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First, a correction: the Silver Star episode (Kerry shot a fleeing enemy in the back and/or led a dangerous counter-attack against an ambush) is not as clear-cut as I thought.
This devastating account of records that are public (while emphasizing that all relevant records should be made public), suggests that Kerry somehow has three citations, or narratives in support of the award, whereas one is normal; and he has no eye witnesses for crucial details. (Front Page: Henry Mark Holzer and Erika Holzer). The first citation, written close to the date of the events, pretty clearly describes Kerry shooting a fleeing enemy in the back; the other two make no mention of that incident. The two later citations are virtually identical, except that the third is signed by the Secretary of the Navy in the Reagan years--years after Kerry was in Vietnam. The authors suggest that Kerry kept wanting to improve the record, and get the new version signed by a higher-ranking person than before.
"Christmas in Cambodia" continues to percolate. Defences of Kerry don't quite work. He was near Cambodia, or he didn't know for sure whether he was in Vietnam or Cambodia? But the whole point of his repeated personal anecdote is that he was in a U.S. uniform, in Cambodia, at a time when the U.S. government was giving assurances that there were no U.S. troops in Cambodia. The whole point of the story is lost if Kerry was not in Cambodia, or even if he wasn't sure. Lots of U.S. troops and intelligence types were secretly in Cambodia about that time? No doubt, but lots of people were also in Vietnam, without being sure of exactly where they were. If it was actually late January (say Tet, when (unlike Christmas) South Vietnamese might actually be shooting in celebration), that makes it better, but any troop actions would still have been ordered by Johnson, not Nixon. It was all too secret for him to confirm details? Yet he has stated the main points of his self-aggrandizing case in very public forums. He has only fallen silent now that his statements are being questioned. Brinkley may have more to say, but his defences of Kerry are based on Kerry's own journals.
Kerry has consistently tried to glorify himself, sometimes with a basis in facts, sometimes probably not. It seems clear he went in to combat with a plan to volunteer for non-dangerous duty that might look OK on a resume. The duty of Swift boats was changed, so that crews were exposed to enemy fire, only after Kerry volunteered (in contrast to statements that have been made on his behalf). (Spinsanity via Instapundit). From then on he seems to have applied the rules for getting medals, and then getting out, with extreme discipline and focus. He at least prodded his superiors to cite him for awards; he may have written at least first drafts of citations himself, and he made damn sure to get out right after the third Purple Heart, when other officers might have stayed for a year or two.
Ann Althouse is very good again (linking to Sam Schechner in Slate on how easy it is to get a Purple Heart):
Okay, I have a question. If it is so easy to get a Purple Heart, how was the military able to have that rule allowing you to go home early upon winning three? Three "Band-Aid boo-boos" and you can go home? How did that work exactly? How many people left early that way? How eagerly did people write up scratches in the hope of escape? As I write that, I worry that I'm insulting the people who went to war and did their duty and did not look for an out. But is that not what Kerry did? I don't particularly blame him, because virtually all the young men I knew--I went to college in 1969-1973--openly and on a day-to-day basis looked for ways to avoid Vietnam.
Did the three Purple Hearts rule work because when you were in action, fighting with a group of men, peer pressure would keep you from pursuing that out? If so, and if Kerry overcame the pressure and took the out, then the Swift Boat Vets are the peers returning to express the very anger that those swayed by peer pressure strive to avoid.
As I have said, Tom Sawyer goes to war. Yet even though so many young men of his generation went to some trouble to avoid Vietnam altogether, Kerry is at risk of being criticized for not being all that noble when he got there. Why? At least partly because he has so aggrandized his role, on every possible point. Also he has literally made his brief Vietnam experience the centrepiece of his campaign. Even more than Gore with his silly lines about how he invented the Internet (when he worked in Congress to fund it), and he and Tipper may have been the inspiration for Love Story, Kerry is at risk of looking like a puffed up, ridiculous fool--not because he did not serve honourably, but because of he way he has presented himself over the years.
He made a number of his Vietnam colleagues mad. (Michael Novak via Instapundit). They were probably willing to put up with him for years--even during his Senate campaigns--but now, especially with the hagiographic book by Brinkley, he has gone too far for them. That seems to explain the mystery of why some of them praised him up to a few years ago, but now they are criticizing him. They are going back to their long-standing and true view.
UPDATE Aug. 29: Retired Admiral Schachte, also a lieutenant junior grade at the time, says that the injury leading to Kerry's first Purple Heart was inadvertently self-inflicted, and there was no enemy fire at the time. Shachte and another officer therefore refused to recommend a Purple Heart, even though Kerry asked.
