Ed and thread,
Wow, something woke this thread up. I won't step into this swiftvet argument at all, as it is at least as hamhanded as Kerry's goofy looking salute ("reporting for duty") and really apropos of almost nothing. For all I care, Kerry could have worked the entire tour of duty in Nam as sous-chef for the officer's mess, or he could have been Jesse the Body Ventura going off on "night patrol" for weeks on end, bringing back Apocalypse Now shrunken heads of his enemies. It matters not one whit to me, nor should it really matter to the electorate.
The real question is how do we view the prosecution of the war on terror, who do we want to lead it for the next 4 years? It's a real war, I belong to the Tom Friedman (NYT) school of analysis for the necessity and urgency of doing what we're doing, but I'm always reading, thinking and analyzing. Whoever leads against terror, Bush or Kerry, he won't be permitted to backpedal into the 1990s and simply launch cruise missiles at camels or aspirin factories.
I repeat my view on the stupidity of the swiftvets gambit (financed by a Texas real estate developer, for some reason):
<<I think this assault (getting into the mud over Vietnam) is potentially very dangerous to the country (as I view an election of Kerry to be, if not outright dangerous, then "anti-beneficial" to this place), inasmuch as it lowers the dialogue to the mud. What the Republicans (isn't there anybody left in the party who knows how to run a campaign?) need to do is show a very centrist and somewhat conservative America what it might be like to have, as President, one of the most liberal legislators we have.>>
Kb |
