HOIST BY HIS OWN SWIFT BOAT

WHAT JOHN F. KERRY'S CURRENT CONTROVERSY SAYS ABOUT HIS CHARACTER

When you look at the dispute between the Kerry camp and the Swift Boat vets, don't miss the keys to the Senator's character. (Click here to purchase through Amazon )


The one piece of evidence the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have brought against Kerry that Kerry cannot answer is his supposed Christmas Eve in Cambodia, 1968. This is a story that Kerry has told more than 50 times over the years, but let's look at why he used it in 1986.

His 1986 claim (the memory that was "seared--seared--" into him) came at a moment of particular political context. At the time, Kerry was trying to make political points against then-President Reagan, by comparing him to former President Nixon (this was back in the day when Nixon was the most hated president in history, and the Democrats were trying to put Reagan on that list, too). To make that comparison, he had to find a way to make Reagan's support of the Contras comparable to something Nixon did. The answer was obvious--Nixon secretly invaded Cambodia.

Kerry took to the floor, decrying Reagan's secret war, and citing his own psychic wounds from being a soldier in another secret war, the scars seared into him by hearing his president lie about his presence in Cambodia. He described being shot at by both friends and enemies, celebrating Christmas, and located the events very precisely: Christmas Eve, 1968.

The problem, of course, as recent critics who can read a calendar have noted, is that Richard Nixon was not yet president in 1968, and the notion that President Johnson would have let him sneak into the War Room prematurely to give military orders for a secret invasion of Cambodia is ridiculous. Nor is it plausible that the commanders themselves were engaged in breaking international law by venturing into a forbidden zone just to get shot at by drunken Vietnamese. If the on-ground commanders were calling the shots to move the war to a higher, illegal, level, surely we would have heard of it by now.

Moreover, the most dramatic detail of the story--drunken Vietnamese celebrating (that big Buddhist holiday) Christmas--only works if the events take place at Christmas. To make that happen, it has to be 1968 in order for Kerry to have been there, since he got himself wounded three times in just four months and twelve days (surely some kind of record), and any other Christmas would have found him somewhere else.

So, we know that it is utterly impossible for the Cambodia story to be true. Since it isn't true, we must look at Kerry's motivation for inventing it. Clearly, he intended it to score emotional political points against President Reagan. He knew his valiant posture would draw support for him and scorn against President Reagan. In short, what has been claimed to be a defining moment in Lieutenant Kerry's understanding of the war and politics was an invention. His very being as a political actor is artificial.

Why should this matter?

Because character is important in politics. If you don't believe it, ask Jim McGreevey.

Kerry's telling of the Cambodia fairy tale tells us that, for political gain, he will not only spin self-aggrandizing stories of personal derring-do, he also does not care about what those stories, wittingly or unwittingly, accuse others of being and doing. For Kerry to have been where he claims to have been, not only the evil Richard Nixon would have had to have been corruptly complicit. Anyone with him, anyone commanding him, anyone who knew he was there would have been in violation of the law, not to mention in grave personal peril. His story implicates everyone on his boat (we assume he didn't undertake this secret mission all by himself) and potentially everyone in his chain of command.

But Kerry doesn't care.

Just like he didn't care what the prisoners of war languishing in the Hanoi Hilton might have to endure as a result of his claims about their actions. Surely he realized that by professing voluntarily what American POWs were being tortured to elicit he merely reinforced the conviction of the enemy that their cause was just--and ours, corrupt. But his drive was not to preserve American lives on the ground in Vietnam; it was to topple the Nixon administration and undermine the war effort.

No wonder there's a shrine to Kerry in a museum in Vietnam.

The question for today is not the excruciating detail of his lies, but the meaning of them in his character. For a political party that can't scream "Bush lied, kids died!" loud enough (even when the "lies" are exposed as truth), the Democrats seem strangely unmoved by the revelation that at least one of the Senator's stories is clearly a fairy tale. They seem quite happy to let sleeping dogs lie when it comes to the Winter Soldier hearings, and to bury Kerry's entire life between 1969 and the opening of the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

The mainstream media, too, had to be dragged kicking and screaming to this story, which they were only when Kerry himself couldn't stand to sit still any more and started talking about it. At that point they had no choice, since they have a blood-pact with the Democratic National Committee to broadcast every word that comes out of Kerry or Edwards (or their surrogates at the estimated six-trillion 527 groups made up of Hollywood celebrities and rabid Bush-haters)

Now that the issue is in play, it deserves to be watched closely for what it says about Kerry. First, the behavior itself--the smearing of American soldiers during the war--speaks to the type of smarmy political ambition that is extremely unattractive to voters. Second, his inability to defend himself, except by accusing the Bush administration of "coordination," seems suspect, not unlike the kind of misdirection that slick lawyers often use when their clients are losing. Moreover, the charge is a dangerous one to make if he can't prove it, since any such coordination would be a serious violation of the law. In essence, he is responding by calling the president of the United States a criminal. (Of course, compared to what the Kerry-leaning 527s routinely say about the president, "criminal" seems almost friendly.)

Another aspect of the response is Kerry and Edwards' seemingly childish pleading for the president to call off the dogs the Kerry campaign presumes belong to him. This kind of whining doesn't usually play well with voters; it didn't fly when Howard Dean appealed to the DNC to make the other candidates play nice with him during the primary. In fact, that perceived weakness on the part of Dean may have fed his precipitous fall from grace. Kerry never called for help from the DNC to protect him. But now, when the petty primary is over and it's time to play with the big boys, Kerry turns girlie-man, shrieking for help and telling Bush to make them stop.

Except Bush can't make them stop. And he shouldn't try, either.

This is Kerry's fight, not his. The president wasn't in Vietnam (as the Democrats never tire of telling us), so he has no way of knowing whose version is right. He's staying above the fray, accepting Kerry's version at face value, as a gentleman should. The Swifties are the men to whom Kerry must answer, because it's their character and integrity that he impugned all those years ago.

This controversy has shined an important light on the character of John Kerry. For those afraid that John Ashcroft might trample their civil rights for ideological reasons, look well to the behavior of the Senator. His reaction to the free speech of the Swifties has been to summon a cadre of lawyers to try to keep their book from being published or sold, to threaten to sue television stations who run the ad, and to accuse the 200-plus Swift Boat vets (more than 50 of whom have signed affidavits attesting to the veracity of their accounts) of collusion with the Bush administration. Because, of course, they surely couldn't have thought this up on their own. This last is ridiculous, since John O'Neill's objections to the Senator's version of events dates back to the Vietnam era itself.

Second, note how he reacts to an aggressive action by an opponent. Rather than answer the charges, he is hiding behind his surrogates, sending his spokesmen out with talking points, making them make assertions about historical truths they actually know nothing about. And he's calling for help from the President, who he knows can't help him without looking complicit in the attack. Would a President Kerry react to international aggression the way President Bush has, by taking the fight to the attacker? Or would he barricade himself in the White House while he calls for help and cover from his buddies at the UN?

Candidate Kerry has shown his colors. President Bush has shown his. Whether the Swifties have truth on their side or not, they have clearly thrown Kerry off his game. If candidate Kerry can't handle American patriots when they blow a hole in the side of his rhetorical boat, how will President Kerry keep his hand steady when Islamofascists try to blow a hole in the side of his real White House?