It seems fair to say Kerry took full advantage of the "three Purple Hearts and out" rule, in a way other officers might not have, even thought the first Purple Heart was highly questionable. It also seems fair to say there is some legitimate controversy about both the Bronze Star and the Silver Star episodes. Glenn Reynolds is on the strange business of several citations for the Silver Star--the most recent, with changes compared to earlier versions, signed by a Secretary of the Navy who has no memory of it.
First, a correction: the Silver Star episode (Kerry shot a fleeing enemy in the back and/or led a dangerous counter-attack against an ambush) is not as clear-cut as I thought.
This devastating account of records that are public (while emphasizing that all relevant records should be made public), suggests that Kerry somehow has three citations, or narratives in support of the award, whereas one is normal; and he has no eye witnesses for crucial details. (Front Page: Henry Mark Holzer and Erika Holzer). The first citation, written close to the date of the events, pretty clearly describes Kerry shooting a fleeing enemy in the back; the other two make no mention of that incident. The two later citations are virtually identical, except that the third is signed by the Secretary of the Navy in the Reagan years--years after Kerry was in Vietnam. The authors suggest that Kerry kept wanting to improve the record, and get the new version signed by a higher-ranking person than before.
"Christmas in Cambodia" continues to percolate. Defences of Kerry don't quite work. He was near Cambodia, or he didn't know for sure whether he was in Vietnam or Cambodia? But the whole point of his repeated personal anecdote is that he was in a U.S. uniform, in Cambodia, at a time when the U.S. government was giving assurances that there were no U.S. troops in Cambodia. The whole point of the story is lost if Kerry was not in Cambodia, or even if he wasn't sure. Lots of U.S. troops and intelligence types were secretly in Cambodia about that time? No doubt, but lots of people were also in Vietnam, without being sure of exactly where they were. If it was actually late January (say Tet, when (unlike Christmas) South Vietnamese might actually be shooting in celebration), that makes it better, but any troop actions would still have been ordered by Johnson, not Nixon. It was all too secret for him to confirm details? Yet he has stated the main points of his self-aggrandizing case in very public forums. He has only fallen silent now that his statements are being questioned. Brinkley may have more to say, but his defences of Kerry are based on Kerry's own journals.
Kerry has consistently tried to glorify himself, sometimes with a basis in facts, sometimes probably not. It seems clear he went in to combat with a plan to volunteer for non-dangerous duty that might look OK on a resume. The duty of Swift boats was changed, so that crews were exposed to enemy fire, only after Kerry volunteered (in contrast to statements that have been made on his behalf). (Spinsanity via Instapundit). From then on he seems to have applied the rules for getting medals, and then getting out, with extreme discipline and focus. He at least prodded his superiors to cite him for awards; he may have written at least first drafts of citations himself, and he made damn sure to get out right after the third Purple Heart, when other officers might have stayed for a year or two.
Ann Althouse is very good again (linking to Sam Schechner in Slate on how easy it is to get a Purple Heart):
Okay, I have a question. If it is so easy to get a Purple Heart, how was the military able to have that rule allowing you to go home early upon winning three? Three "Band-Aid boo-boos" and you can go home? How did that work exactly? How many people left early that way? How eagerly did people write up scratches in the hope of escape? As I write that, I worry that I'm insulting the people who went to war and did their duty and did not look for an out. But is that not what Kerry did? I don't particularly blame him, because virtually all the young men I knew--I went to college in 1969-1973--openly and on a day-to-day basis looked for ways to avoid Vietnam.
Did the three Purple Hearts rule work because when you were in action, fighting with a group of men, peer pressure would keep you from pursuing that out? If so, and if Kerry overcame the pressure and took the out, then the Swift Boat Vets are the peers returning to express the very anger that those swayed by peer pressure strive to avoid.
As I have said, Tom Sawyer goes to war. Yet even though so many young men of his generation went to some trouble to avoid Vietnam altogether, Kerry is at risk of being criticized for not being all that noble when he got there. Why? At least partly because he has so aggrandized his role, on every possible point. Also he has literally made his brief Vietnam experience the centrepiece of his campaign. Even more than Gore with his silly lines abou how he invented the Internet (when he worked in Congress to fund it), and he and Tipper may have been the inspiration for Love Story, Kerry is at risk of looking like a puffed up, ridiculous fool--not because he did not serve honourably, but because of he way he has presented himself over the years.
He made a number of his Vietnam colleagues mad. They were probably willing to put up with him for years--even during his Senate campaigns--but now, especially with the hagiographic book by Brinkley, he has gone too far for them. That seems to explain the mystery of why some of them praised him up to a few years ago, but now they are criticizing him. They are going back to their long-standing and true view.
