Strong and Wrong
This, too, falls into the category of "I didn't want to hear this," but I had better pay attention. Jonathan Schell argues the case that Kerry's position on the war in Iraq is political pandering which may yet undermine his campaign and if not, his freedom to act following his election.
"During the Vietnam War, many young men, including the current President, the Vice President and me, could have gone to Vietnam and didn't. John Kerry came from a privileged background. He could have avoided going, too. But instead he said, 'Send me.'
"When they sent those Swift Boats up the river in Vietnam... John Kerry said, 'Send me.'
"And then when America needed to extricate itself from that misbegotten and disastrous war, Kerry donned his uniform once again, and said, 'Send me'; and he led veterans to an encampment on the Washington Mall, where, in defiance of the Nixon Justice Department, they conducted the most stirring and effective of the protests, that forced an end to the war.
"And then, on my watch, when it was time to heal the wounds of war and normalize relations with Vietnam... John Kerry said, 'Send me.'"
So spoke President Clinton at the Democratic Convention--except that he did not deliver the third paragraph about Kerry's protest; I made that up. The speech cries out for the inclusion of Kerry's glorious moment of antiwar leadership; and its absence is as palpable as one of those erasures from photographs of high Soviet officials after Stalin had sent them to the gulag. Clinton's message was plain.
Military courage in war is honored; civil courage in opposing a disastrous war is not honored. Even thirty years later, it cannot be mentioned by a former President who himself opposed the Vietnam War. The political rule, as Clinton once put it in one of the few pithy things he has ever said, "We [Democrats] have got to be strong.... When people feel uncertain, they'd rather have somebody who's strong and wrong than somebody who's weak and right." [Emphasis added]
This is more worrisosme than is the question of justifying his vote for giving Bush war powers and later voting against the funding for the war; any number of responses seem up to that task. It was apparent in the run-up to the convention and during the convention itself that "I will take us out of Iraq" was not going to be the message, that "stay the course" was the message, and that a lot of liberals were going to be disgruntled.
I know, I know: It's essential to remove George W. Bush from the White House, and Kerry is the instrument at hand. I fully share this sentiment. But I am not running for anything, and my job is not to carry water for any party but to stand as far apart from the magnetic field of power as I can and tell the truth as I see it. And it's not too early to worry about the dangers posed by the Democrats' strategy. In the first place, they have staked their future and the country's on a political calculation, but it may be wrong. By suffocating their own passion, they may lose the energy that has brought them this far. They have confronted Bush's policy of denial with a politics of avoidance. Bush is adamant in error; they are feeble in dedication to truth. If strong and wrong is really the winning formula, Bush may be the public's choice. In the second place, if Kerry does win, he will inherit the war wedded to a potentially disastrous strategy. If he tries to change course, Republicans -- and hawkish Democrats (Senator Joe Lieberman has just joined in a revival of the Committee on the Present Danger) -- will not fail to remind him of his commitment to stay the course and renew the charge of flip-flopping. But the course, as retired Gen. Anthony Zinni has commented, may take the country over Niagara Falls. Then Kerry may wish that he and his admirers at this year's convention had thought to place a higher value on his service to his country when he opposed the Vietnam War. [Emphasis added]
