Kerry's Quagmire

Kerry's Grand Dilemma
By Isaiah Z. Sterrett (08/31/04)

"I'M THE VIETNAM hero," he kept telling himself. "I'm the one who volunteered to go to the war, who served my country with honor, and who rescued Rassman from the water. I won all those ribbons?-er?-medals?-er?-whatever. I'm the one who protested the war, who led a revolution against it, who testified before Congress! It was all moi!"

The junior senator from Massachusetts thought his military record would remain unchallenged forever. He thought everyone would keep their mouths shut, so as to avoid being accused of questioning his patriotism. But now one group had stepped up to the plate, prepared to confront the myth of Kerry's sterling military performance. Kerry was floored.

"What can I do," he moaned to his dearest friend, Sen. Kennedy, also of Massachusetts. "What would Jack have done?"

Teddy, who had just finished the last of a series of Cosmos, was irked by his colleague's whining. "Week after week after week after week," he told Kerry, "you've crawled into this office, complaining to Uncle Teddy. Well I've had enough. Those Swift Boat guys may have gotten the best of you. I always knew you wouldn't last."

This kind of insensitivity always brought tears to Kerry's eyes, but today he was especially shaken by Kennedy's remarks. He couldn't help but wonder if his old comrade was right. Were the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth really for truth? Is it possible that he, John Forbes Kerry, had been living a lie? Were his presidential aspirations dying? All he was sure of was that he desperately needed a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich.

He dined on the campaign plane with his running mate. (Elizabeth, Edwards' wife, was asleep, and Teresa was holding a hula-hoop contest with the reporters.)

"I just can't figure out what to do," John #1 told John #2. "Everyone's turning on me! On me?-a veteran!"

"I know," said John #2. "We're in trouble. I thought you'd bailed yourself out by choosing me, but I guess not. National voters aren't responding to my great skin and shiny white teeth and adorable button nose like they did in North Carolina."

John #1 didn't appreciate John #2's pessimism.

"It seems to me there are two possible answers," John #2 continued, grinning. "One answer is safe, and would probably have been used by Clinton or your friend Teddy. The other answer is more risky. I'm not even sure I've ever tried it."

John #2 explained that John #1 could either continue on his current path of half-truths and outright deceptions, or?-and this was repeatedly called "dicey" and even "Bushian"?-he could come clean. It was a daring suggestion, and Kerry knew it.

All his life he'd wanted to be president, and all his life he'd been planning this campaign. But ignoring Vietnam had never occurred to him. It was not until early the next morning that he truly began to understand the possibilities.

He was eating eggs in his office in Boston, watching Teresa and Mr. Edwards jump rope outside, when he realized that ignoring Vietnam could serve as not only a turning point in the campaign, but as a turning point in his own, self-absorbed life. Forgetting about those fateful four months would allow him to talk about the issues that mattered to The People. He would be heralded as a man of courage, and the Swift Boat vets would look shrill and petty, attacking the image of a brave American.

Soon the rain came, forcing John and Teresa inside. Kerry sat at his desk, still chewing on his grand dilemma, and wondering how he'd gotten into this mess in the first place.

He knew it was his fault. If he hadn't bragged for the last 35-years none of this would have happened. But in fact he had bragged, and now nothing could be done. It was too late to turn back. He wouldn't be able to stop the lies or the caterwauling or the arrogance. The noise of Vietnam would forever exist in his political life, and he couldn't bring himself to change that. He rode to fame on the misery of the ?'60s, and he'd ride it into his golden years. Nothing, not even that pristine palace on Pennsylvania Avenue, would derail him.

Kerry stuck in political quagmire
Democrat's Iraq message boosts Bush
Becomes easy target for political satire


TIM HARPER
WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON?-John Kerry is lost in the fog of war and can`t find his way out.

While the near-legendary Republican attack machine has received much credit for ensnaring the Democratic presidential challenger in his own Vietnam web, Kerry has braided his own noose in his dealings with today`s war in Iraq.

U.S. casualties have topped 1,000. Baghdad was engulfed in one of the deadliest days of the war yesterday and there are growing suspicions that the U.S. military has ceded large swaths of territory to insurgents in Iraq, so they will not be in bloody battle during the electoral homestretch back home.

Still, Kerry`s muddled message on Iraq has done the near-impossible ?- pushing up George W. Bush`s approval on his handling of the war with only 50 days left until election day.

Kerry, meanwhile, has become a dream for political satirists and the proverbial fish in the barrel for the Bush war room.

The man vilified as a waffler, played right into that perception at a stop in Pennsylvania where he waxed rhapsodically about a local restaurant which brings the daily special to the table with no menu.

"That's the way it ought to work for confused people like me who can't make up our minds," he told supporters.

The downturn for Kerry, many believe, started Aug. 9 when he walked right into a trap.

He was asked a simple question.

Would he meet Bush`s challenge and answer yes or no to the question of whether he still would have voted to go to war in Iraq, knowing what he knows now?

"I'm ready for any challenge," Kerry responded, "and I'll answer it directly.

``Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it is the right authority for a president to have. But I would have used that authority, as I have said throughout this campaign, effectively."

To many, including his Republican opponents, that sounded like he was saying that, even knowing there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Kerry still would have gone to war.

But Kerry had, during the Democratic primaries, characterized himself an "anti-war candidate,"as he felt the heat from the then insurgent candidacy of Howard Dean. And again, last week in Cincinnati, he called the U.S.-led attack "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time."

In the same speech, he railed against the cost of the Bush war, "$200 billion (U.S.), but they tell us we can't afford after-school programs for our children, $200 billion in Iraq, but they tell us we can't afford health care for our veterans, $200 billion for Iraq, but they tell us we can't afford to keep the 100,000 police officers we put on the street."

Yet, just over a year ago he was asked by NBC`s Tim Russert whether spending on the Iraq war should be reduced.

"No. I think we should increase it," Kerry said.

"By how much?" Russert asked.

"By whatever number of billions of dollars it takes to win," the Democrat replied.

Kerry has promised to reduce troop levels in his first term, then within a year, then within six months.

Yet, when Kerry marked the 1,000th U.S. death in Iraq last Tuesday ?- a milestone seemingly tailor-made to give his campaign some traction ?- he appeared to have bought into the Bush-Cheney mantra that war in Iraq was war on terror. He honoured the dead who gave their lives "on behalf of freedom in the war on terrorism.''

This came, after Democrats spent months criticizing Bush for linking Iraq and the war on terror, even though there is no evidence that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

A spokesperson, David Wade, later explained Kerry was referring to parts of Iraq that now had become "breeding grounds for terrorists.''

"He (Kerry) has made the transformation from a candidate on both sides of Iraq to a candidate who is totally incoherent on Iraq,'' said Bush-Cheney spokesperson Steve Schmidt.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell restated yesterday on NBC`s Meet the Press that there was no link between Saddam and the Sept. 11 attacks.

Kerry tried to recover with a statement that Powell "had come clean" and it was time for all of the Bush administration to follow suit.

In a Time magazine interview, published this week, Kerry said his goal is to bring troops home within his first term and "within the first year."

He also said: "I have been consistent. I would not have taken the country into war the way he (Bush) did. I would not have put young Americans in harm's way without a plan to win the peace. I would not have interrupted as abruptly the effort to build alliances with other countries." The frustration for Democrats, watching time run down in this race, is that Bush ?- the man who did more flipping and flopping to sell his war ?- has had a free ride for the past month.

Last week, Bush went as far as he has yet in the campaign, saying that if Kerry had his way, Saddam would still be in power.