On one of my days off, I visited three museums: one in Newmarket, where I live, and the others in rural towns: Whitchurch-Stouffville, and King.
As Newmarket has grown, beginning about 1803, it has repeatedly annexed territory from rural townships: the ones already mentioned, to the east and west respectively, and East Gwillumbury to the north. Newmarket was incorporated as a village in the 1830s, and saw consistent industrialization, along with the growth of the railroads from about the 1850s. The golden age of factories making the town economically self-sufficient may have been the 1960s, when (I believe) Dixon Pencil and Office Specialty were both here. The museum naturally emphasizes "pioneer days," before 1900, with a certain emphasis on the very earliest settlers, and how they carved something out of very difficult bush and wildnerness. (First nations people are given their due; we have a main street that still roughly follows the path of an Indian trail between Lake Ontario and Lake Simcoe).
To the extent that there is an emphasis on "buildings" in the town, it goes back to earlier decades, focussing a bit on very old buildings on or near Main Street that are still standing. All of this is understandable. I guess one big educational point of museums is to give school kids and others a sense of a world that used to be right here, where we are sitting/standing, yet it would be almost unrecognizable to us. Something akin to us that is gone for good.
I just think there should be room to talk honestly about the suburbs. One of the history books on Newmarket speaks of the first subdivision in which the town insisted that some recreational facilities be provided by the builder/developer. What about issues of reconciling growth and planning? What about the idea, now supposedly discredited, of the planned new community like Scarsdale in the U.S. or Don Mills here in Ontario--houses kept a pristine distance from stores and businesses, so everyone is practically forced to drive everywhere. This still seems to be the model for most of the new subdivisions around here. What about sprawl vs. so-called Smart Growth?
Then there are delicate subjects of race and ethnicity. Newmarket was established by Quaker farmers and millers, fleeing the American Revolution. Much of southern Ontario was founded by various English-speaking, ethnically English folk from the U.S. Within a few years immigrants were a significant force--but they were Scottish immigrants. For a long time this mixture was what was meant by "English Canada." Newly arrived ethnics would fit in as best they could, often anglicizing their names to do so as in the U.S.
The situation today could hardly be more different. Toronto itself is often called one of the most multi-cultural cities in the world--and there seems to be no one cultural type or dogma to which everyone is expected to conform, unless it is a vague hipness. The suburbs are generally more white-bread than the city, but the cultures of the city make their impact. In Richmond Hill to our south, one hears of considerable Chinese neighbourhoods, and Russian ones as well. Italians, who may not even count as ethnic any more, have tended to move north roughly along Bathurst/Dufferin/Keele, from little Italy downtown, to St. Clair/Oakwood, to Downsview and other parts of North York, to Concord, Maple, and other parts of Vaughan. People from the Indian sub-continent are in Brampton.
Not only have sleepy little farming communities been replaced by sprawling suburbs, but people who were proud to be in the British Empire or Commonwealth have been replaced or out-numbered by people to whom this means very little.
Both Whitchurch-Stouffville and King give a stronger sense of the contrast between old and new. They have preserved buildings from pioneer days. Each of them has a school; W-S has a log cabin and a somewhat newer and nicer house; King has a train station and a church. Maps show that in the golden days of the little schools and churches, there were somewhat isolated hamlets surrounded by farmland. Those hamlets through which the railroad ran became at least somewhat prosperous; others died.
Whitchurch-Stouffville, in the history part of their web site, talk about the de-forestation that had taken place by 1900, and the various efforts to establish new forests. Sand dunes and mini-deserts were literally becoming a problem toward the top of the Oak Ridges Moraine. Today the managed forests make some older areas once again a pleasure to drive through. King emphasizes the hardy pioneers, but as far as I know they differ from W-S in that they have attracted the investment of so many rich people from Toronto over the years. The land is still mostly not urbanized or suburbanized. There are lots of stories of rich people with horse farms and such buying land at subdivision prices simply to preserve it more or less as it is. The only reference to this part of King's history at the museum is some developments around Eaton Hall--for a long time, the vacation retreat of the Eaton family, owners of a famous chain of department stores.
Borrowed The Eisenhower Diaries (ed. Robert Ferrell) from the public library.
In the last few days I came across the line I remember from the reviews of the book. Senator Knowland, a Republican, weighs in on the question of whether Ike should be the candidate again in 1956. Ike is pretty much doing what he did before 1952: giving the strong impression he would rather not serve, but being willing to respond to his duty. Ike's supporters wanted to make his choice as much of a coronation as possible to heighten the sense that he was the only possible candidate. Knowland, who had apparently had a good working relationship with Ike, "announced that the Republican party did not want a reluctant presidential candidate in 1956 and said he would not join in a 'draft-Eisenhower' movement."
