BY JAMES TARANTO
URL:http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110004721
Friday, February 20, 2004 4:07 p.m. EST
Kerry Runs From Vietnam Record
John Kerry's obsession with Vietnam long ago became a national joke, but let's take it seriously for a moment. Why does Kerry seem to think his service in Vietnam in the late '60s is the most important question facing the country in the mid-'00s?
The Democratic line is that Kerry's distinguished service in the Navy proves his character, and also insulates him from what Dems imagine to be Republicans' propensity to "question the patriotism" of Democrats. But another reason Kerry talks about Vietnam so much may be that he's on the defensive over his own Vietnam record. After all, Kerry isn't just a veteran; he was a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, an outfit that, for better or worse, was instrumental in undermining the American war effort.
These days Kerry talks a lot more about his "band of brothers" than about his antiwar activities, but yesterday CNN's Judy Woodruff asked him about the latter:
Woodruff: it's been reported that, well you're aware of this, Vietnam veterans [are] upset with the fact that when you came back from the war, you went to Capitol Hill, and you testified in so many words against the kinds of things that U.S. soldiers were doing over there--
Kerry: Yes, I did.
Woodruff: To the Vietnamese.
Kerry: Yes, I did.
Woodruff: They are saying, in effect, you were accusing American troops of war crimes.
Kerry: No, I was accusing American leaders of abandoning the troops. And if you read what I said, it is very clearly an indictment of leadership. I said to the Senate, where is the leadership of our country? And it's the leaders who are responsible, not the soldiers. I never said that. I've always fought for the soldiers.
Here's what Kerry said in his April 22, 1971, testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (link in PDF format; the excerpt begins on page 180, the second page of the file):
Several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command. . . . They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.
They told the stories [that] at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned on the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.
It's true that elsewhere in his testimony Kerry accuses America's political leadership of giving short shrift to veterans. But this passage indisputably accuses soldiers of war crimes, and far from being an "indictment of leadership" for "abandoning the troops," it is an attack on the military leadership "at all levels of command" for complicity in the purported war crimes.
Kerry has made clear that the "lessons of Vietnam" inform his views on today's war. Here he is in Sunday's Wisconsin debate:
I would say that this president regrettably has perhaps not learned some of the lessons of that period of time during which we had a very difficult war, the longest in American history and one of the most contentious. And one of those key lessons is in how you take a nation to war. I think this president rushed to war. I don't believe he had a plan for winning the peace. I don't think he kept his promises to America.
As the Washington Post points out in a recent editorial, Kerry has been all over the map on the question of how to deal with America's enemies today:
In 1991 he voted against the first Persian Gulf War, saying more support was needed from Americans for a war that he believed would prove costly. In 1998, when President Clinton was considering military steps against Iraq, he strenuously argued for action, with or without allies. Four years later he voted for a resolution authorizing invasion but criticized Mr. Bush for not recruiting allies. Last fall he voted against funding for Iraqi reconstruction, but argued that the United States must support the establishment of a democratic government.
Mr. Kerry's attempts to weave a thread connecting and justifying all these positions are unconvincing.
Kerry's attitude toward Vietnam also has a way of shifting with the wind. In 1992 he attacked Bob Kerrey for making an issue of fellow Democratic candidate Bill Clinton's lack of military service. Now he presents his own heroics in that war as a qualification for the presidency, while trying to whitewash his antiwar activities.
At a time when America is at war with an enemy that has already killed thousands of civilians on our own soil, refighting Vietnam seems an exercise in vanity. But it seems a debate over Vietnam is inevitable if Kerry is the Democratic nominee. If so, the question that should be central is about the future, not the past: Just what "lessons" did Kerry take away from Vietnam, and how would they inform President Kerry's conduct of today's war?
Are You Ready to Rumble?
Mindful that the black vote is crucial to any Democrat's chances of winning the White House, Newhouse News Service interviews various black leaders and citizens to get their take on John Kerry. The results are mixed. One says the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam, inspires nausea:
"I have little rumblings of what I remember as the Dukakis feeling in the pit of my stomach," said the Rev. Joseph Darby, pastor of Morris Brown AME Church in Charleston, S.C., where most of the candidates--but not Kerry--took to the pulpit during the course of the campaign.
An impeached federal judge turned Florida congressman is more enthusiastic:
Rep. Alcee Hastings, who represents the Glades in Congress and picked beans on the muck when he was young, who once taught a white politician how to say "Negro" ("knee-grow") without it sounding like a slur, said perception of Kerry would change as he and others take the candidate in hand.
