You Can't Skip Vietnam Twice

[Tiger Al 0]

The biggest mistake Karl Rove will make is to try to prop Bush up as a military leader. But, that's a fight I can't wait to watch!

When George W. Bush's handlers had him dress up as the 1986 Tom Cruise of "Top Gun" to dance a victory jig on an aircraft carrier, they didn't stop to think that he might soon face an opponent who could be type-cast more persuasively in his own Tom Cruise role. John F. Kerry was in real life a comrade of Ron Kovic, whom Mr. Cruise played to great acclaim in the 1989 "Born on the Fourth of July." Mr. Kerry, like the movie's hero, was a decorated Vietnam soldier who became a star activist for Vietnam Veterans Against the War upon returning home.

In a pivotal scene in the film, delegates at the 1972 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach eject Kovic and his fellow protesting vets from the hall, call him a traitor and spit on him. If that incident has a certain angry passion, it may be because the director was Oliver Stone. Like both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry, Mr. Stone was a son of privilege who attended Yale in the mid-1960's. Like Mr. Kerry but unlike Mr. Bush, he went on to combat in Vietnam, won a bronze star and then turned against America's most disastrous foreign war.

But just where was Mr. Bush during that convention fracas dramatized in "Born on the Fourth of July"? We still don't know. The summer of '72 is midway through the missing months in the president's résumé — a time when, in the still undocumented White House account, the young Mr. Bush was supposedly completing his National Guard service while campaigning for a senatorial hopeful in Alabama. Whatever the future president was up to, it is not inconceivable that he accompanied his candidate to Miami Beach, where he watched from afar as Mr. Kovic and his fellow veterans were dispersed in a paroxysm of tear gas and rage.

Cut to 2004. We want to believe that the wounds of Vietnam have long since been anesthetized by the panacea we call closure. Most Americans can probably no longer identify Nguyen Van Thieu or the Tet Offensive. Communism and the domino theory alike have been relegated to history's junk heap. And yet: even as the actual war fades in memory, Vietnam still looms as a festering culture war, a permanent fixture of the national collective unconscious, always on tap for fresh hostilities.

Whether before 9/11 or since, more Americans visit Maya Lin's memorial in Washington each year than they do the White House, the Washington Monument and the Jefferson memorial combined; no wonder it's the only aesthetic standard against which the ground zero memorial is measured. This year no fewer than two Oscar-nominated documentaries, "The Fog of War" and "The Weather Underground," take us back to Vietnam in all its anguish. And now, of all unlikely developments, Jane Fonda has been roped into a comeback. A movie star who hasn't been seen in a Hollywood feature in almost 15 years and who is best known to younger Americans as Ted Turner's ex-wife has been drafted into a political attack on Mr. Kerry: he appears as a blurred extra sitting several rows behind her in a photo of an antiwar protest held two years before her famous, self-immolating trip to Hanoi. This is guilt by association so loony that even the perpetrators of the Hollywood blacklist might have found it a stretch.

Mr. Kerry and his fellow members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War are now being attacked by Republicans as vociferously as Mr. Kovic's band of brothers were at the party's '72 convention. The head of a group called Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry, which helped disseminate the Fonda picture, portrays him as a radical, a traitor and, worst of all, "hippielike." The Weekly Standard characterizes the antiwar Vietnam veterans of that time as "hairy men, many with `Easy Rider' mustaches."

There's a method to this archaic culture-war language. It's meant to complement the ubiquitous Vietnam-era photo of a decidedly clean-shaven, unhippielike Mr. Bush at the moment he is joining the Texas Air National Guard. The tableau shows Mr. Bush's beaming father, then a congressman, as he prepares to pin second lieutenant's bars to his son's uniform. But there's something wrong with this picture. It all too potently raises the unanswered question of just how the young Mr. Bush got into the guard, in those days a safe haven from combat duty, ahead of 100,000 others then on the national waiting list. At the time, 250 Americans a week were dying in Vietnam.

