Did you know that John Kerry was a soldier in the Vietnam war? Well, he was. I just stumbled across this closely held secret somewhere on the blogsphere. Not that you would know it from listening to Senator Kerry himself who mentions it only under duress, since even the appearance of exploiting his military service for political advantage makes him uncomfortable. Perhaps this is because, as I recall from that era, he ended up becoming a very visible leader of the anti-Vietnam left, at that time using his honorable service to advance the cause of a movement that demonized, sometimes viciously (“baby killers!), the American military, though I am quite sure this was never his intent.
On the subject of using one’s military service as a campaign issue, some might be interested in this column by Collin Levey in the Seattle Times (link courtesy of Southern Appeal):
Why do we care about military service in our leaders?
It’s not solely about service and duty, though those are important things.
It’s also about understanding the gravity of conflict and credibility in handling it. The military service of Kerry’s hero, John F. Kennedy, was important because it bolstered his profile as a strong-defense Democrat at a moment of high tension in the Cold War.
Nobody has yet detected a similar forcefulness against foreign enemies from Kerry, only against domestic pharmaceutical companies, HMOs and “Big Oil.” That didn’t stop Clyburn from saying two nights ago that, even if Kerry’s Vietnam patrol boat didn’t have a name, “we’re going to give it a name” like PT109.
Clyburn is undoubtedly sincere. If Kerry listens to very much such advice, however, he’ll be walking close to the edge of turning his Vietnam experience into a campy political cliché, or worse.
Wherever Kerry is to be found these days, you don’t have to look far to find his friend and supporter, former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, a triple amputee and fellow Vietnam vet. Cleland, who lost his seat to a Republican challenger in 2002, has been put forward at every stop as a martyr to alleged GOP slurs on his patriotism. In fact, as his hometown Atlanta Journal Constitution has reported in detail, Cleland’s own campaign originated the strategy of meeting every criticism of his record on homeland security (he had voted 11 times for a Democratic Party-line effort to open up the new department to organized labor) by ginning up “feigned outrage” and accusing opponents of challenging his “patriotism.”
Cleland made these alleged slurs a central theme in his Georgia re-election campaign. Kerry would be wise to take note of what happened next: Georgia voters listened carefully to both sides and then tossed Cleland out.
Voters honor the service and patriotism of military veterans. Indeed, so much so that they can be quickly turned off by use of such symbols cynically to evade scrutiny and accountability.
That’s why Kerry’s best move now might be to shut up about Vietnam. He’s about two applause lines away from convincing voters that he’s trying to cash in on a war that cost thousands of his fellow volunteers and draftees their lives.
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