Quote:
Originally posted by sgtclub
Watch the movie when you get a chance. I see Kerry as a guy who has been setting up this run all his life. Now this doesn't distinguish him from many pols, but he has absolutely no backbone. War service is popular? I'll join, and while I'm at it, I'll take some film. Who knows, it may come in handy. Wait, war service is not popular? I'll be a hippy protestor and throw and invent "facts" to bolster my case. The Iraq war? I better vote for it because if I don't it will be used against me when I run in 2004. Wait, the war is unpopular with my base and this Dean guy may actually win? I'll vote against the 87 million.
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What movie?
To characterize Kerry's decision to serve in and then protest against the war so glibly is a feat. Congratulations. He got shot at and wounded, and was commended for bravery while other people with political aspirations (see: Dick Cheney) were obtaining student deferments. (Check out the time that one of Cheney's daughters was born after the regs were changed such that having a kid would help him avoid the draft -- it's something like 9 months and 2 days.) Kerry was no hippy, but he was a protestor, at a time when that didn't necessarily make him popular. In both cases, he stood up for what he believed in, and yet you have transformed that into pure political calculation. Again, nicely done. He serves his country with distinction, and then speaks out against the war, and yet somehow in your book he has no backbone.
On the Iraq war, I too suspect that there was some political calculation on his initial vote, but let he who is pure cast the first stone here. Doubtless you are misrepresenting his vote on the $87 billion -- I believe he voted against one package and for another because he was actually running the country and thought there was an important distinction between them. Facts like these that don't fit the storyline just get discarded.
Again, I say the fact that you buy all of this "waffle" shit about Kerry's character -- and somehow disregard equally potent dirt about Bush, who just this week announced that he support the 9/11 commission's recommendations while actually proposing something very different -- suggests what a masterful job the GOP does at tarring the character of Democratic politicians. It is not surprising that the GOP is so good at it, since this is the sort of thing you have to do when voters disagree with you on the substance. I think Kerry is going to do a better job responding to it than Gore did, though.