Ike in his diary, Jan. 10, 1955: "Morning papers carry Senator Knowland's 'nondraft' statement. In his case there seems to be no final answer to the question 'How stupid can you get?' Why he has to talk about such things I wouldn't know--unless he's determined to destroy the Republican party."
In general there is a harder-edged and more intelligent Eisenhower here, thinking more strategically, than you would see from the stereotype of the grinning Ike. Domestically he has problems both with the "reactionary" Republicans, emphatically including McCarthy, and with the ADA (Americans for Democratic Action)-type Democrats, emphatically including Adlai Stevenson and Hubert Humphrey. He saw a need to ensure that the Republican party was progressive, in the main stream, in order to keep "socialists" and their sympathizers out of office.
In foreign policy: in the immediate post-war period he hoped to find a "modus vivendi" with the Soviets. Beyond this he hoped to reduce all kinds of government spending, including defence spending, or at least reduce its rate of growth. He thought if there was a meaningful treaty with the Soviets, and inspections of weapons, both of these goals could be achieved. He was confronted by people who basically said the threat posed by Communism was limitless, so defence spending should be more or less limitless as well. Ike thought this was crazy, and at one point he reflects that he has lived through a lot of crises that some important people were convinced were going to be terrible or decisive, and were not. The Korean War complicated things: it showed China to be a threat in addition to the Soviet Union; it caused an increase in U.S. defence spending, which in contrast to the late 40s never went back down again; and it gave some support to the fear mongers.
He tends to think American "businessmen" (few women in Ike's world) have been generally stupid--especially in demanding tariffs, subsidies and other special benefits. Ike sees a need to protect industries which are truly strategic (a short list), but in general it is clear to him that free trade will benefit everyone.
He comments on journalists (Jan. 18, 1954):
On the whole, the press group violates the old adage, 'Always take your job seriously, never yourself.' This old saw they largely apply in reverse. As a result, they have little sense of humor and, because of this, they deal in negative criticism rather than in any attempt toward constructive helpfulness.
[blockquote][According to an essayist, there are three kinds of mind: those concerned with philosophies and ideas (the highest), those concerned with the physical world, and those concerned with personalities.]....the average writer of the press...love[s] to deal in personalities; in their minds, personalities make stories.[/blockquote]
I suspect that most of these men took up writing as a career for a peculiar purpose. Everybody loves distinction....
If any or all of these things are true, it could account for the extraordinary amount of distortion and gross error that characterizes so much of what appears in the newspapers....Rarely is such writing accurate.
These observations hold up quite well. The rule I like, close to a paragraph I have shortened here, is: the better you know a story, the more disappointed you will be at coverage of it. Many people have spoken of how after Watergate, reporters wanted to become "investigative" reporters: finding something negative embarrassing, practically blackmailing potential sources into spilling their guts. Reporters are democratic heroes, telling ordinary people what they need to know by wresting the truth from lying, corrupt office holders. Actual competence at telling a story clearly is rare.
Ike is similarly acute, I think, about the barons of the movie and TV business.
The other book I've been reading: H.R. Loyn, The Making of the English Nation: From the Anglo-Saxons to Edward I. I've made a couple of attempts to read about the Anglo-Saxon kings and other aspects of England before 1066, but it has always been very confusing to me. This book clears a lot of things up. One of the first points is that England proper (as opposed to the more Celtic areas: Wales, Scotland, Ireland) became German-speaking and non-Christian for a while after the Romans left--perhaps 150 years (450-600 AD?) The Roman influence (0-400) had also been Christian for a while (100 years), so as the Anglo-Saxons and Danes conquered, they destroyed both the traces of Empire and of Christianity. Then there was a re-Christening, thanks to missionary movements both from the Celts (Iona) and from Rome.
What Loyn likes to emphasize is that a structure of local government, communicating with one or more central governments, was gradually built up and largely preserved, despite various wars and conquests. The "shire" was an essential unit of organization. A "sheriff" originally was a "shire reeve". The Normans preserved and built on a lot of administrative structures that they found, even as they killed and oppressed Anglo-Saxon kings and lords, dispossessed them so as to establish Norman (French-speaking) lords, and built castles. So maybe England is the classic Hegelian country: conquerors are changed by the country they conquer, and become part of it, even as they obviously shape it as well.
I guess I need to read more about the Vikings. William the Conqueror was close to 100% Viking (Danish) when he conquered England, yet his people had completely ceased to speak any Scandinavian language, or "act" Scandinavian. They couldn't become French-speaking and Roman Catholic quickly enough. I think many Vikings were absorbed like this, in far-flung parts of the world.
