The nightmare that is key to Kerry's dream

[T_i_B]

Article in Rupert Murdoch's Times about Kerry's Vietnam record. Make of this what you will.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-990882,00.html

Mr Kerry has many weaknesses as a candidate, but if he wins the Democratic nomination a Vietnam war hero will be running against a president whose own conduct during Vietnam is now being challenged. A soldier who has tasted battle will be challenging a commander-in-chief who started a contentious war in which more than 500 Americans have died.

In a Bush-Kerry match-up on wartime service, how could there be any result other than a Kerry win? However, Mr Kerry’s Vietnam years are not all black and white. Two more snapshots crystallise the complex make-up of a man whose acts off the battlefield are often open to several interpretations. When Mr Kerry returned home, he opposed the war, and became the spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War. In his televised evidence to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee in 1971, the 27-year-old Mr Kerry delivered what remains his best soundbite. “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” But the performance won Mr Kerry enemies as well as fans. Some veterans thought his vivid description of US atrocities false and treacherous. They believed he was using their cause to further his political ambitions.

The recent past also suggests that a war record is not necessarily an electoral advantage. To win the White House, George W. Bush secured the Republican nomination by beating John McCain, a Vietnamese prisoner of war for five-and-a-half years, and Al Gore, a US army journalist in Vietnam.

In most recent presidential elections, the candidate with the best military record — Bob Dole, George Bush Sr, Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter, George McGovern — lost. If Mr Kerry clinches the Democrat nomination, he will be running both with and against history

[JPJones]

1. I'm a Clark guy...

but there's no way that Kerry's Vietnam record won't be spun in a positive light. Democrats are too focused this year. The media is too focused this year.

McCain would have won the general election.

Bob Dole and GHWB ran between the end of the cold war and before Sept. 11.

Mondale, Carter and McGovern were war heros? Never heard about it.

Is that the best you've got, Murdoch?

[T_i_B]

2. No way that Kerry's Vietnam record won't be spun in a positive light?

Murdoch does try to spin against Kerry's Veitnam record here, as he always spins against Democrats. From the article. Make of this what you will.

The self-assured Lieutenant Kerry, who had attended Swiss boarding school while his diplomat father was posted in Europe, decided to improvise. Instead of presenting the length of the boat’s hull to the enemy, why not narrow the target? Instead of firing and running, why not take the fight to them? The three boats transporting 30 South Vietnamese Popular Forces came under fire from the bank. “Turn 090. All boats turn 090,” Lieutenant Kerry shouted, “charge the beach”. The tactic surprised the ambushers. At least one was killed while others fled. The boats left the troops to sweep the area and headed upriver. Within 200 yards a rocket shell smashed through the portside windows of Lieutenant Kerry’s boat. Again, he ordered the boats to charge the beach.

On shore, emerging from a foxhole 10ft away, a surprised Vietcong guerrilla pointed a rocket launcher at Lieutenant Kerry’s boat. The senator wonders to this day why the guerrilla failed to fire. Possibly he thought he was too close to his target to escape shrapnel. He instead turned and ran. Lieutenant Kerry grabbed an M16, chased and killed him.

Lieutenant Kerry’s tactics broke the rules. As a captain he should not have left his boat, let alone ram it ashore. Swift-boat crews were not trained to assault the muddy land. For a start, their footwear was more akin to deck shoes than combat boots.

His commanding officer wondered whether to commend Lieutenant Kerry or court martial him, only half-joking. He wrote him up for a Silver Star. “The extraordinary daring and personal courage of Lieutenant Kerry in attacking a numerically superior force in the face of intense fire were responsible for the highly successful mission,” the citation read.

[JPJones]

5. That make Kerry look...

like the kind of hero that America loves.

Again, is that the best you've got, Murdoch?

Now if only Clark could get coverage like this.

[bryant69]

3. Thi is just the beginning

by the time the right wing media gets done with Kerry they will be claiming he fought in the Vietnam war on the Vietcong side. But will such complaints be believable? I don't think so.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[JPJones]

4. Also, see Josh Marshall

another Clark guy's take on this.

Link

See Feb. 4 at 12:10 am
Then Feb. 4 at 4:04 pm
Then Feb. 5 at 12:53 pm. Follow the links to calpundit.

BTW, Krugman cites Marshall in his article today. There's power in a blog.

[Virgil]

6. I really do not consider any of it relevant

About all it showed was he was priviledged enough to get heard. He did have a great line and he was in Vietnam. That was then and this is now and now I want to hear how tomorrow will be different.

[corporatewhore]

7. I think it paints him as a hypporcite

he stood up for soliders being used in an unjust war and this time around he authrized them to be used in an unjust war.
“How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Iraq? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”

[Mile Hi]

8. It will hurt him

I read a report that showed a vast majority of Viet Nam vets even knowing the war was wrong still hold their service there in high regard and view it as something that had to be done. Kerry is treading on thin ice with the vets.