thedrifter
06-16-05, 05:51 PM
VIET VETS LEGACY FOUNDATION REPLIES TO MARIE COCCO'S PUFF PIECE ON KERRY IN NEWSDAY
Mary Jane McManus reponds to Newsday puff piece on Kerry
by Mary Jane McManus, Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation
(6/16/2005) -
Character lessons from the Kerry smear
Newsday, June 14, 2005
By Marie Cocco
The quagmire in Iraq and the precariousness of conditions in Afghanistan provide wars enough for discussion, should anyone want a serious one.
Nonetheless, the ghost of Vietnam rises again in an odd footnote to the 2004 presidential campaign. This is the belated decision by Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry to release his complete military record to media organizations. If you count yourself among those who have no interest in how the college grades of former Yale men Kerry and George W. Bush compare - they both turn out to be poor - perhaps you missed the point.
Late last month, Kerry at last succumbed to critics who said he'd never made full disclosure of his Vietnam-era military file during his bid for the presidency last year. He authorized the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press to receive a complete copy of his military and medical records directly from government archives. It was in these files that the Globe found Kerry's college grades - given the Navy in applying for officer training.
Meeting the journalistic imperative that news must in fact provide some new information, Kerry's lackluster grade report made headlines. But not his military record.
This is because it turned out to include nothing new, according to the Globe and the Times. John Solomon, assistant bureau chief for the AP in Washington, told me his reporters were still reviewing the files and comparing them to other documents the news service used in its reporting during last year's campaign.
The dark mystery created by conservative groups in their smear of a war hero - remember the Purple Heart Band-Aids worn by delegates at the Republican National Convention? - seems to have been solved. It was a fake fog of innuendo, unleashed to cloud the reality that Kerry is what he'd always said he was: a young man who volunteered for service when others of his class routinely found a way out; a war hero whose many decorations for valor have withstood scrutiny over more than three decades in public life.
Kerry has apparently allowed disclosure of his personal records now - "the complete record that the military has of his file," according to Navy Lt. Commander Danny Hernandez - to clear the way for a second presidential run in 2008. But successful second acts in politics are exceedingly rare. Whether this disclosure would help a second Kerry presidential bid is likely going to be irrelevant.
But there is no doubt that nondisclosure was relevant to undermining Kerry in 2004.
Presidential elections are, more than anything, about character. Kerry held up as the embossed certificate of his character his Vietnam record; the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth promptly shredded it.
What element of Kerry's character drove the senator to allow so bloody an assassination of himself? Was it a rookie's naivete? Or a Brahmin's belief - misguided in this media age - that reporting by mainstream news organizations laying bare the lies would penetrate the voters' collective psyche better than breathless Internet bloggers or the partisan cacklers on cable TV?
Kerry says disclosure during the campaign would not have mattered because his critics never were interested in the truth. Answering their repeated allegations with one disclosure after another would only drag the lies out longer. This is accurate, but only to a point.
There is something Shakespearean about this episode, the tale of a good man laid low by his own psychic flaws and tragic mistakes. If you count arrogance among the traits that led to Kerry's intransigence - he thought his version of events in
Vietnam would be believed, because it always had been - it does not make him a unique politician.
Bush has an arrogance that is wide and deep. But Bush wields his own arrogance with certitude, and he has managed to turn even this into a political virtue. One gets away with it, the other doesn't.
They have a name in politics for those who correctly sense the voters' tolerance for a candidate's flaws and can manage the mystery of the citizens' expectations. Usually they're called winners.
continued...........
Mary Jane McManus reponds to Newsday puff piece on Kerry
by Mary Jane McManus, Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation
(6/16/2005) -
Character lessons from the Kerry smear
Newsday, June 14, 2005
By Marie Cocco
The quagmire in Iraq and the precariousness of conditions in Afghanistan provide wars enough for discussion, should anyone want a serious one.
Nonetheless, the ghost of Vietnam rises again in an odd footnote to the 2004 presidential campaign. This is the belated decision by Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry to release his complete military record to media organizations. If you count yourself among those who have no interest in how the college grades of former Yale men Kerry and George W. Bush compare - they both turn out to be poor - perhaps you missed the point.
Late last month, Kerry at last succumbed to critics who said he'd never made full disclosure of his Vietnam-era military file during his bid for the presidency last year. He authorized the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press to receive a complete copy of his military and medical records directly from government archives. It was in these files that the Globe found Kerry's college grades - given the Navy in applying for officer training.
Meeting the journalistic imperative that news must in fact provide some new information, Kerry's lackluster grade report made headlines. But not his military record.
This is because it turned out to include nothing new, according to the Globe and the Times. John Solomon, assistant bureau chief for the AP in Washington, told me his reporters were still reviewing the files and comparing them to other documents the news service used in its reporting during last year's campaign.
The dark mystery created by conservative groups in their smear of a war hero - remember the Purple Heart Band-Aids worn by delegates at the Republican National Convention? - seems to have been solved. It was a fake fog of innuendo, unleashed to cloud the reality that Kerry is what he'd always said he was: a young man who volunteered for service when others of his class routinely found a way out; a war hero whose many decorations for valor have withstood scrutiny over more than three decades in public life.
Kerry has apparently allowed disclosure of his personal records now - "the complete record that the military has of his file," according to Navy Lt. Commander Danny Hernandez - to clear the way for a second presidential run in 2008. But successful second acts in politics are exceedingly rare. Whether this disclosure would help a second Kerry presidential bid is likely going to be irrelevant.
But there is no doubt that nondisclosure was relevant to undermining Kerry in 2004.
Presidential elections are, more than anything, about character. Kerry held up as the embossed certificate of his character his Vietnam record; the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth promptly shredded it.
What element of Kerry's character drove the senator to allow so bloody an assassination of himself? Was it a rookie's naivete? Or a Brahmin's belief - misguided in this media age - that reporting by mainstream news organizations laying bare the lies would penetrate the voters' collective psyche better than breathless Internet bloggers or the partisan cacklers on cable TV?
Kerry says disclosure during the campaign would not have mattered because his critics never were interested in the truth. Answering their repeated allegations with one disclosure after another would only drag the lies out longer. This is accurate, but only to a point.
There is something Shakespearean about this episode, the tale of a good man laid low by his own psychic flaws and tragic mistakes. If you count arrogance among the traits that led to Kerry's intransigence - he thought his version of events in
Vietnam would be believed, because it always had been - it does not make him a unique politician.
Bush has an arrogance that is wide and deep. But Bush wields his own arrogance with certitude, and he has managed to turn even this into a political virtue. One gets away with it, the other doesn't.
They have a name in politics for those who correctly sense the voters' tolerance for a candidate's flaws and can manage the mystery of the citizens' expectations. Usually they're called winners.
continued...........