Those in Washington who view Vietnam only through a political lens say none of this should matter today. As President Bush and his surrogates point out repeatedly, his service record is old news and died as a campaign issue in both his '94 governor's race and in 2000, when he faced two Vietnam vets, John McCain and Al Gore. Others note how Bill Clinton, a notorious draft avoider, vanquished both a Vietnam vet (Bob Kerrey) and two World War II heroes in the '92 and '96 elections. End of story, end of culture war.

"I don't think the Democrats really want to rerun Vietnam," is how one Republican consultant's wishful thinking put it on "Nightline," just as the story of the president's guard service ignited once again.

But we're not in '92, '96 or 2000 anymore. American troops are once again fighting a war of choice — and this time the National Guard is seeing combat, lethally so. Mr. Bush's Tom Cruise pose of May, so fetishized among his partisans that an ad in National Review hawks a bronze replica at $1,995 a pop, makes an unexpectedly striking visual contrast with Mr. Kerry's Tom Cruise role of 30-some years earlier. In the Kerry Vietnam flashback we hear his most famous line as a protester, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" While few Americans believe that it was a mistake to overthrow Saddam Hussein, the question hangs in the air anyway in 2004. It hangs over those American soldiers who have died since his overthrow, who have died since the triumphal Bush "Top Gun" remake declared "mission accomplished."

In this cultural battlefield, Mr. Kerry is a unique figure as a presidential candidate. Unlike Mr. Bush, Mr. Gore or Mr. McCain, he is the first in either party to have been both a leader in combat in Vietnam and a leader in the antiwar movement; he represents both the establishment that fueled our misadventure in Southeast Asia and the counterculture that changed America, for better and for worse, in revolt against it. To his critics he's hypocritical, but to many others he may be prototypical. It took years of body bags and falsely optimistic White House predictions for an American majority to turn against the war. Once the country did change its mind, however, it stayed changed. To argue now that antiwar protesters were traitors, especially those who took bullets for their country in the Mekong Delta and saved their buddies' lives, could be a tough sell.

"He can't run on a war record when his true record is an antiwar record," said Steve Buyer, a Republican congressman, on CNN. Perhaps other Kerry opponents are realizing that he can. This may explain why they quickly tried to change the subject from Vietnam once it impaled the president. Instead of defending Mr. Bush's military service, The Drudge Report rushed to brand Mr. Kerry with another trait associated with 60's antiwar counterculture: sexual hedonism. But even before it was exposed as false, the "intern" rumor got no traction, despite ample airing by Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. We're not in the frivolous peacetime Clinton 90's anymore, and if the well-documented exploits of Arnold Schwarzenegger could not outrage a public sated by the Starr Report, it's hard to imagine what politician's sexual transgression would.

Maybe that other "hippielike" activity, drug use, will be the next up to bat. But in Douglas Brinkley's best-selling chronicle of Mr. Kerry's Vietnam years, "Tour of Duty," this candidate not only admits to smoking pot upon return from the war but also adds that he "certainly enjoyed it." I have yet to hear anyone so much as remark upon this revelation.

If Mr. Kerry is anomalous as a presidential candidate of the Vietnam generation, so in his way is Mr. Bush. By all reports neither a true hawk nor a dove at Yale, the president was AWOL from the culture wars back then even if he wasn't AWOL from guard duty. Though Mr. Kerry was in a pick-up rock band, the president, by his own account, didn't even listen to the Beatles once they entered what he called their "weird, psychedelic period."

To be as unhip and apolitical as Mr. Bush was in that most politicized of times is certainly no sin. But it leaves him at a disadvantage as he finds himself thrust back into Vietnam all these years later. He doesn't seem to know the potential dangers of the jungle in which he may have to do battle as a "war president" in this election year.

In response to Tim Russert two Sundays ago, Mr. Bush said that the only troubling lesson he had learned from Vietnam was that "we had politicians making military decisions." Given that his secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, has made military decisions about Iraq much as Robert McNamara did in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, it's not clear how well he learned that lesson. But in any event, the real problem for Mr. Bush is that he seems tone-deaf to the other echoes of Vietnam in our home-front culture as the postwar war drags on: polls that show that half the country now thinks the Iraq war was "not worth fighting," the return of a "credibility gap" about the war's progress and origins, the fogginess of the exit strategy, the class differences between many of those who return from the war in coffins and those who sent them there.

