Remember what I said in an earlier post about CHARACTER.
Speaking on the Senate floor in 1986 and in interviews through the years, Kerry reiterated how compelling his Cambodia experience was, how it illuminated his vision and guided his insight on foreign policy.
"I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia," he told his fellow senators. "I have that memory which is seared - seared - in me."
Well, as it turns out, Kerry wasn't in Cambodia (at least not then), and the president wasn't lying (at least not then)/ Depending on whom you believe, Kerry was in a boat either five miles away or 50. In Douglas Brinkley's biography, "Tour of Duty," based in part on Kerry's diary, Kerry was at Sa Dec, 58 miles from Cambodia.
A few days ago, Kerry campaign adviser Jeh Johnson tried to clarify for Fox News, "... I believe he (Kerry) has corrected the record to say it was some place near Cambodia. He is not certain whether it was in Cambodia, but he is certain there was some point subsequent to that that he was in Cambodia."
If Kerry didn't fabricate, he exaggerated. Or misspoke. Or got confused. Or something. But whatever the differences among versions, the story is part of a larger narrative that may matter more than the details.
It is a story of naked ambition and grandiosity, the narrative of a self-absorbed man who always needed to be best and first, whether captain of the boat in Vietnam or winner of the debate in school. Who, when accidentally knocked off his snowboard as an adult fumed, "I don't fall down."
He's the sort of man who thinks to take a movie camera to war to document himself for uses now known to be political; who willingly exploits his heroism in ways real heroes never do; who builds a career on disgust toward a war he later characterizes as the crowning achievement in a life that seems more résumé than real.
While it may be extreme to say that Kerry "lied," as some of his comrades claim, he has created a story and an image of himself that surely are too good to be true.
townhall.com. |
