I think you might want to check the order of events.
In 1992, in support of Clinton, Kerry urged people
not to focus on Vietnam or military service.
From the outset of the Kerry campign, he's focused on Vietnam and his military service.
As I recall, there were months of claims
and attacks from the Kerry side about Bush being AWOL,
and a clamoring for his records.
By February of this year, however, Kerry himself
was taking the high road and declined to criticize
Bush's National Guard service, saying something like
everyone served in different ways.
More recently, ABC News came up with the apparently
conflicting statements from Kerry about whether he did, or did not, throw his "medals."
Last Monday, Kerry appeared on GMA and crossed swords
with Charlie Gibson about this. During that interview,
Kerry tried to deflect the questions by personally attacking
Bush's service (where was he? etc. etc.)
Kerry thereby took the offensive and himself
descended into the "AWOL" claim arena against Bush.
So, unless I'm mistaken, Kerry initiated his personal attack
against Bush on this issue in response to ABC's surfacing
of his "throwing away the medals" issue.
When you get the order straight, you can see that
Kerry made a huge blunder in going on the offensive
when he did and under the circumstances he did.
He can blame ABC for provoking him, but ultimately
he made the blunder all on his own.
He should have stuck to the high road. |
