Dole, Swift and the National Guard

September 1st, 2004

There is a wonderful line in W.S.Gilbert's lyrics for Iolanthe in which a guardsman sings that he finds it comical that “everyone born alive is either a liberal or else a conservative.” In our time, in our country, it seems that everyone born alive is either a Democrat or Republican. Every now and then some third party Don Quixote charges into the political windmill and may act as a spoiler, but for good or ill this is a country which operates largely by consensus through a two party system.

 

The two party system has not, unhappily, resulted in reasoned debate between the various candidates. This is not some modern phenomenon. From the beginnings of our republic, the opposition was often characterized as liars and thieves. It may seem obvious, but since roughly half the population is on the other side of whatever political position you espouse, to characterize them all as such is not only mistaken, it is foolish.

 

Besides, there are lies and damned lies. All politicians lie to some extent, or at the very least over or understate. However, in an age in which the media is all pervasive and is increasingly controlled by fewer and fewer people, damn lies loom increasingly large in our politics and threaten to destroy our democracy. In the name of morality and ethics it is one's duty to point them out, and, moral me, I do.

 

Let's start with Senator Bob Dole, unquestionably a war hero and deserving of his numerous decorations, including his Purple Heart for the hand in he lost in battle. Battle wounds are an equal opportunity occurrence. They happen to good people and no-good s.o.b's like Bob Dole. Being a war hero does not give one the right to have one's opinions treated with great regard. If that were so, all sorts of Nazi soldiers would deserve a widespread forum. (To be clear, I don't mean to suggest that Dole is a Nazi.)

 

The point of my disgust with Dole is his attack on John Kerry by suggesting that Kerry didn't deserve his three Purple Hearts because he didn't sustain wounds as serious as Dole received. Purple Hearts, of course, are not self awarded, but are rewarded for wounds suffered in battle. Shame on Dole for attempting any such distinction. His criticism of Kerry on the Purple Heart matter would throw out all Purple Hearts for wounds less serious then Dole received including those in the present Iraqi war. It needs to be noted that Dole has not dared to denigrate the wounds received by triple amputee former senator Max Cleland, although the White House has not stopped short in that direction.

 

Not only has Dole carped at the Purple Hearts Kerry received, he denigrates Kerry's service presumably on the basis of information contained in the TV ad pushed by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. That ad features statement that Kerry was not under fire and did not deserve his three Purple Hearts not to mention his Bronze and Purple Stars. The ad is patently false. The testimony to the contrary of Kerry's shipmates on his swift boat who were there is the best evidence. Moreover, several of the people seen in the ad have actually said earlier that Kerry deserved the medal. A member of the “Swift Veterans for Truth” won a bronze star for being under fire when Kerry was, but now he repents. If that  isn't a damned lie, there is no such category.

 

Next we have George W. Bush. Bush performed the artful trick of balancing on a pin. He did not quite say that he agreed with the Swift Veterans' ad. He simply decried all 527 ads. (A 527, for the politically oblivious, is an ad which is not sponsored or financed by a candidate's campaign, but by some independent political group in simply exercise of its first amendment rights.) Just yesterday (August 26) he gave an interview to The New York Times in which he managed to spit enough marbles out of his mouth to be able to say that he did not believe that Kerry had lied about his Vietnam service but he refused to criticize the Swift Veteran ad.

 

How noble to decry all 527 ads, especially because one from Moveon.org has been highlighting the fact that while Kerry was serving under fire in Vietnam , Bush was ducking service in the Texas National Guard.  While in the Guard he somehow found time to involve himself in an Alabama  political campaign yet could not find time to actually render the service he had agreed to render. Various newspapers have investigated Bush's service in the guard. They point out, among other things, that Bush was allowed to enter flight school despite the fact that he had the bare minimum test grade for that school and many men with higher grades were passed over so that Bush could be appointed. Was daddy involved? Nah, you can't prove it.

 

If recollections differ on Kerry's service, nobody, emphasis nobody, has any recollection of Bush's service in the Texas National Guard during the period for which, surprise, the records appear to be lost. Nor is there any explanation from the Bush camp as to why Bush failed to report for a required medical exam and accordingly never flew again. Maybe he had a fear of heights.

 

The difference in 527 is one, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ad, is demonstrably false, as even Bush admits. The other, the attack on Bush's Texas National Guard service, is demonstrably true and not even seriously disputed by the Bush forces. In short, one is a damned lie and the other is not.

 

As representative Charlie Rangel, a Black Democrat from New York said on CNN today, the chutzpah (cheek, for you non-Yiddish speakers) of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the rest of this administration, Powell aside, to criticize Kerry on this issue when they all ran from the Vietnam War is incredible. Is it for the cowards who hid in their caves to complain that they didn't like the way the knight who slew the dragon behaved in battle?

 

One can only hope that the American People will not be so flat out stupid as to believe these damned lies. On the other hand, one has to remember Barnum's injunction, “A sucker is born every day” and H.L. Mencken's notion that “no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American People.” Barnum made a lot of money and Mencken was revered as a pundit. Pray both of them were wrong.