"Once Kerry's sat with the likes of some of the ministers and leaders that he'll be coming in contact with, you'll think he's a Baptist minister at Mount Olive," said Hastings. At the very least, "I think he'll learn to clap in time."
This photo suggests Kerry at least has enough rhythm (or thinks he does) to play the guitar. Which is reminiscent of an old Steve Martin routine, described by Nick Kenndy in a 2000 Usenet posting:
Martin says, "What Nixon really needed was a banjo." Then he illustrated Nixon and a press conference holding his banjo. A reporter shouts out, "What about Watergate?" and "Nixon" looks taken aback for a moment. Then another voice hollers, "Play Foggy Mountain Breakdown," and he grins broadly and breaks into FMB while the crowd cheers wildly.
Deaniacs for Bush
Back when Howard Dean was riding high--that is, before anyone had cast a vote--he locked up the support of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Now, the New York Times reports, AFSCME's head, Gerald McEntee, thinks Dean supporters should be locked up:
"I have to vent," Mr. McEntee, the often blunt leader of the nation's largest public service union, said in a leisurely interview in his office here. "I think he's nuts." . . .
"I go to Burlington, and I meet with him," Mr. McEntee said. "I'm telling you, I threw more ice water on his head in about 25 minutes than probably he has ever had. And I said: 'Don't do Wisconsin, O.K.? Don't go in.' I told him to get out. I said, 'You can't win.' "
"He said he's still going into Wisconsin," Mr. McEntee continued. "I said: 'We're not. We're off the train. If you think I'm going to spend $1 million to get you another point after this election is over, you're crazy.' " . . .
Mr. McEntee, who flirted with endorsing John Kerry and Gen. Wesley K. Clark before settling on Dr. Dean, said his union was probably going to sit it out for a while. "At this point, there's no way we're going to endorse anybody," he said. "I think we need a rest. Maybe in an asylum."
Meanwhile, blogger Scott Johnson surveys the postwithdrawal posts on Dean's Blog for America and finds that not all of them intend to vote Democrat this November (posts quoted verbatim):
jelly: "hey there jk/je lurkers and trolls--y'all will never have my time nor money--and you certainly will not have my vote so pis* off"
Lee: "I suppose that is the silver lining: a Bush win in 2004 opens up the way for Dean 2008--and no incumbent!"
Brand new Naderite: "Green party all the way baby!"
E in NC: "I will support you, Governor Dean, but I will never support either John Kerry or John Edwards. They are spineless opportunists who have shown atrocious judgement with respect to the most important decisions a president will ever make--decisions about war and peace. Electing either one of them will change absolutely nothing."
Moderate Republican for Dean: "Vote for an establishment democrat? no way! I will hold my nose and vote for Bush! The DNC needed my swing vote. It is too bad that they are backing the wrong man. I guess that is time to open my wallet and give my attention to Dubya.
Frisbeedude: "Thank you and Good Night! Vote BUSH in 04 and then Dean has a chance to run again in 08."
We keep hearing that Democrats are united in their determination to beat President Bush. This makes us wonder if that's entirely true. And Fox News, citing unnamed "advisers," reports that Ralph Nader "will enter the 2004 race for the White House as an independent candidate. . . . A formal announcement by Nader is expected this weekend." This is going to be fun.
Prepared for Every Eventuality
"The president's team said it also has done substantial research on Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) in case he surges to the nomination and has even prepared a couple of ad scripts targeting long shot Dennis J. Kucinich, an Ohio congressman."--Washington Post, Feb. 20
Mad Mullahs Steal an 'Election'
Iranians are "voting" today in an "election" that pits hard-liners against mad mullah-approved "moderates." The mad mullahs are disqualifying even more of the ersatz moderates than usual, making the vote even less democratic than is typical. In a typically credulous Tehran dispatch, Reuters "reports":
Grandmother Khadijeh Fatahi hopes President Bush will die of shock after seeing so many Iranians turn out for Friday's parliamentary election, a poll expected to return conservatives [sic] to power.
The 67-year-old led a chorus of some 70 women, clad in the all-enveloping black chador, who punched the air and chanted "Death to America" after attending Friday prayers in central Tehran before voting.
"I am voting to say death to America and death to Bush. This will show Bush any idea Iranians will not vote is nonsense," she said. "I hope he drops down dead when he hears this."
