The Bloody Shirt Is Back
BARNES, FRED
The Bloody Shirt Is Back Did you know John Kerry served in Vietnam? BY FRED BARNES THERE'S NEVER BEEN a presidential campaign like John Kerry's. Never has a presidential nominee made his own...
...Kerry's campaign is also distinctive in the modern political era in using his Vietnam record to shut down criticism...
...Why is Kerry leaning so heavily on his performance in Vietnam...
...Republicans pointed out Cleveland hadn't served in the Civil War...
...I thought I was watching the VFW convention," quipped Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia...
...His claims about his war experience have become a matter for scrutiny, though not by the Bush reelection campaign as far as we know...
...Since 1904, when presidential candidates began active campaigning, Kerry "is probably distinctive in the extent to which he makes reference to it...
...A Kerry campaign commercial says Kerry still has shrapnel in his leg...
...Being forced to defend his war record wasn't part of Kerry's campaign plan...
...Democratic senator Tom Harkin went further, calling Cheney a "coward" for not having joined the military or served in Vietnam...
...Bush ran as Ronald Reagan's heir but "kinder and gentler...
...John Kerry has heard the thump of enemy mortars," Clark said...
...He's seen the flash of the tracers----He proved his physical courage under fire...
...In 1868, Ulysses S. Grant's Democratic foe, Horatio Seymour, was accused of southern sympathies...
...But he rarely mentioned it, except to note that his longest place of residence was Hanoi...
...And there's still another unique aspect...
...In 1960, John F. Kennedy didn't hide his World War II record as commander of PT-109, but he didn't talk it up either...
...Meanwhile, Bush's record as a National Guard fighter pilot is not particularly relevant...
...The two convention speeches leading up to Kerry's were delivered by Vietnam vets, and during Kerry's speech, a group of his former Swift boat crewmates stood behind him...
...senator since 1985...
...He didn't have to say 'I know about war,'" says Greenstein...
...Everybody knew he knew about war...
...The real test comes this fall when voters will be paying more attention and Kerry's Senate record on national security will be under discussion...
...It's a bulwark against attacks on his weak record on defense and national security as a U.S...
...It's called "waving the bloody shirt" and was quite common in presidential campaigns in the post-Civil War years— but not since then...
...shows he would be a strong president...
...Truman, Kennedy, Bush, and Eisenhower stressed other issues...
...Kerry, by contrast, became famous as a war protester, as the leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, who charged that war crimes were being committed by American troops in Vietnam on a daily basis...
...John McCain's experience as a POW in vietnam was well known when he ran for the Republican nomination in 2000...
...Many were in the same unit as Kerry...
...He volunteered a third time to command a Swift boat in one of the most dangerous activities in the war...
...Presidential historian Forrest McDonald doesn't think so...
...Has a candidate's having heard "the thump" of mortars or seen the "flash of tracers" ever before been used as grounds for election...
...The other man scrambled and used his family's influence to get out of hearing a shot fired in anger...
...Harry Truman was an artillery officer in World War I, but his campaign didn't highlight that in his tough election battle in 1948...
...He insists it's his war record that Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...That's putting it mildly...
...When asked about being a hero, he mocked the idea and said it stemmed from having his boat shot out from under him...
...George Bush senior, running for president in 1988 and 1992, didn't discuss his World War II service in the Pacific...
...Kerry needs to play up his in an effort to show he would be a tough commander in chief...
...He's grasping at straws," McDonald says...
...At a Kerry campaign press conference last week, Clark characterized the two candidates this way: "One man volunteered to serve his country...
...Kennedy was too classy a guy to say that...
...Truman thrashed the "do-nothing Congress...
...Nor did Eisenhower rely on his war experience...
...Dwight Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, and the five ex-Union officers in the Civil War who became president benefited politically from their participation and leadership in a war...
...Kerry, however, "has made his four months of military service a key part, a mantra, a touchstone," says Green-stein...
...Maybe so...
...He's talking about a man who spilled his blood for the United States of America...
...Their criticism of Kerry is over specific incidents that require a specific response...
...Kennedy deplored a "missile gap" and exuded optimism about America...
...Presidential expert Al Felzenberg cites another Republican slogan: "Every [dead] Union soldier was downed by a Democrat...
...Kerry is different...
...This tactic is not new...
...The Kerry campaign now treats President Bush the way Republicans dealt with Democratic presidential nominee Grover Cleveland in 1884...
...Former senator Max Cle-land, a triple amputee, was quick to tell the delegates that Kerry had earned "a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts...
...So the theme of nearly every speaker at the Democratic convention in July was that Kerry's Vietnam service, not his Senate record, reflects the kind of president he would be...
...He volunteered to go to Vietnam...
...Never has a presidential nominee run on the basis of his role in a war he opposed...
...He has been commander in chief for more than three years, allowing voters to judge him on his actual performance rather than on military records more than three decades old...
...Never has a presidential nominee made his own experience in a war the centerpiece of his campaign for the White House...
...Eisenhower promised to go to Korea and to clean up the mess in Washington...
...There's a problem in comparing the Kerry and Bush war records...
...Has Kerry's Vietnam episode inoculated him...
...Retired General Wesley Clark talked up Kerry's moments in combat...
...You didn't get Kennedy saying, 'I have served and I have shrapnel in me,'" says Fred Greenstein, a presidential scholar and professor emeritus at Princeton...
...Most of them, in fact, were famous for their wartime service...
...In an era of terrorist attacks, his votes to cut intelligence spending, indeed his overall dovishness, are liabilities...
...Is Kerry's strategy working...
...At a rally in Flint, Michigan, Kerry's running mate, John Edwards, accused Cheney of distorting Kerry's words...
...I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as president," Kerry declared...
...Even when Democrats nominated General Winfield Scott Hancock in 1880, Republicans charged he represented "a Solid South against the soldiers and sailors of the patriotic North...
...In those days, presidential nominees didn't campaign personally...
...The anti-Kerry veterans stayed in Vietnam for full 12-month tours, longer than Kerry did...
...Instead, a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has charged Kerry with lying about his record in Vietnam or exaggerating it...
...Vice President Dick Cheney zinged Kerry recently for advocating a "more sensitive war on terror...
...Then he added this: "He's talking about a man who still carries shrapnel in his body...
...His speeches, TV ads, interviews, the entire Democratic convention—all have dwelled on his four months in Vietnam and the five medals he was awarded...
...Not in recent memory anyway...
...The Kerry fixation on his Vietnam record turns out to be more risky than expected...
...Now Kerry has stood the Vietnam issue on its head...
...We'll get an initial reading soon when polls measure whether the attacks by the Swift Boat Veterans, both on Kerry's war record and his antiwar protesting, have had an effect...
...But Republicans urged people to "vote the way you shot...
...The Kerry campaign can't dismiss the group as men who ducked Vietnam duty...
Vol. 9 • August 2004 • No. 47