For Loyn, the adoption of English as a respectable language for educated people and the ruling class, which was made possible by Chaucer among others, is not that significant for the "making" of England, even though until this happened, one clear difference between rulers and ruled was the use of Latin/French vs. English (basically German).
It is surely a mistake for the Kerry campaign to take legal action to try to prevent the "Swift Vets" book from circulating. Of all the nasty, attacking books that have sold well, sometimes with smears if not libels, this one has to be stopped? What about free speech? (Link via The Corner).
Meanwhile Bush says he would agree to dissociate himself from this book--perhaps even to join in the effort to suppress it--as long as Kerry agreed to a general crack down on the "527" organizations which have grown in importance as a way to raise and spend money outside the limits of the McCain-Feingold legislation (BCRA?). (Of course the Republicans don't speak of reforming the "501(c)" organizations, which are used more often to raise money for them. See here. I'm going to have to read up on this for my course this fall). Bush's comments seem even crazier than Kerry's action, as both his defenders and critics can agree.
What is more interesting for now, however, is that the Swift Vets business might be working--hurting Kerry. I was among those who thought every reference to Vietnam could only help Kerry against Bush. But if we look more deeply, a different picture may emerge.
Kerry has obviously been hoping that "decorated veteran of a controversial war, not personally responsible for any known atrocities" is a sure winner, with no negative echoes or ramifications, only positive ones. Even more, however, he has been trying to make his Vietnam experience answer a lot of different questions about him: toughness, leadership, character. As many people have observed, Kerry would rather not talk about his twenty years in the Senate, or even his career as a prosecutor. (How big a backlog did he reduce again?)
Some of what the Swift Vets are throwing, I suspect, is a judicious mixture of mud and shit. Some of these poor stiffs who have signed affidavits are contradicting their public statements, over many years, in support of Kerry. Now that they are under the hot lights, they go back and forth, or disappear. The Republican operatives and money people presumably don't know or care which statements are true.
Yet some anti-Kerry nuggets emerge. No one seems to believe any more that Kerry was in Cambodia during Christmas of 1968--yet Kerry stated that he was, more than once, very publicly and emphatically. Lots of people question what happened around the rescue of Rassmann. Thurlow is impressively sticking to his guns: he did not know that his own citation for an award cited enemy fire; he does not believe, and never did believe, that they were under enemy fire; and Kerry's boat was the only one that left the scene, before eventually coming back. Even Kerry's defenders are not sure whether there was enemy fire.
More of this detail by detail stuff will be coming, I'm sure. But let's say for the sake of argument that a somewhat different Kerry emerges--one who saw military service as helpful, on the whole, to his ambitions; who memorized all the rules about how awards were given, how many were needed to get out of combat early, etc.; and who cut at least some corners to make himself look as good as possible, while avoiding at least some dangerous situations that his colleagues were exposed to. The question for some voters will be: is this a whole lot--or any--better than Bush? "Tom Sawyer goes to War" is a narrative that Clinton could probably pull off extremely well, but it may not work for Kerry. Part of the problem is that he has given very little positive impression of himself--other than the Vietnam image--so there is room for his opponents to cram in some negatives.
Then there is the post-War anti-War activist, and the Congressional testimony. Obviously what really angers many vets is this stage of Kerry's career, not some question about what he did in combat. He gave the impression that atrocities were common--indeed that U.S. servicemen in general were somehow guilty of acting like Genghis Khan. Since he had to rely mainly on his own experience, the impression was left that we was referring to the men he had served with.
This I think gets to what Americans want to think about the Vietnam War. A noble, decorated veteran they can live with. Stories about self-inflicted wounds, even it is a matter of carelessness, may be less impressive. The atrocities, as far as I can tell, they don't want to hear about at all. What's more, if they get enough reminders that the war was kind of horrible and dishonest, along with suggestions that Kerry was part of these bad aspects of the war, Bush won't look so bad after all.
Instapundit reports that retired General Franks' book is doing very well, and it should be getting more media attention. Perhaps the problem is that Franks actually supports Bush in some of the main controversies about the Iraq war? For example, on WMDs: Franks says first that leaders of both Jordan and Egypt said there were WMDs in Iraq; and secondly he (Franks) has no regrets about playing a role in deposing Saddam.
Is there any chance that the dubious regimes in Jordan and Egypt were happy to see the U.S. take out Saddam? That they were willing to repeat some of the silly Chalabi crap about weapons in order to bring this about? Wouldn't an intelligent person like Franks realize "Jordan and Egypt" are a very thin reed for evidence about WMDs?