Given how rattled the president was by the "100% turnout" in the last Iraqi "election," this should be the end of him for sure. Meamwhile, London's Daily Telegraph takes to the streets of the Iranian capital and "talks to young Republican Guards in Teheran who defy the official view of the US":
"I would live in America, no problem," said one 22-year-old, who added that he associated the country with "love and freedom."
Nearby, "Down with USA" was painted on the wall in garish red and yellow hues.
Another guard, also in his 20s, added: "Our government has one view of America but the people have another.
"Our government tries to show the US as an enemy of our country and of our people. All of the young believe the US is good. Most of the people believe this."
Americans and Europeans who harbor anti-American sentiments should be asking themselves: Why do they love us?
Florence of Arabia
People sometimes ask why we write so much about Saudi Arabia, and we just want to say that we like the Saudis, but only as friends. What prompts our defensiveness is an article by John Bradley in London's Independent, which reports that "Saudi Arabian men are taking advantage of the emergence of an increasingly tolerated Western-oriented gay scene":
"I don't feel oppressed at all," said one, a 23-year-old who was meeting in one of the coffee shops with a group of self-identified "gay" Saudi friends dressed in Western clothes and speaking fluent English. "I heard that after 11 September, a Saudi student who was going to be deported on a visa technicality applied for political asylum because he was gay," he added, provoking laughter from the others. "What was he thinking of? We have more freedom here than straight couples. After all, they can't kiss in public like we can, or stroll down the street holding one another's hand." . . .
In an unprecedented two-page special investigation, the daily newspaper Okaz said lesbianism was "endemic" among schoolgirls. It justified the article with a saying of the Prophet's wife Ayeshathat "there should be no shyness in religion". The article told of lesbian sex in school lavatories, girls stigmatised after refusing the advances of their fellow students, and teachers complaining that none of the girls were willing to change their behaviour. . . .
"A particularly beautiful boy always gets top marks in the exams because he's some teacher's favourite," said Mohammed, an English teacher in a government high school in Riyadh. "On the other hand, I know many older boys who deliberately flunked their final exams so they can stay . . . with their younger sweethearts."
But don't worry, there's no danger to the sanctity of marriage, which Saudi law defines as the union of one man and four women.
An Idea You'll Find Disarming
USA Today carries a groundbreaking op-ed piece by Adil Najam, a professor of international negotiations and diplomacy at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. The title sums up his argument: "Get Rid of All Nuclear Arms."
"Perhaps," Najam ventures, "the fathers of our own atom bomb--Robert Oppenheimer and his colleagues from the Manhattan Project--were correct in believing that the only real way of dealing with nuclear proliferation is to ban nuclear weapons altogether. Everywhere." Wow, this is so simple, we can't believe we never thought of it!
Zero-Tolerance Watch
"A 6-year-old boy has been suspended for 10 days for bringing toy swords, daggers and a nightstick to his school in James City County," the Associated Press reports from Williamsburg, Va. "A teacher at James River Elementary School discovered the plastic weapons Monday morning, says Maj. Stan Stout of the James City County Police Department. No charges will be filed because it's not illegal to have toy weapons."
Free Speech Wins One
The thought police are on the defensive on at least one liberal college campus. An instructor at the University of North Carolina's Chapel Hill campus "has apologized after a student said during a class discussion that he opposed homosexuality--and found himself singled out by the teacher for hate speech," reports the Raleigh News & Observer:
In an e-mail message sent Feb. 6 to her "Literature and Cultural Diversity" students, the lecturer, Elyse Crystall, wrote, "[W]hat we heard [T]hursday at the end of class constitutes 'hate speech' and is completely unacceptable. [I]t has created a hostile environment." Crystall went on to name the student, identified as Tim, and said he was a perfect example of the topic of discussion during class: privilege.
She referred to Tim as "a white, heterosexual, [C]hristian male" who "can feel entitled to make violent, heterosexist comments and not feel marked or threatened or vulnerable."
On Monday, Crystall apologized in another e-mail: "I regret that my e-mail to you last week crossed a line and inhibited free discussion," she wrote. "And I am sorry if anyone was offended by my e-mail; my intention was to promote respectful conversation among us, not to censor anyone. We should not make specific examples of anyone, and I should not have named anyone."
Just the Facts, Ma'am
"Some women who live across town from the university said the news had only reinforced the vague sense they already had that the rowdy party atmosphere of the campus was on some level hostile toward women."--from a New York Times article on rape allegations at the University of Colorado, Feb. 20
A Polarizing Issue
"Magnets Fear Loss of Diversity"--headline, Dallas Morning News, Feb. 18
You Don't Say
"Placebo Effect Is All in the Head"--headline, Reuters, Feb. 19
What Would We Do Without Recent Theories?
