MY WAR GOOD, YOUR WAR BAD:

Kerry in Cambodia: A question of character (Patrick J. Buchanan, August 16, 2004, World Net Daily)

If what John O'Neill writes is true – and he has invited Kerry to sue him for libel – Kerry has falsified a central event of his life. For Kerry has used this story repeatedly, and it has been used by admirers to explain how the idealistic young warrior lost his faith in the U.S. government.

Nor is this an unserious matter. For the charges against Kerry in "Unfit for Command" go to an issue the media failed to address in 1992, to the detriment of this country: the issue of character and credibility.

Is John Kerry a brave warrior being viciously maligned by SWIFT boat veterans who hate him for having turned against the war and telling the truth about U.S. war crimes? Or has John Kerry been lying about his service in Vietnam and slandering the honorable service of the SWIFT boat veterans to advance his own career – in which case, he should be read out of the company of decent men, not elevated to the presidency?

While the full truth about how Kerry won his medals may never be known, we do know this: Kerry has backed away from the more lurid charges of genocide against U.S. forces he made when he came home. He misled his biographer Douglas Brinkley when he denied being at the Kansas City meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, where the assassination of Sens. Tower, Stennis and Thurmond was discussed. His campaign staff tried to get former VVAW men to disremember that Kerry was there.

One of the more lovable aspects of the current far Right isolationists is that they were, almost to a man, hardcore Cold Warriors. Mr. Buchanan is still personally offended that John Kerry opposed Richard Nixon and Vietnam, but thinks himself a patriot for raving against President Bush and Iraq.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 17, 2004 5:08 PM