Bush critics focus on another part of Franks' book: the description of meetings that were allegedly to plan the various phases of the Iraq war. Phase III was the shooting war; Phase IV was everything that came after, or was supposed to come after, or would have come after if there were any planning. Which there wasn't.
Matthew Yglesias has the best line. After showing just how little real discussion there was, Yglesias says:
Um . . . I've been in meetings about whether or not to include the phrase "no one would want an alcoholic president, for example" in an article that featured more substantive discussion than that. Here we're talking about an undertaking that the commanding general knew "might well prove more challenging than major combat operations" but all we get is a room full of table nods. Franks said that "well-designed and well-funded reconstruction projects . . . will be the keys to our success," but the administration didn't start budgeting for them until after the war when it became politically convenient. "We will want to get Iraqis in charge of Iraq as soon as possible," said Rumsfeld, but which Iraqis when? No time for that!
Franks also allows Bush defenders to speak of "weapons of mass destruction," without distinguishing nukes from others (see other Yglesias post); and it is clear that Franks among others asked for more troops than they got, and assumed that much of the Iraqi military would remain in existence, instead of being disbanded.
Franks may still be hoping to get some work on the conservative speakers' circuit, but isn't it he really laying out a satirical case in Bush's defence?
Ann Althouse offers herself as an example of a swing voter, and in a way this goes back to the talk of "South Park Republicans," such as Dennis Miller.
She says:
I'm one of the people whose politics were changed by 9/11. Prior to 9/11, my disagreement with the social conservatives kept me from having much of any interest in Republican presidential candidates. After 9/11, I became quite bonded to George Bush. If I had to vote today, I would vote for Bush, because at this point, I cannot trust Kerry on security matters.
She wishes the Republicans would make room for people who are liberal or libertarian on social issues, and that Democrats would be better on national security. She dislikes both parties when they appeal to their cores. She predicts a Bush landslide, and if she actually does vote for Bush, this will be unusual because she usually votes Democrat, but even more because she has almost always voted for the loser.
I'm not sure Kerry supporters are seeing the extent of the problem for Kerry here. Bush has gone through a dramatic conversion from the isolationist of 2000--almost proudly ignorant and apathetic about most of the world--to someone who will re-make entire continents by a combination of diplomacy and force. This may be an unlikely change--one may still feel Bush in his heart is too ignorant and apathetic to be good at what he is trying to do--but many Americans feel his heart is in the right place, and he has a track record of real effort.
The Democrats are trying to show a reverse or parallel transformation. Now they totally support the Senate vote that authorized the use of force--they just think Bush moved too soon. They want to use Kerry's Vietnam service to show they are not soft on defence; but they have been the party most inclined to say the whole Vietnam war was a mistake, in contrast to Republicans led by Reagan saying it was a noble cause. The U.S. effort in Vietnam was escalated more by Democrats Kennedy and Johnson than by Republicans Eisenhower and Nixon, but Republicans have ended up owning it, and this works well at least with their base. Are Democrats believable in suddenly being pro-war, or being willing to do the tough, messy, often bloody work of making the world safer for Americans?
UPDATE: It seems obvious that Kerry wanted to say he was in Cambodia specifically, and when Nixon was president specifically, so as to blame the excesses of the Vietnam war on Nixon rather than Johnson (who remained president until late January 1969). What's not clear is whether Kerry fully realized that setting the date at "Christmas Eve, 1968" would spoil this picture a bit.
Pro-Kerry bloggers say Karl Rove has failed in his schemes to win over blocs of voters who did not vote for Bush in 2000. But what about the swing voters who care about national security or "the war" (allegedly all one war, even Iraq) most of all?
Meanwhile, the "social issues" have a resonance in the U.S. that is unique in Western democracies, and suggests at least some common ground with the world's theocracies. On homosexuality, abortion, stem cell research, evolution, I suppose law and order and the death penalty, many Americans look to the teaching of some Christian church, with the idea that such teachings do not change to keep up with the times. Democrats in general have difficulty in hiding their impatience with such matters. They do seem to aspire to a kind of European intellectual's secularism, cynicism, and indifference to corny, old-fashioned "values."
I have enormous sympathy for intelligent conservatism, but I doubt whether it can be found by going back to the Scopes "monkey" trial. Someone wrote recently that before that trial, many Americans who considered themselves "evangelical" or "fundamentalist" were on the left politically, at least on some issues. After the famous trial, they tended to oppose the welfare state, universal health care, liberalizing of criminal law, etc.
Ann Althouse has also been doing some good work on this question. As usual, she consistently adds something that doesn't seem to appear anywhere else. (See here, here, and here.
