No, this is not about Afghanistan or Iraq. Not about what could happen in Iran, North Korea, or even Sudan. No this is about Senator Kerry's Vietnam quagmire.
There is just so much about this whole Vietnam obsession that is beyond weird. First of all, to paraphrase Senator John McCain, when are we going to agree to stop fighting the Vietnam War. Is this deal not 30 years done?
Apparently not, because it is supposed to be the ultimate trump card for Senator Kerry in defeating President Bush II. I just don't see the logic of it. The modern Democratic party was born from the anti-Vietnam movement. As we all know, the Vietnam War (or Police Action if we are to go back as far as I will go) was started (for the Americans) by President Kennedy, Democrat and escalated under President Johnson, Democrat (which ultimately ended his Presidency). Once upon a time the Democrats fought the broader "War on Communism" (scare quotes for my friendly anonymous commenter), but Vietnam changed all of that. So the Democrats became the party of Presidential Candidate McGovern, President Carter and ultimately, President Clinton. In short, the Democrats hate the Vietnam War and use it as an example of American Imperalism gone awry. But wait, now that the Democrats need to be seen as tough and strong in the "War on Terror" (for you again) they re-cast their views on Vietnam and re-polish Senator Kerry's medals (you know, the ones he did or didn't throw on the White House lawn...medals and ribbons where always interchangeable, blah, blah, blah).
Problem is now Senator Kerry owns this issue and the "vast-right wing conspiracy" has lept into action. The swift boat veterans are trying to bring him down with their commerical and the new book, Unfit to Serve. This whole Christmas in Cambodia thing...the hat given to him by the CIA...the film footage shot (allegedly) as re-enactments. It makes the mind spin. All to attract those precious 10% undecided voters. But couple this renewed military pride with the statement that Senator Kerry would still have voted to authorize Iraq, even without the WMDs, and I wonder when the rank-and-file Democrats will begin to think, when did we become Republican-Lite?
It seems to me that Senator Kerry has twisted himself into quite the pretzel in pandering simulateously to Governor Dean's "Democratic wing of the Democratic party" and Security Moms. Twist too much and this pretzel is going to break in two.
The 93% of the delegates at the Democratic Convention and their ilk could say screw-it, I am going with Ralph Nader, who is at least consistently anti-war and the Security Moms are going to go full CARB (you know Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Bush) instead of Republican-Lite.
Weird, weird, weird. For a more complete account of this whole thing go to Power Line.
P.S. I watched CNN's "John Kerry: Born to Run" the other week. The most striking thing to me was Candy Crowley reporting that Kerry's undergraduate classmates would wistle "Hail to the Chief" at Kerry when he would walk by in the hall. Seems he has been obsessed by the Presidency since he was a teenager. It really puts the whole thing in perpesctive.