"The issue is settled" has been the White House press secretary's mantra when badgered about the president's military service. You have to wonder if the issue would have come up at all had Mr. Bush not set the stage for Iraq-Vietnam parallels by wearing the fly boy uniform of his own disputed guard duty while prematurely declaring victory last spring. But that's the way it always is with Vietnam. To paraphrase a totemic line that Francis Coppola wrote for "Godfather III" but that would be even more appropriate to "Apocalypse Now": just when we think we are out, it pulls us back in.

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[BamaGrad03 0]

The biggest mistake Karl Rove will make is to try to prop Bush up as a military leader. But, that's a fight I can't wait to watch!

He's done a pretty good job keeping me safe since 9/11.

He's done a pretty good job leading our military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We catch a new top terriorist almost on a daily basis.

It used to be Liberals whining "military credentials do not equate good skills as a president"...that was most prevalent with the last wonderful example of a man who disgraced his nation and managed to hold the presidency.

They want to make a deal out of a non issue with Bush's nat guard duty....yet would take Clinton back in a heartbeat...soooooo funny.

Its okay, if Kerry gets in office...he will show you how loyal he is to our nations armed forces by cutting military spending in half.....

[Tiger Al 0]

He's done a pretty good job keeping me safe since 9/11.

Cite examples of how YOUR safety was directly threatened before 9/11 and what Bush has done to alleviate that threat.

He's done a pretty good job leading our military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He was doing an adequate job in Afghanistan until he diverted resources into Iraq. If you think either lying or blundering (take your pick) our country into war in Iraq is good leadership, then you have low expectations of your leader. Every major decision your leader has made has been followed up by a comission to determine why there were major failures in those decisions.

We catch a new top terriorist almost on a daily basis.

No, we don't.

It used to be Liberals whining "military credentials do not equate good skills as a president"...that was most prevalent with the last wonderful example of a man who disgraced his nation and managed to hold the presidency.

They don't. The last president to disgrace his nation was Richard Nixon (not counting the current squatter).

They want to make a deal out of a non issue with Bush's nat guard duty....yet would take Clinton back in a heartbeat...soooooo funny.

Bush has chosen the ground he wants to fight on. Kerry will oblige him.

Its okay, if Kerry gets in office...he will show you how loyal he is to our nations armed forces by cutting military spending in half.....

This is spin.

[Tigermike 3,715]

Cite examples of how YOUR safety was directly threatened before 9/11 and what Bush has done to alleviate that threat.

Have there been any more attacks in the US? Is al Quada on the run? Have their banks accounts (or a large number of them) been frozen world wide?

He was doing an adequate job in Afghanistan until he diverted resources into Iraq. If you think either lying or blundering (take your pick) our country into war in Iraq is good leadership, then you have low expectations of your leader.

The US Military kickedASS in both countries didn't they? How is that blundering Al? The democrats obviously don't care about human rights, but I think the vast majority of Iraqi people are glad we sent our military to give them a chance of a decent life. Without Sodam and his sons raping their wives and daughters.

They don't. The last president to disgrace his nation was Richard Nixon (not counting the current squatter).

Ohhhh yeah Bill Clinton never embarrased the nation did he? You still can't get over the FACT that President George W. Bush WON the election fair and square can you!

Bush has chosen the ground he wants to fight on. Kerry will oblige him.

Kerry has no choice, his record is available for the world to see.  What was it Al 19 years in the Senate and TWO bills with his name on them?  How long has Sen Kerry been voting to cut spending for not only the military bit the FBI & THE CIA as well?

JOHN KERRY's RECORD ON INTELLIGENCE

http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1067001/posts

John Kerry's record will most assuredly wll be brought up.

Kerry's 19-year record in the Senate includes thousands of votes, floor statements and debates, committee hearings and news conferences. That long paper trail shows that, on most issues, Kerry built a solidly liberal record, including support for abortion rights, gun control and environmental protection, and opposition to costly weapons programs, tax cuts for wealthy Americans and a 1996 federal law designed to discourage same-sex marriages.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...0-2004Feb7.html

Stephanie Cutter, Kerry's communications director, said in an e-mail response to questions about Kerry's record that the senator's views on weapons programs "evolved" once he was in office and that he used his votes to voice opposition to a defense budget he thought was "explosive and irresponsible" during Reagan's presidency. She said Kerry has supported "responsible and appropriate" requests for defense spending, including major increases under Bush.