"Theories of sexual selection in most species usually concentrate on how males compete for females. But recent theories for humans suggest there is intrasexual competition among females as well, as males can vary markedly in their abilities as providers and protectors."--New Scientist, Feb. 18
What Would Detroit Do Without Killings?
"Killings Spotlight Detroit's Violent Side"--headline, Associated Press, Feb. 20
It's the Eponymy, Stupid
Oh boy, we've really started something with our recent items on professors with funny names. The best one we've heard by far--though the story is rather horrifying--is Richard Pervo, a former professor of Classical and Near East Studies at the University of Minnesota. Pervo was forced to resign from the university in 2001 after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography, which he downloaded to his campus computer.
Readers sent us a lot of tips about appropriately named medical professionals; indeed, it turns out there's a whole list of them here. Our favorites:
Lawrence Bone, chairman of the department of orthopedics at the State University of New York, Buffalo.
Steven Smiley, a Spartanburg, S.C., orthodontist.
Austin, Texas, Urologist Richard "Dick" Chopp, whose Web site says he "has a very special interest in Vasectomies."
Donald Butts, a specialist in colon and rectal surgery from Houston.
H. Wayne Carver II, Connecticut's chief medical examiner.
Once Carver gets done with you, you can travel to Honeoye Falls, N.Y., where the Merton H. Kays Funeral Home is run by one Richard Dye.
At the University of Nevada, the associate director of admissions and records is Skip Records. Ireland has a law firm called Argue & Phibbs. Then there's this, from a trial story last month in the Courier-News of Bridgewater, N.J.:
Ernest Duh, a Phillipsburg attorney, said the most difficult challenge facing attorneys in the Williams case is assessing whether potential jurors are being truthful.
"The real issue is whether jurors will be honest with attorneys with regards to their knowledge of any facts in this case," Duh said. "If relevant information is withheld, there's not a lot attorneys can do."
Well, Duh, you don't say!
Finally, yesterday's letter from reader Dwight Duffus prompted Nicholas Genes to stake his own claim to eponymy:
A few years ago I, Nick Genes, was working in a molecular biology lab at Rhode Island Hospital. My new advisor couldn't get over my name, especially because I'd be working with DNA--and "nicking DNA" is a process where one of DNA's double strands is intentionally broken to relieve stress in the helix.
My advisor kept introducing me to people as "Nick Genes, get it? Nicking? Genes?" Then a doctor walked over to us and said, "That's nothing. I know a hematologist named Billy Rubin."
Get it? Bilirubin is a breakdown product of heme, the molecule that carries oxygen in the blood.
That doesn't strike us as especially funny, but maybe we're just jaundiced.
What's Your Sign?
Mel Gibson's new movie, "The Passion of the Christ," opens next Wednesday. The New York Times reports that "tonight NBC plans to devote an entire edition of 'Dateline' to the debate over 'The Passion' by sending the show's anchor, Stone Phillips, to Jerusalem to uncover what really happened in the last days of Jesus's life."
It's about time someone got to the bottom of this!
Meanwhile, we were intrigued by this report in yesterday's New York Daily News:
Mel Gibson says he took it as a sign to make "The Passion of the Christ" when a strange French woman approached him several years ago and said, "Jesus loves you."
"There were signals like this all over the place," Gibson said in a documentary about the making of his controversial movie, which opens Wednesday. . . .
James Caviezel, who plays Christ, said he got an equally eerie sign six months before he auditioned when a stranger came up to him and said, "You'll be playing Jesus."
Caviezel noted his initials are J.C. and was 33--the same age as Jesus when he was killed.
During the filming, Caviezel and an assistant director were both struck by lightning--but you'd have to be a religious nut to construe this as anything other than an accident of nature.
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Today on OpinionJournal:
Review & Outlook: Journalists abandon their principles in the Plame kerfuffle.
Daniel Henninger: Dems endanger the country by personalizing the Iraq issue.
And on the Taste page:
Review & Outlook: Move the Montreal Expos to Mexico.
Tony & Tacky: A kid only a Love could mother; California's latest cruelty to prisoners.
William McGurn: My car is old, dented, ugly, loud and . . . perfect.
Mark Steyn: Conan O'Brien finds Anglophone Canadians can't take a joke about Francophone ones.
Amjad Khan: Muslims suffer religious persecution at the hands of other Muslims. |
