I really haven’t said much about the Swift Boat Veterans’ book or ad. As an old GI, I guess I just already knew these things about Kerry. There have been too many little things he’s said and done which clicked in my mind as being odd.
Matthew Yglesias has one comment that stands out:
It’s a little hard to see what could possibly be the motive for a Kerry lie on this front, which makes it plausible that there’s a reasonable explanation, but also a little freaky if there does turn out to be one.
I expect better from Matthew. It troubles me that he, as one of those on the Dark Side I view as being brighter than most, has that much trouble discerning reasons. After all, Kerry is nothing if not arrogant. One-upsmanship knows no logic but arrogance.
The Democratic Party has never really accepted the military. This whole issue interests me simply as a vehicle for studying the New Democratic Party. In my half-century plus on this planet I’ve never met a collective of people with more integrity and sense of honor than those in the military. Yet the Democrats have consistently belittled them, and found every possible example to display how the military has no integrity or sense of honor. That is, until John Kerry decided to run for President. They would now hold him up as a paragon of personal virtue.
Of course, when 250 men who served with him, commanded him, in Vietnam come out and call him a liar, people supporting Kerry’s campaign would have us all revert to the “military people are liars” mode.
I wish they would make up my mind.