Maybe I react more violently because I am a male. These Medals aren't "Merit Badges." When you pick up five this way, it is a deliberate attempt to fabricate a false persona.
Well, I am not male and not military, so I clearly don't share the same sensibilities over this issue. Yes, Kerry's a phony, but he's not the first nor the last political phony. If he were accused of corruption in office I would find that much more serious.
To my way of thinking, the most important point about the Swiftvets story is that even through he knew that he had told a few 'fish stories' about his service in Vietnam (to cast the affair in its most charitable light), Kerry still decided to make 4 months on a Swiftboat the centerpiece of his campaign. If he had kept Vietnam tucked away as a line in his bio, everybody could say, let's nevermind the 60s and 70s, who is John Kerry now and where does he want to take us?
Instead the Kerry campaign decided to waaaay overcompensate for their weakness by trying to hide it in plain sight and turn it into their chief offense. A remarkably poor piece of political judgement. Even if there were not a corps of highly offended fellow vets to raise the facts as they are doing, this whole issue just begged Karl Rove to do something with it, such as suggest that Kerry step up to the plate and file a 180 like Bush had, just for starters.
But Rove doesn't even need to lift a finger now. |
