April 18, 2004
No blood drawn, just ketchup
John Kerry last Friday:
"I'm tired of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney and a bunch of people who went out of their way to avoid their chance to serve, when they had the chance. I went. I'm not going to listen to them talk to me about patriotism and asking questions about the future of our country."Pointing to a giant flag suspended from a crane above Bigelow Boulevard, he added, "You see those stars and stripes over there; I fought under that flag ... and I saw that flag draped over the coffins of friends, and I've seen how these people in the White House today, in their twisted sense of ethics and morality ... they don't think twice about pretending to America that I somehow don't care about the defense of our nation."
"[They] don't think twice about challenging [Sen.] John McCain and what happened to him when he was a prisoner of war; they don't think twice about challenging Max Cleland, who left three limbs on the battlefield in Vietnam and challenge his patriotism," he said.
John Kerry in 1992:
The race for the White House should be about leadership, and leadership requires that one help heal the wounds of Vietnam, not reopen them; that one help identify the positive things that we learned about ourselves and about our nation, not play to the divisions and differences of that crucible of our generation.We do not need to divide America over who served and how. I have personally always believed that many served in many different ways. Someone who was deeply against the war in 1969 or 1970 may well have served their country with equal passion and patriotism by opposing the war as by fighting in it. Are we now, 20 years or 30 years later, to forget the difficulties of that time, of families that were literally torn apart, of brothers who ceased to talk to brothers, of fathers who disowned their sons, of people who felt compelled to leave the country and forget their own future and turn against the will of their own aspirations?
Are we now to descend, like latter-day Spiro Agnews, and play, as he did, to the worst instincts of divisiveness and reaction that still haunt America? Are we now going to create a new scarlet letter in the context of Vietnam?
Wise Max Boot, last month:
Today's caricature that all soldiers are pacifists at heart is no more accurate than the older cliche that they're all warmongers. Like the rest of us, soldiers have differing opinions on the use of force. Some opposed the Iraq war; many (I would guess most) supported it. Their opinions ought to be given due consideration, and their lives should never be endangered cavalierly or unnecessarily, but in a democracy the final decisions have to be made by civilians, many of whom inevitably aren't military veterans.Posted by Alan at April 18, 2004 05:39 PMOf our three costliest wars, two were fought and won under the direction of presidents (Franklin Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson) who had never served in the armed forces. The third was won by a president (Abraham Lincoln) whose military experience was limited to about 90 days of noncombatant service in a state militia. Other wartime presidents without any wartime service include James Madison and James Polk.
More recently, Bill Clinton -- who, like Cheney and Wolfowitz, had a student deferment during the Vietnam draft -- sent U.S. troops into harm's way in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq. A few conservatives complained that a "draft dodger" had no moral right to be commander in chief, but he was vociferously defended by Democrats....
John Kerry's advice was right in 1992, and it's right today. How ironic it is, then, that many of those who were outraged to hear Clinton labeled a chicken hawk are now the very ones tossing that ugly slur around.