Kerry: Up in Smoke?
Best of the Web Today - April 27, 2004
By JAMES TARANTO
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A look at the second-day coverage of John Kerry's "Good Morning America" interview about his shifting Vietnam medal stories bolsters our view that the Kerry campaign is in very deep trouble. "Kerry Questions Bush Attendance in Guard in 70's" reads a front-page headline in today's New York Times. The Times gives top billing to Kerry's attempt to change the subject:
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In a day of piercing and personal exchanges, John Kerry questioned on Monday whether President Bush skipped National Guard duty 30 years ago, while Vice President Dick Cheney disparaged Mr. Kerry as an opportunist unfit to lead the nation in wartime.
Mr. Kerry had previously declined to join other Democrats in raising questions about Mr. Bush's National Guard attendance record. But during a contentious interview on national television on Monday, when pressed on whether he threw away his Vietnam war medals in a protest in 1971, he defended himself and attacked the president.
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"This is a controversy that the Republicans are pushing," Mr. Kerry said on "Good Morning America" on ABC. "The Republicans have spent $60 million in the last few weeks trying to attack me, and this comes from a president and a Republican Party that can't even answer whether or not he showed up for duty in the National Guard. I'm not going to stand for it."
Now, some would argue that the New York Times is showing its own bias by emphasizing the National Guard business. But in fact, Kerry's mentioning of it is highly newsworthy. The man wants to be president of the United States, and he is in such a weak position that he feels it necessary to attack his opponent personally over an ancient issue that is as trivial as anything we can imagine.
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Normally, presidential candidates are at great pains to appear above the fray, or "presidential." They leave most of the attacks to their surrogates--even attacks that are substantive, such as Cheney's speech yesterday. Thus Bush aide Karen Hughes has commented on Kerry's contradictory statements about his medals, but the president himself has remained mum and will likely continue to do so.
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Why did Kerry feel that he himself had to bring up the National Guard? For one thing, because he is extremely vulnerable on the medal question. He has built his entire candidacy around the image of himself as a war hero, but when voters learn that he threw his decorations away, and then that he can't even tell a straight story about which decorations they were, the war-hero story becomes at the very least complicated.
Hence the need for a diversionary defense.<font size=3> Letting his surrogates belabor the National Guard would not have been effective, because they've already done so, leading a few weeks back to a kerfuffle that blew over when the White House released Bush's service records. By raising the issue himself, Kerry elevates it--but he diminishes himself in the process. <font size=4>(The Boston Globe notes another Kerry statement that suggests his degree of desperation: "God, they're doing the bidding of the Republican National Committee," he said of ABC News immediately after the "Good Morning America" interview ended--and after he thought the microphone had gone off.)
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Not that Kerry's surrogates haven't been sounding related themes. The Washington Times notes that "a Democrat-leaning group" has suggested "that Mr. Cheney's wife became pregnant to help her husband avoid serving in Vietnam." It seems an outfit called the Thunder Road Group is unhappy that the Cheneys were making love, not war.
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Aren't Bush's National Guard record and Cheney's lack of military service fair game for the Kerry campaign and its allies? Well sure, if voters deem them important. We're guessing that they won't, although President Dole may disagree.
On the other hand, Kerry's antiwar activity seems highly relevant today. When he threw his medals, ribbons or whatever over the fence at the Capitol, he was already a politician, forming a worldview about America, its military and its role in the world. How that worldview was shaped and what form it takes today is of the utmost importance to voters choosing a candidate in November. Yet Kerry can't even seem to get his facts straight about those formative events.
Blogger Michael Totten suggests a way for Kerry to extricate himself from this quagmire:
Most people don't really care if John Kerry did and said dumb things in '71. I certainly don't. I was only one year old at the time. I do expect him to act like an adult and be honest about it, however. He is, after all, auditioning for president of the United States.
I don't care for John Kerry, but I'll throw him a rope all the same. Here you go, senator. Say this on the TV: "Today's more strident anti-war activists remind me of my own immature self back in 1971." It will kill two proverbial birds with a single figurative stone. It will play well among people who matter. And you'll feel a lot better.
It's a good idea, but we're not holding our breath. Meanwhile, at least one commentator of the left, James Ridgeway of the Village Voice, is declaring, "John Kerry must go." We wouldn't be surprised if others join the chorus.
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Bring 'Em On! No, Call 'Em Off!
