GWB's NG service (or lack of) was gone into minutely four years ago when most people made up their minds about its relevance, but more importantly to this election, he has had three years as President which allow voters to judge him on actual job performance, further diminishing the pertinence of his NG service (which he never touted as a recommendation that I remember).
John Kerry offers up his Vietnam status on a silver platter, garnished with medals and seasoned with spicy stories, as the piéce de résistance of his campaign, his character, and his leadership abilities. (His actual job performance over the past 30 years has been left in the kitchen covered in saran wrap.)
Unfortunately for Kerry, this impressive entrée is not turning out to taste as good as it looked. Even the most moderate of persons here, the ones without a partisan affiliation, question the character of a man who mythologizes himself as Kerry has attempted to do. The more I read, the more amazing his self-construct becomes.
I don't believe it is the comparison of service that is important about this issue, but the fact that many people (well, at least I) are not comfortable with a man who seems to have made every action in his life from expediency rather than the deep sense of integrity that governs good men at their core. The Swiftboat testimony may reveal who Kerry was in his 20s, and we don't know yet exactly who that was, but more importantly, is what it says about who Kerry is today, relying on his now questionable youthful past as almost his sole qualification to be president. If that past is something he created with tissue paper and chewing gum, then he has gambled recklessly on a bluff, or he believes his own myth. Neither alternative appeals to me in a president. |
