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Saturday, September 04, 2004

Glenn Reynolds is the King
Glenn Reynolds is easily the King of the Blogsphere. His Instapundit blog is probably the most widely read, quoted, and linked to blog there is.

And there's a reason for the -- mainly because he writes terrific stuff like this about how poor little John Kerry won't broach any criticism. Great stuff.

Earlier in the year, I was worried that President Bush wasn't going to win. Now, I am growing quite confident that he'll win, and maybe even win big. I watched his speech Thursday night, and while it wasn't rousing or firey, it was just plain competent. Both Bush and Cheney just exude competence, sound judgement, and level headedness. Kerry exudes muddleheadedness, narcissism, and elitism. Edwards just exudes whatever it is that makes girls swoon over football players and not a whole lot more. (Edwards whole persona just screams out "empty, silly, vacuous lightweight wuss" to me, but what the heck do I know.) Together, they make up a pair that inspires little confidence. (I see as many "Say No to Bush" bumper stickers as I do "John Kerry for President" ones. That tells me something).

Reynold's piece highlights this obsession with biography. "I went to Vietnam, therefore I'll be a great Commander-in-Chief". And my personal favorite is the "I went to Vietnam, and the rest of you who didn't didn't actually serve, and may very well be traiterous" riff. Reynolds rightly points out that this latter argument insults all the Baby Boomers who didn't serve at all, all the Baby Boomers who did serve, but didn't go to Vietnam, and all National Guard member who ever served anywhere or who are serving now. Not really a winning argument.

Here's my view: I don't, at this point, much care if you went to Vietnam or not. If you did serve in some capacity, I'm glad and appreciative. If you didn't, well, okay. But if you actively avoided service or truly dodged the draft, then we have a problem. If you went to Vietnam, put yourself in for medals you didn't really deserve, especially Purple Hearts for "band-aid wounds" and then used those Purple Hearts to weasle out of your year tour there, then we have a problem. If you came back from Vietnam and perjured yourself in front of the Senate, saying that the entire US Military was committing war crimes and atrocities in the manner of "Jenjis Khan" then we have a problem. If you take your medals and through them back in the face of the government that gave them to you, then later claim they weren't really your medals, and then go around bragging about winning the medals, and then it turns out that you got all your medals for valor under, well, really dubious circumstances, then we have a problem.

Reynolds points out that Kerry wants to "take one" the Swift Boat vets and answer their charges. And this is why Kerry is just so bad as a candidate. Can he possibly actually believe he can benefit from that? The Swift Vets are on target and totally right: Kerry's service is weasely, and doesn't sound good when the truth is revealed. He's clearly hiding his medical records which -- I am quite sure -- will show that his "Purple Hearts" weren't really wounds in the traditional sense. "Taking on" the Swiftboat vets would be suicide -- give his staff credit for realizing this. And of course, Kerry is blaming his staff for any troubles. It can't be that he wants to brag about serving in Vietnam, but that his service there is less than honorable. It can't be that he's the kind of guy that brings a movie camera to Vietnam to re-enact his "exploits" so he can show them to potential girl-friends and potential voters. It can't be that he's the kind of guy that seeks out miniscule Purple Hearts so he can beat feet out of Vietnam and abandon his "Band of Brothers".

So let's summarize. Kerry is a war hero, but he committed atrocities, and all his "Band of Brothers" did too, until he wants to run for President, and then all the troops in Vietnam are heroes, and so is he.

That's great stuff. The Kerry Campaign is approaching comical levels. When will the Lefties get it and finally realize that a Massachusettes liberal isn't really the best choice to put forth as a Presidential candidate?


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