"If George Bush wants to make national security an issue
in this campaign, I have three words for him that I know
he'll understand. Bring it on!"--John Kerry, quoted in the
New York Times, Feb. 1
"Call off the Republican attack dogs."--Democratic
National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe, responding to
Dick Cheney's speech on John Kerry's defense record,
quoted by the Associated Press, April 26
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Black Kettle Watch
"Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York urged marchers to vote in big numbers on Nov. 2 to evict an administration 'filled with people who disparage sexual harassment laws.' "--from an Associated Press dispatch on Sunday's abortion-rights march, April 26
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Author! Author!
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"Former President Clinton's memoirs will be published in late June," the Associated Press reports from New York. The AP doesn't mention the most interesting thing about the timing--that the release date is just a month before the Democratic National Convention in Boston.
"It is the fullest and most nuanced account of a presidency ever written," says publishing house honcho Sonny Mehta. Nuanced, eh? Boy, Clinton is really trying to upstage John Kerry.
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Where'd These Weapons Come From?
"Jordanian authorities said Monday they have broken up an alleged al Qaeda plot that would have unleashed a deadly cloud of chemicals in the heart of Jordan's capital, Amman," CNN reports:<font size=3>
Among the alleged targets were the U.S. Embassy, the Jordanian prime minister's office and the headquarters of Jordanian intelligence.
U.S. intelligence officials expressed caution about whether the chemicals captured by Jordanian authorities were intended to create a "toxic cloud" chemical weapon, but they said the large quantities involved were at a minimum intended to create "massive explosions."
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Jordan's state-run television aired a confession from ringleader Azmi Jayyousi, who said he took orders from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an Iraq-based al Qaeda terrorist. "I took explosives courses, poisons high level, then I pledged allegiance to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to obey him without any questioning," Jayyousi said.
The Jordanians say they "seized 20 tons of chemicals and numerous explosives." Could these have come from Saddam's stocks?<font size=3>
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Getting the Job Done
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The New York Times reports on the latest fighting in Fallujah and Najaf, Iraq:
Coalition forces killed 43 followers of enemy Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr near Najaf.
Residents of Najaf--whom the Times describes as "a shadowy group"--killed another five Sadrites.
The U.S. fired at a mosque and toppled a minaret after enemy fighters used the house of worship to attack Marine positions.
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All in all, this sounds like good news. Putting down an insurgency is tough work, but our boys seem to be getting it done. The Times, however, gives the story a gloomy headline: "Fierce Battles in Najaf and Falluja Dim Hopes for Accord." We'd say every fewer enemy makes the hope that much brighter.
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Smart Tyrants, Foolish Choices
Moammar Gadhafi might have abjured weapons of mass destruction, and his son may be making some intriguing reformist noises, but the old colonel--yes, even after 35 years as dictator, he still hasn't managed that first star--has not exactly embraced moral responsibility. In a Brussels speech today, Reuters reports, the "Libyan leader" urged the West "not [to] force his country back to its old days of sponsoring and harboring what he called 'freedom fighters' ":
"We do hope that we shall not be obliged or forced one day to go back to those days when we bomb our cars or put explosive belts around our beds and around our women so that we will not be searched and not be harassed in our bedrooms and in our homes, as it is taking place now in Iraq and in Palestine."
Someone should take up a collection to buy the daffy dictator a copy of that self-help book "Pulling Your Own Strings."<font size=3>
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Pinky Could Have Told Them That
"Study: Brain Sees Others' Mistakes as Own"--headline, CNN.com, April 26
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That's Why His Schedule Was Scrambled
"Jean Marie Le Pen Met With Eggs in UK"--headline, Granma International (Cuban regime newspaper), April 26
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You Don't Say
"Self-Mutilating Teens May Suffer From Mental Illness"--headline, Arizona Republic, April 26
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Stop the Presses
"Alcohol Bottles Found at Fraternity"--headline, Indiana Daily Student (Indiana University), April 23
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The World's Smallest Violin
Think you've got problems? Consider the plight of 35-year-old David Hitz, sensitively retold by the compassionate folks at USA Today. Hitz "returned to the USA last year after living in Britain for seven years," the paper explains. "He was shocked at the lack of economic opportunity compared with when he left the country during the boom years of the 1990s."
Oh sure, Hitz had a job when he came back to the U.S. But his wife couldn't find one for four long months. And that's not his only problem. ''In England, health care was abysmal and free," he says. "In the United States, it's abysmal and expensive." Houses and cars are pricier than they used to be, too.
Oh, and "summer vacation will be really expensive"--a complaint that somehow seems less poignant coming from someone who lives in Orlando, Fla.! |
