The DNC is currently running an ad showing clips from Kerry’s acceptance speech at the convention, where he exclaims that he defended America in Vietnam and will defend America as president. Aside from the hurl-reflex I have to resist every time I see the man speak, this ad bugs me because it is so downright manipulative and hypocritical. We have heard no end of how the Republicans supposedly seek to exploit the terrorism issue for their political gain, and here we have the Democrats doing just that. But it’s more than that. The goal is to show Kerry when he went to Vietnam, then to cut immediately to Kerry today, leaving out decades of history in regards to the candidate’s position on various issues. They want to take advantage of the fact that Kerry has seen war, but want to ignore both what Kerry did after he returned from war (accused his fellow soldiers of committing unspeakable acts of barbarism) and what he did during his entire career in Congress (taking every opportunity to dismantle US intelligence gathering organizations). And that isn’t even the worst part. During the Democratic National Convention, Kerry had a token Vietnam vet around supporting his candidacy. However, the majority of men who served along with Kerry in Vietnam in fact do not support him: they utterly oppose him. And it is now becoming clear that from Kerry’s first day in Vietnam, his entire goal was to manipulate his service for future political gain, going so far as to inflict wounds on himself to get medals, and file false reports about engagements to make himself appear as a hero. And once he had enough political capital, it was time to get out of there: he was the only Swift Boat veteran to serve just four months. [More]
And he’s getting a complete pass. Look at the lengths the media went to with a non-story about Bush’s National Guard service. Even though there is not one shred of evidence that he skipped out on duty, they did everything they could to imply that he was AWOL and left no stone unturned in their effort to make him look like a spoiled rich kid getting favors while others were dying in war. But now we have dozens of Vietnam veterans with stories to tell about Kerry’s disgraceful service, and nobody in the mainstream media wants to report it.