not to engage in malicious gossip.
What led to Kerry's drop in the polls starting in August was the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth pummeling Kerry with negative advertisements on three issues: his wartime record in Vietnam, his indictment of US troops as war criminals upon his return, and his public discarding of the medals he won for his service.
What motivates the Swiftees? The Democrats have consistently maintained that George W. Bush is behind them. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand why these Vietnam veterans so loathe John Kerry.
Kerry robbed them of honor and condemned them to infamy when he came back from the war and called them baby-killers and rapists. We Jews call this lashon hara - the sin of the evil tongue - and it is a sin equated with murder.
Killing a man's reputation is the metaphorical equivalent of killing the man himself. The victim's head sinks in public; he wishes he were dead.
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth despise Kerry for spreading the lie that American soldiers in Vietnam were for the most part dishonorable marauders, running around the countryside "in a manner reminiscent of Ghengis Khan."
These statements, coming from a charismatic, Yale-educated and decorated officer, were eminently believable and made a tremendous impact on the nation, ensuring that millions of heroic lives would be destroyed.
A woman in Rhode Island told me that when her husband came home from Vietnam wearing his uniform, he was set upon by hooligans and beaten up in the streets. Thousands of other Vietnam veterans came back and were repeatedly rejected for jobs.
After all, would you hire an accused murderer?
We Jews know what it's like to be slandered. In our case we faced "blood libel" - a phenomenon whose history goes back more than 1,000 years to when Jews were first accused of slaughtering innocent Christian children for ritual purposes.
One can only imagine the horror of Jews striving to lead outstanding moral lives, devoted to a strict ethical regimen, suddenly being accused of the most unspeakable atrocities. They wondered what they could possibly have done to deserve such malicious accusations.
But living under tyrannical regimes, they were powerless to stop it and they had no choice but to suffer the terrible consequences of being branded baby-killers.
But Swift Boat vet John O'Neill and his fellow former soldiers live in a free and open society, and they are anything but powerless.
Put yourself into the shoes of the Swift Boat Veterans, whose only crime was to go to a foreign nation and fight for its liberty so that its citizens would not be subjected to communist cruelty. Yet they were called barbarous brutes by Kerry and his colleagues, who accused them of genocide.
If you were them, wouldn't you be enraged? So the Swiftees decided that their reputations were too precious to be silent. They struck back. They would not allow a man who had slandered them to become the commander-in-chief.
All they had wanted was to fight for the freedom and justice of the Vietnamese people, and they were punished for their sacrifices by being called cold-blooded killers. Kerry maligned their credibility, so they went after his in return. Kerry called them war criminals, so they tried to show that he was the real war criminal, accusing him of killing a fleeing teenage Vietcong.
On the street they say, "What goes around comes around."
BUT WE Jews understand that this is simply the inevitable and tragic outcome of all malicious gossip, which is why Judaism is so passionate about outlawing slander and gossip.
Gossip creates a spiteful cycle that has no end. Because the moment someone steps forward to ruin your reputation, the only way you can save yourself is by ruining theirs in turn.
Kerry's supporters argue that in his now-infamous 1971 Senate testimony he was only repeating what he had heard from other Vietnam Vets at the Winter Soldier meetings in Detroit.
This is not convincing. The sin of malicious gossip prohibits not only inventing harmful fiction but repeating it as well.
Yom Kippur is upon us. Jewish tradition demands that we go to each other and beg forgiveness for any harmful things we may have said about one another. It is a particularly awkward moment when you have to go to a colleague and reveal that you slandered him or her when they weren't around.
John Kerry doesn't have to have that awkward moment. The veterans already know what he said about them because Kerry did it front of the whole world.
But Kerry can end all the attacks against him by the Swiftees by simply offering a heartfelt and sincere apology. He can simply say that he is sorry for transmitting such malicious gossip - and hope the veterans will rise to the difficult but rewarding challenge of bestowing complete forgiveness.
The writer is a syndicated radio host on the US Liberty Broadcasting Network. www.shmuley.com
Maybe Dan Rather should also reflect on lashon hara this Kippur...
"But Kerry can end all the attacks against him by the Swiftees by simply offering a heartfelt and sincere apology. He can simply say that he is sorry for transmitting such malicious gossip - and hope the veterans will rise to the difficult but rewarding challenge of bestowing complete forgiveness."
The only apology that is heartfelt and sincere is to admit he is a low life and he is attempting to reenact what he did in Vietnam, then flee for the mountains never to be heard from again.
TRUTH and the REALITY of Kerry, and the far-left Dems, are killing Kerry -- a bit of repenting is not going to change what and who he is. History has captured that foreever.
The annoying part is that my dad and most of his friends live (for 6 months of the year) in Massachusetts!
I REALLY like that part.
Thanks, it is quite appropriate for the "holy day".
good from Shmueley!
I just spoke to a vendor from Mass, he told me people no longer mention kerry's name in public, he is a non entity
election day will be telling.
Or at least they are not "that idiot pResident". Remember, this is Teddy Kennedy country you're talking about!
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