Dirty deeds done to sheep
John Kerry's commanding officer in Vietnam regrets calling Kerry a liar 35 years later. But it's probably too little, too late.
Lt. Com. George Elliot told the Boston Globe (Veteran Retracts Criticism of Kerry) he made a "terrible mistake" when he signed an affidavit saying Kerry did not deserve the Silver Star -- the very medal for which Elliot recommended Kerry in 1969.
The affidavit serves to support Elliot's statements in the book "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry." In the book, which will be published next week, Elliot is quoted as saying Kerry '"lied about what occurred in Vietnam . . . for example, in connection with his Silver Star, I was never informed that he had simply shot a wounded, fleeing Viet Cong in the back." (The enemy soldier was carrying a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher and, according to an account by one of Kerry's Swift boat mates, he was poised to fire.)
John O'Neill, a naval officer in Vietnam and a member of the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, is the book's co-author.
In a TV ad that began this week, Elliot, who appears in the ad with other group members, says, "John Kerry has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam."
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a Vietnam veteran who was a POW for five years, has denounced the group's attacks on Kerry, calling them "dishonest and dishonorable," and has called on President Bush to disassociate himself from the book and the ad. The Bush campaign has denied association with O'Neill or the producers of the TV ad, and White House spokesman Scott McClelland responded, ''We have not and we will not question Senator Kerry's service in Vietnam."
Elliot's regrets and W's denial are all well and good. But the stark fact is, the ads are out and the book will be -- "dishonest and dishonorable" and all.
This is one of the aspects of politics that seriously pisses me off. A politician can say pretty much anything he/she wants, with little or no regard for truth. When called on it, they need only say they were misquoted or quoted out of context, or cite the non-committal "I misspoke," and that's generally the end of it -- except that the message is out, and people will continue to believe it. And politicians know this as well as they know their stump speeches. It's part of the game.
The classic example is, of course, the Wregime's contention that Saddam Hussein had WMD, posed an imminent threat to the U.S., harbored and trained al Qaeda terrorists, etc. All of this has been discounted by the 9/11 Commission, yet polls show that about one-third of Americans still believe it.
(In all honesty, I believe W believed the flawed intel -- it was what he wanted to believe, after all -- and went public with it in quasi-good faith as well as a gleeful "Toldya so." But the point remains, now that it's known that the intel was flawed, we don't see him making an effort to set the record straight. To do so would jeopardize his election, and he knows it.)
A degree of truth-stretching is permitted, and expected, in ads for products and services. An advertiser can say "Simply the best" or "Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee," and we take it for what it's worth. But the Ford Motor Co. is not allowed to say "Chevy trucks explode at 35 mph."
But if you have a political agenda (or a talk show on AM radio or Fox News), you can say "John Kerry got his Purple Hearts for scratches" or "Bill Clinton is a rapist," and it goes down as your opinion. It's presented as a statement of fact, but it's your opinion and you're entitled to it. Kerry or Clinton could sue you for slander, but they'd be fools to give you the extra attention -- and you know it.
I'm reminded of a line near the end of "Primary Colors" in which the neurotic lesbian tactician Libby Holden recounted candidate Jack Stanton's idealism during the 1972 presidential campaign:
I couldn't believe that Tom Eagleton would really be a nutcase. They had to have dragged him off and drugged him and made him crazy. It couldn't have been that McGovern was just -- a complete fucking amateur. No, they did dirty tricks. And I said to Jack, "We gotta get that capability." And you said, "No. Our job is to end all that. Our job is to make it clean. Because if it's clean, we win -- because our ideas are better."
Would that it were true.
4:47:08 PM 
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