President Reagan had a plan to spend the Soviet Union into bankruptcy and it worked well. All those people are free not but Sen. Kerry opposed those programs as well.

Although Kerry describes himself as a fiscal conservative and moderate on other issues, he ranked as the ninth most liberal senator in the National Journal's comparison of voting records for 2002. He ranked even higher -- more liberal than Kennedy -- on economic issues, although about the same on social issues and more conservative on foreign policy. Americans for Democratic Action, a liberal group, rated Kerry more liberal than Kennedy during the time they served together in the Senate, although by only 1 percentage point.

Any one that is "more liberal than Kennedy" has got to be a great guy huh Al?

In 1996, he was one of 14 senators, all Democrats, to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act, which said no state would have to recognize a same-sex marriage from another state. But Kerry has said during the campaign that he opposes gay marriage.

Which is it Al? Ole Flip Flop Kerry at it again.

Kerry has long been opposed to the death penalty. He consistently voted against the death penalty, even for cop killers and terrorists. He modified his position after 9/11 when he supported the death penalty in the limited instances of foreign terrorists

.

No death penalty for cop killers or terrorists. Unless they are foreign terrorists that is. I wonder if he opposed Tim McVeigh's execution?

Bama Grad 3

Its okay, if Kerry gets in office...he will show you how loyal he is to our nations armed forces by cutting military spending in half..... 

Tiger Al

This is spin.

In 1996, Kerry introduced a bill to slash defense funding by $6.5 billion

In 1995, he voted to freeze defense spending for 7 years, slashing over $34 billion for defense

In 1993, Kerry introduced a plan to the Senate to cut many defense programs which included cutting the number of Navy submarines and their crews, reducing the number of light infantry units in the Army down to one, reducing tactical fighter wings in the Air Force, terminating the Navy’s coastal mine-hunting ship program, and forcing the retirement of no less than 60,000 members of the Armed Forces in one year

In 1993, Kerry voted against increased defense spending to fund a military pay raise and he voted to kill an increase in military pay over five years

Kerry sat on the board of "Jobs With Peace Campaign," which sought to "develop public support for cutting the defense budget" (Pentagon Demonstrators Call For Home-Building, Not Bombs, The Associated Press, 6/3/88)

Sure looks like BG3 may have been correct!

http://www.thepatriette.com/archives/000124.html

[BamaGrad03 0]

Thanks Tigermike...i know its tough sometimes to agree with a bammer

[Tigermike 3,715]

Thanks Tigermike...i know its tough sometimes to agree with a bammer

Not when you are right!

[Tiger in Spain 0]

Tigermike, you are the man!!! Hanoi John is no friend of the military, nor is he the American superhero he (and the liberal media) makes himself out to be. Three Purple Hearts and no limp, what a warrior. All the injuries he received a medal for were so minor that he lost no time from duty. Either Hanoi John is the luckiest man alive or he was putting himself in for a medal every time he bumped his head walking through a knee-knocker.

I just returned home Friday from a deployment on the USS Cole in support of Operation Active Endeavor. Just after I arrived onboard Cole, we hit a storm at sea that had waves crashing over the bow (I have some cool pictures of it, by the way. I just need to find a way to post them ). I was staggering down the maindeck passageway (swabbie lingo for hallway) one morning, and my finger caught on something sticking out of the bulkhead (wall). I wound up with a dark purple bruise on my right birdie finger that was more of an annoyance than anything else. Maybe I should follow Hanoi John's example and put myself in for a purple heart. It would look really nice in my shadow box here in a few years, and would be a hell of a bullet for my campaign to become the mayor of Pell City.

These folks that are touting Hanoi John to be some American super patriot need to step away from the liberal ether for a moment. Let us all hope and pray that "President Kerry" is no more a matter of historical fact than is the Presidental reality of Jed Bartlett.

[BamaGrad03 0]

I have plenty of web server space if you need it...i can host your pics.

[Tigermike 3,715]

Welcome home, TIS!