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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (64741)	8/27/2004 8:59:44 AM
From: gamesmistress	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793843

Here's another slant on "why didn't Kerry find a way to reconcile the vets" from today's WSJ opinion page. Excerpt: Why didn't John Kerry months back--if not years--find some gracious way to make peace with the John O'Neills of the world?..... The reason for not doing so lies in something often asserted but little respected in our politics now--principle. Alongside support for the civil-rights movement in the 1960s, opposition to Vietnam forms the moral bedrock of the modern Democratic Party. John Kerry (whose fidelity to principle, on the available evidence, is weaker than that of those who voted him into this role) is obliged to stand by his 1971 testimony as a matter of principle. Abandon that, and the party abandons him. Now this principle has drawn the Democrats into a game of high-stakes political poker over the Swift-boat story. Early on, it was merely John Kerry's presidential dream that the Swiftees threatened. We've moved way beyond that. Now the whole stack of moral capital the party banked from the Vietnam period has been pushed to the center of the table. Liberals for years have argued that the ideas, policies and beliefs of their opposition were, whatever else, morally wanting. The basis for this claim was their domestic achievements inside government during the 1960s and--the twin pillar--their opposition in the streets to the Vietnam war. Both live on, and are used today, as the triumph of simple public morality over the soulless details of public policy. No challenge is ever permitted to either claim. Tax policy, for instance, is now argued almost wholly in terms of moral fairness. Judicial nominees are opposed as threats to some presumed moral consensus on rights and justice. If John Kerry loses this election over Vietnam, and he just may, one of the pillars that has propped up the Democratic church for more than 30 years will crack. Rest at:http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninger/?id=110005537