(Blogosphere credit: the question seems to have been raised first by sox blog, and was taken up by Instapundit).
The gist: Bush and Kerry both graduated from Yale. Bush didn't have great grades, but he got into Harvard Business and did OK there. The Harvard MBA part of Bush's career cannot be explained by family connections as easily as the Yale part. In fact there is a pattern: it emerged in the 2000 campaign that Bush's SATs were worse than Gore's, but his grades were better. As Althouse says, many employers would go with the grades, a record of actual accomplishment rather than mere potential, and hire Bush on that basis. Bush, as many people have said before, has been underestimated by his opponents.
With all Kerry had going for him, he should have been able to get into Harvard Law as easily as Bush got into Harvard Business. But Kerry ended up at Boston College. Althouse has fended off charges that she is putting down BC, etc., but the point is that any ambitious person would take admission at Harvard over BC any day. Perhaps (no one seems to know for sure) Kerry was rejected by Harvard because of poor grades? Perhaps even (horrors) poor SATs as well? These records have never been released in Kerry's case.
For Althouse this fits with the fact that Kerry's speeches don't make much sense. Perhaps it isn't just straddling--a more or less ingenious strategy, at least for a Senator, to postpone actual decisions, and maintain wiggle room, for as long as possible. Perhaps Kerry has trouble understanding the great issues facing the U.S.?
Kaus adds a detail which I think is deliciously American (skip to end of Gourevich piece--I still don't know how to link to a specific Kaus post). Kerry's hand-written notes on events he has been part of, such as some of his actions in Vietnam, are known to be clear and concise--unlike his speeches. (Some of the recent commenters on sox blog point out that Kerry kept winning debating prizes in school). Does he pay speech-writers to produce stuff that in some ways is crap compared to his own stuff? I think that is what many politicians do now--a weird combination of laziness and pushing staff to do a lot of work for little or nothing.
Perhaps what interests me the most: the tantalizing possibility that presidents and other leaders could be ranked by IQ--and that this would be a very poor guide to their overall quality as leaders. Reynolds suggests Hoover and Carter as obvious duds with high IQs. I'm not sure Carter's IQ is or was that high. Clinton and Nixon are obviously both quite high--I think one of Reynolds' commenters suggested Nixon might be #1 in IQ. Eisenhower might be a surprising admission to this list. Besides golf, which was always held against him by intellectuals, he excelled at both Scrabble and bridge. Perhaps more seriously, he absolutely excelled at every course the Army threw at him--a bit like Colin Powell. Some kind of case has to be made for Woodrow Wilson--an actual Kant scholar, and a Gladstone-type failure in foreign policy. On the other hand, there is the famous line that FDR had a first-rate temperament, but a mind somewhat below that grade; and TR was known as the rough-and-ready man of action (never mind the Harvard degree and all the books he wrote).
Ann Althouse reminds us not only that Kerry is mostly not mentioning his 20-year Senate record, but that time in the Senate does not seem, historically, to be a good preparation for the presidency.
This reminds me of Bob Dole. I always liked him, and liked his sense of humour. He was known for churning staff--many of them bright and highly educated, since people like that line up to work for Senators. When Dole got testy he would say: "If you're so smart, why are you working for me?" Not a bad question.
As a presidential candidate, Dole made a good Senator. Once he was asked about a controversial issue--clearly, it was a yes or no that was wanted--and Dole said "that bill is in mark-up."
The 100 U.S. Senators are proud of their collegiality and bipartisanship. This doesn't necessarily wear well in a partisan campaign where differences are supposed to be accentuated. There are exceptions: Bill Frist seems to be going to some lengths to show he is tough and partisan--possibly to prepare a run for the presidency in 2008.
We were living in Minnesota in 1988. Dole won both the North Dakota and Minnesota primaries. He was doing a lot of travel anyway, so at the last minute he scheduled a stop at Minneapolis to acknowledge his victory there. He literally added a quick flight from Fargo just to do a quick newser at the Minneapolis airport. There he was on TV, obviously tired. He muttered something about: I've been to so many states today, I hardly know where I am, but it's great to have your support, blah blah blah. Some wag called out "You're one of us"--playing with a line Dole and Bush (Sr.) were using on each other. Dole picked up some energy and half-smiled, half-snarled. "Yeah, I'm one of you--whatever that is." Not the right thing for a presidential candidate to say, but funny.
UPDATE: What I've said about Kerry's Senate career adds some context to Kevin Drum's observation: Kerry may not straddle or waffle any more than Bush does, but Bush is far better at it. Kerry makes it too obvious he is doing it--I would guess because straddling is seen as a virtue in the Senate.
