Patriot games for Kerry and Clark in New Hampshire

[T_i_B]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=484484

Two Vietnam war heroes - one the front-runner, the other the general who has never before stood for public office - are battling here for the veterans' vote this weekend, in a struggle that could have a vital bearing on who wins the Democratic nomination to take on President Bush this autumn.

As the crucial New Hampshire primary entered its final frantic days, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and retired General Wesley Clark criss-crossed the state in search of undecided voters. And no constituency is more important than veterans, who according to the Clark campaign may account for one in seven of the 463,000 registered Democratic and independent voters eligible to take part in Tuesday's election.

Addressing a crowd of 600 packed into a high school gym here on an icy Friday night, General Clark tried to recapture the initiative, delivering an impassioned message of patriotism, faith and duty. He alone, he insisted, had the qualities to right the damage done by Mr Bush and restore America's standing in the world after Iraq. "The Iraq war wasn't patriotic. The Iraq war was bad, deceptive and wrong, and its not my definition of patriotism to dress up in a flight suit and prance around the deck of an aircraft carrier," he said, referring to Mr Bush's sortie to the USS Abraham Lincoln last May to proclaim "mission accomplished" after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Yesterday, Mr Kerry too used the "patriotism" argument against Mr Bush, accusing the President of cutting veterans' benefits even as he trumpeted the virtues of the military: "We're not taking lessons in patriotism from those who don't understand that the first obligation of patriotism is to keep faith with those who fought for their country."