http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=7030
Judgment and Character
By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.
Published 8/26/2004 12:05:23 AM
WA****NGTON -- Is it not curious that in major media there is not a
trace of humor or even irony perceptible in the hullabaloo over
Senator John Kerry's latest self-inflicted wound, to wit: the
controversy over his Vietnam record? Oh, one fellow has shown a proper
sense of the absurdity of it all. James Taranto, editor of the Wall
Street Journal's "Best of the Web Today," has for months made a
running joke of Kerry's reckless boasts about his service in Vietnam.
Whenever he introduces this insufferable braggart into his column
Taranto is wont to write "who by the way served in Vietnam" or "whom I
am told served in Vietnam." Now, as a growing number of Vietnam
veterans file their objections to Kerry's boasts, the suave Taranto
e-mails me, "Have you been following the news the past couple of
weeks? And are you finally ready to admit I was right about John Kerry
serving in Vietnam?"
As the waggish Taranto knows, I have never doubted that Kerry served
in Vietnam, for I remember with the utmost clarity his return from
Vietnam whereupon he played a star role in opposing the war, often
disloyally. I even recall his appearance before a Senate committee
where he accused his fellow veterans of "war crimes" -- or, as he said
then: "Crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness
of officers at all levels of command." He even said on Meet the Press
that he had committed war crimes. I rather doubt that he did, but here
is still more evidence that Kerry is a fraud.
He is another of the politicians visited on us recently who lie
flagrantly, get caught in their lies, and are given a dispensation in
the media because the media's journalists somehow believe that the
liars are preferable to their opponents. That is how Bill Clinton got
his many p***** in the 1992 election where he lied about dodging the
draft, about demonstrating against his country in London, about
smoking marijuana, about Gennifer Flowers and general philandering.
Notwithstanding all those obvious lies, Clinton went on the White
House and to eight years of lies and scandals -- or, to continue my
theme, self-inflicted wounds. In nominating Kerry as their
presidential candidate the Democrats have nominated another fantasist.
You can be sure that the absurd controversy over his Vietnam record
will not be his last. Any sensible observer has by now perceived that
Kerry's opponents among the Swift boat veterans have proven that Kerry
wildly exaggerated his service in Vietnam. The more im****tant question
is not his veracity but his judgment, and that word has not even been
mentioned in the media's debate. For that matter there has not been
all that much talk about Kerry's mendacity, though he has been caught
in petty lies since the primaries, lies that contribute to the
perception that Kerry is a man of very poor judgment.
There was his early lie that he never made an issue about being Irish.
Then there was his lie to feminists that his first speech in Congress
was in sup****t of abortion rights. In both instances fact checkers
exposed him. Then there was the imbroglio over his skiing exploits
where he denied that he suffers the occasional mishap while skiing. At
an Idaho ski resort in his boastful (and vengeful) mode Kerry claimed,
"I don't fall down. That son of a ***** ran into me." From his bruised
gluteus maximus he pointed to an embarrassed member of his Secret
Service detail. His falls were a matter of record. And forget not the
dispute over his claim that "foreign leaders" told him they endorsed
his presidency, though his travel records revealed his claim to be
preposterous. Since then Kerry has been caught lying about the
vehicles he owns. He has been ensnared in lies about policy and
legislation. There have been other scrapes, schedules revised for $100
haircuts, scrapes where he has been overheard calling the Bush
Administration "crooked." And now we have all his conjurings with his
Vietnam record and the records of his combat critics.
What ought to be raised is the issue of his judgment. What does it
tell you about this fantastico that he has made his controversial
service of 35 years ago the fulcrum on which he wages his campaign for
the presidency? Surely he remembered the dishonorable and untrue
things he said about Vietnam. Surely he should have had the
self-awareness to recognize possible dispute arising over his medals
and that obvious lie that he spent a faraway Christmas in Cambodia.
Yet this megalomaniac blundered on, boasting of an episode in his life
that had best be referred to only in passing.
Now he is in the running to be president. Do we really want a reckless
self-promoter governing us in time of war? Do we want a man with so
little judgment and regard for the truth overseeing American foreign
and domestic policy? The vast majority of those who served with him in
Vietnam do not. Those in the media who continue to give him a pass do.
I hope that they are not surprised or offended if President Kerry
presides over another presidency of self-inflicted controversies. Yet
who will conduct our war on terror while President Kerry schemes to
disentangle himself from one scrape after another?
Character was the issue never weighed in the 1992 campaign. Character
and judgment are the issues that ought to be weighed in this campaign.
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is editor in chief of The American Spectator, a
contributing editor to the New York Sun, and an adjunct fellow at the
Hudson Institute.
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