National Service

National Service - Hugh Hewitt performed this nation a great service last night by playing the tape of John Kerry's 1971 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Driving home, I was dumbfounded - I'm sure my jaw was hanging slack below my mouth as the Lowry Tunnel gave me a moments' reprieve. The lies. The cynicism - soldiers (and sailors) just don't do that while their "comrades" are still in harms way, or in POW camps. It has consequences, as Hewitt noted:

Paul Galanti learned of Kerry's [1971] speech while held captive inside North Vietnam's infamous 'Hanoi Hilton' prison. The Navy pilot had been shot down in June 1966 and spent nearly seven years as a prisoner of war."

"During torture sessions, he said, his captors cited the antiwar speeches as 'an example of why we should cross over to [their] side.'"

"'The Viet Cong didn't think they had to win the war on the battlefield,' Galanti said, 'because thanks to these protesters they were going to win it on the streets of San Francisco and Washington.'"

"He says Kerry broke a covenant among servicemen never to make public criticisms that might jeopardize those still in battle or in the hands of the enemy."

"Because he did, Galanti said, 'John Kerry was a traitor to the men he served with.'"

"Now retired and living in Richmond, Va., Galanti, 64, refuses to cool his ire toward Kerry."

"'I don't plan to set it aside. I don't know anyone who does,' He said. 'The Vietnam memorial has thousands of additional names due to John Kerry and others like him.'"

Elder from the Fraters says it best:

Hearing Kerry's testimony has also gotten my political blood boiling. This SOB should must be beaten (and beaten badly) in November. You want to fire up your conservative base Mr. President? Air this testimony from now till the election.

Absolutely. This stuff is chilling.

And what's more chilling is that there is no evidence that Kerry's changed in any substantive way. Hewitt notes:

I am more concerned about his judgment today than his judgment of 33 years ago. Kerry made his statement at the age of 27, after a first run for Congress, and his career since has been an unbroken campaign to neuter the American military though he would deny this from dawn till dark. He does not understand that America has real enemies today that won't play by his rules any more than he understood communism in 1971. He just doesn't get it. Period. His honorable service and his heroism in no way covers the terrible judgment he has displayed since he returned from the battlefield.

Hugh, it's worse than that.

Nobody can quibble with heroism - and thank God for our nation's heroes, people who will fly halfway around the world to topple a tyrant, or charge into a blazing skyscraper, or attack a houseful of Viet Cong, as Kerry did. But heroism and day by day rational, reasoned thought are two different things (although they can overlap), and in Kerry's case the two diverge drastically. We conservative pundits owe it to this nation to make sure everyone knows how drastically they diverge.

Jared from Exultate Justi cites a Krauthammer piece that explains it well:

The Democrats want to make the issue one of biography. It is, after all, no contest. Kerry has his Vietnam medals; Bush can barely produce his National Guard pay stubs.

...The Democrats simply did not understand that. They lost big. In 2002, past heroism was not enough. In 2004, it might just be. Why? Because Sept. 11 is fading.

The memory is still present enough in the national consciousness that the country demands someone minimally serious about national security. Dean collapsed because when people took a close look at him, he failed the midnight, red-phone, finger-on-the-button test. But the memory of Sept. 11 is now distant enough that, unlike in 2002, biography alone might be enough to meet the "seriousness" test.

Lucky for the Democrats. It is hard to see what Kerry has to offer beyond biography. The issue of our time is the war on terrorism. Bush's strategy throws out the old playbook on terrorism — the cops-and-robbers, law-and-order strategy of arrest and trial followed by complacency — and takes the war to the enemy. Kerry says terrorism is "primarily an intelligence and law-enforcement operation" — precisely the misconception that had us waking up on Sept. 12 realizing that while the enemy was preparing for war, we were preparing legal briefs for grand juries.

In terms of moral courage - sticking by his having convictions, Kerry makes Bill Clinton seem, in retrospect, like Winston Churchill.

I was going to work against Kerry no matter what. But I'm going to put that much more into it now. It's not political any more. Putting this hamster in office would be the greatest disaster for this nation since Jimmy Carter and the Iranian Hostages.

Posted by Mitch at February 18, 2004 07:15 AM