A rough couple of weeks for Kerry. Bush has challenged him to say whether, "knowing what we know now"--no WMDs, I guess no real ties to Al Qaeda, Iraq a poorly armed country that was not threatening any Americans in March 2003--Kerry thinks the U.S. was right to invade. Kerry has finally, it seems somewhat reluctantly, agreed that this was the right thing to do. (Via Instapundit). Bush's question, framed in Bush's terms. Again, there's nothing wrong with the Bush team as a political organization.
On this issue, Kerry is a Massachusetts head on a dog being wagged by a cracker tail. He's reacting, coming from behind, trying to prove he's tough enough to defend Americans. Bush has proven this kind of credential several times over, and therefore, I think, has more flexibility to negotiate or back down.
In this context, the "Swift Boat Vets" make their most dramatic appearance yet. It would seem that no matter what they say, reminders of the different choices of Kerry and Bush in the Vietnam years will make Bush look bad. But Republican fund-raisers have paid to have these charges circulated: some at least of Kerry's decorations were based on lies, cowardly acts, etc.
There are still details to sort out: who saw the most, who actually served with Kerry at all, whether in the same boat or in one that was nearby at crucial moments, who served with him the longest and saw the most, etc. One person looks awfully bad, however, and he is a lynch-pin of the anti-Kerry stories. Retired Navy captain George Elliott
had previously defended Kerry ... when his record was questioned during his 1996 Senate campaign. At that time Elliott came to Boston and said Kerry acted properly and deserved the Silver Star. And as recently as June, 2003, Elliott called Kerry's Silver Star "well deserved" and his action "courageous" for beaching his boat in the face of an ambush.
This year, as part of the Republican-funded anti-Kerry campaign, Elliott signed an affidavit saying Kerry was dishonest in not admitting that this decoration came from shooting a wounded, fleeing (teenage) Viet Cong in the back. When questioned by the Boston Globe, Elliott said signing that affidavit was "a terrible mistake probably." Then he signed a second affidavit, offering what he called an "immaterial clarification": "I do not claim to have personal knowledge as to how Kerry shot the wounded, fleeing Viet Cong." The official citation for the Silver Star doesn't even mention this killing--it praises Kerry for attacking rather than fleeing from at least two ambushes. The "old" Elliott stressed that this was a brave thing to do, even if there were very few of the enemy carrying out the ambushes.
It seems pretty clear that Elliott is a despicable scum, who has been bought off to say whatever his Republican paymasters tell him to say. Shades of Troopergate in the Clinton years. The last anti-Clinton trooper has now been charged with lying, so it seems to be official that there never was any Troopergate, in the sense of wrongdoing by Clinton. There was just a pack of lies bought with Scaife money. (Link via Atrios).
Glenn Reynolds says the problem for Kerry is not so much whether specific charges are true, but that the Kerry operation seems so unprepared for them. I guess there is something to that. Reynolds has also focussed on Kerry saying he was serving in Cambodia around Christmas of 1968 when President Nixon lied about U.S. troops being in Cambodia. Problems? Nixon wasn't yet president at the time, and Kerry (apparently) never saw action in Cambodia.
UPDATE Aug. 17: Kevin Drum has now focussed on the testimony of Douglas Brinkley, who wrote a biography of Kerry. Brinkley confirms that Kerry was in Cambodia in January or February of 1969, not December of 1968, and that he was ferrying CIA agents--which was dangerous work. So Kerry seems to have been wrong about some details, but the story as a whole confirms his courageous military service in a shooting war. How is this going to help Bush?
Instapundit has not given up. He links to people saying Kerry should release all his records, as Bush allegedly has, and that major media should be all over this, as they allegedly have been in Bush's case. The most dramatic line is that "there are far more legitimate questions about the latter [Kerry's service] than the former [Bush's service]." Really? When months of Bush's service are simply missing in any detail, and it has never been explained how exactly he flunked a physical and was prevented from flying? Was he drunk all the time? Did he spend the months in Alabama partying and passed out on a motel room floor? Isn't it the case that the forces were prepared to lose track of him, yet still keep him on the books, because they were concentrating on getting people out of Vietnam, not sending people in? Isn't this just another example of Bush's good luck?
UPDATE Aug. 20: Mickey Kaus has joined the ranks of those who, based precisely on defences of Kerry, doubt whether Kerry was ever in Cambodia at all. What makes this significant is that in 1986, speaking in the Senate, Kerry said that his experience in Cambodia, when no U.S. troops were supposed to be there (he said Christmas 1968, but apparently he has already given up on that date), was "seared" into his memory, and changed his entire view of the U.S.
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