August 24, 2004
slipperiness...
Wretchard puts his finger on a big part of what is so maddening about Kerry:
John Kerry's troubles have largely been forced on him by the Democratic Party platform. He has been given the unenviable task of presenting it as the War Party when in fact it is not, nor does it want to be. The Democrats could have chosen to become a real anti-war party, in which case it would have nominated Howard Dean or it could have elected to become a genuine war party and chosen Joseph Lieberman. Instead it chose to become the worst of all combinations, an anti-war party masquerading as the war party.Kerry is emblematic of the infuriating slipperiness of the Democrats. It's impossible to debate with them because they won't honestly avow their positions.To carry out this program, it required a Janus-like figure and found it in Senator Kerry; the only man of sufficient stature who could look two ways at once. It would have been a desirable trait, as Christopher Hitchens pointed out, in a peacetime President...
It's clear that many of them still hold the American troops are war criminals position that Kerry pushed in the 70's. You have only to remember the rapture with which they greeted Abu Ghraib, and instantly assumed that prisoner abuse was widespread. (See here for good evidence that it is not.) But they could never be pinned down on this, so the debate was always on false terms.
Kerry has never repudiated the charges of war crimes that he made in the 70's (the most he will say is that his language "was too harsh"). But neither does he defend them!
And the mainstream media have no desire to open the question, and they treat as right-wing cranks anyone who tries to. Which has left Vietnam Vets growling into their beers for thirty years. Until now. Until the rise of the New Media. Until Kerry ran for President.
One could argue just the opposite with regard to causation. It's true the heart and soul of the Ds, certainly the ones at the convention, was anti-war left. And, in my view, they would have happily gone down in flames as born-again "Deaniacs" if Kerry had wanted to go that way. But instead it was KERRY who sold THEM on the idea that he could pull off the War Party gambit and greatly improve his chances of winning. The Janus card closed the deal. All they had to do was hold their noses and buy into the warrior bit at the convention and look unified. I can imagine Kerry saying, "just look militaristic until I win and then (wink, wink) you know where I really stand.
Of course, the story ends in the same place with a masquerade party. It's just a question of the direction of volition. I think it was from Kerry's side.
Posted by: Frank at August 24, 2004 12:25 PMThis is a fascinating discussion because it definitely gets to the heart of at least one matter. I think, just from observation, that most of the Democrats desperately wanted someone like Kerry the Janus. He would be able to provide an inoculation against the anti-war / anti-America charge. Their problem is that most Americans are not as stupid as they always-always-always think we are, and we can see past the surface of this guy.
For me and for milliions more Americans, I think the SBVT guys could have aired their second ad first, and then gone to the house. We're willing to go along with Kerry's Purple Hearts and Silver Stars, but we're by God not willing to have the kind of slanderous crap slung against good men and women that was the Winter Soldier BS. I don't think the lefties will ever understand that.
Posted by: Scott Chaffin at August 24, 2004 06:20 PM
