Kerry=Gumby

The race is neck-and-neck. Not the Presidential election--the battle for cluelessness between the Kerry campaign and big media. With the election all but over, the real suspense is whether Kerry or the press get the Olympic gold medal for stupidity.

• First Kerry. The man's a cipher. As the nominee of a party dominated by anti-war Deaniacs, Kerry chose to link Presidential leadership with Vietnam service. Now, Kerry doth protest too much, methinks:

  But having first questioned Mr. Bush's war service, and then made Vietnam the core of his own campaign for President, Mr. Kerry now cries No mas! because other Vietnam vets are assailing his behavior before and after that war.

  Further, this isn't Kerry's first make-over: He's been re-inventing himself from the start, especially about Vietnam and the military. Such flip-flops offend all and please none, according to Ralph Peters:

  The first show-stopper problem with Kerry began after his return. He had the right to protest against the war -- more than most, since he had served himself. But he had not earned the right to lie about the honorable service of millions of others.
  
  Kerry's lies -- and they were nothing but lies -- about "routine" atrocities committed by average American soldiers and sanctioned by the chain of command were sheer political opportunism. Kerry knew that none of the charges were true. . .
  
  John Kerry lied. Without remorse. To advance his budding political career. He tarnished the reputation of his comrades when the military was out of vogue.
  
  Now, three decades later, camouflage is back in the fall fashion line-up. Suddenly, Kerry's proud of his service, portraying himself as a war hero.
  
  But it doesn't work that way. You can't trash those who served in front of Congress and the American people, spend your senatorial career voting against our nation's security interests, then expect vets to love you when you abruptly change your tune.

  Mark Steyn pronounces Kerry "strange, stuck-up . . . and stupid." But it's still more simple: Americans don't want Gumby for President.



• And then there's the press. The media are both sloppy and self-important. Sloppy because they first suppressed the story, then blasted the Swiftvets before investigating. Self-important because reporters like Boston Globe writer Tom Oliphant (a Kerry partisan who praises the Dem without disclosing that his daughter works for the Kerry campaign) presume lofty status as guardians of the truth:

  I think this is an allegation that has a credibility problem that I believe I can address on journalistic as opposed to political grounds. One of the things we look for, I mean, there is nothing new about a dispute over a war record with many of us in journalism that have been through many, many times.

  So the media mostly missed a central and undisputed point: Kerry claimed he infiltrated Cambodia, said the experience was central to his values--but made up the whole thing, as the Washington Post belatedly conceded by hosting a column by AEI's Joshua Muravchik:

  Most of the debate between the former shipmates who swear by John Kerry and the group of other Swift boat veterans who are attacking his military record focuses on matters that few of us have the experience or the moral standing to judge. But one issue, having nothing to do with medals, wounds or bravery under fire, goes to the heart of Kerry's qualifications for the presidency and is therefore something that each of us must consider. That is Kerry's apparently fabricated claim that he fought in Cambodia.

  Why isn't Kerry's lie in 64 point type on every front page? Instapundit answers:

  A Kerry claim proven false, a retraction, and a retrenchment -- and absolutely no coverage at all. If we were seeing the same sort of questions raised about George W. Bush I think we'd be getting wall-to-wall coverage. It's as is they're letting their coverage be shaped by the fact that they want Kerry to win or something. Kind of makes you wonder what else they're leaving out.

  As Eugene Volokh says, "Good thing that people still read the reliable, credible Real Media instead of those nasty inaccurate, un-fact-checked blogs."



• The effect on voters. In a word, huge. It won't convince Bush haters to support the President. But swing voters care--and, as I've argued, others might abstain. Ralph Peters observes:

  I wish Kerry were better. The truth is that I'm appalled by Bush's domestic policies. I believe that the Cheney-Halliburton connection stinks to high heaven. And I'm convinced that Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld & Co. have done colossal damage to our military and to our foreign policy.
  
  But we're at war. And for all his faults, Bush has proven himself as a great wartime leader. Despite painful mistakes, he's served our security needs remarkably well. And security trumps all else in the age of terror.
  
  Kerry says many of the right things. But I can't believe a word of it. I just can't trust John Kerry. I can't trust him to lead, I can't trust him to fight -- and I can't trust him to make the right kind of peace.
  
  I have reservations about voting for George W. Bush. But I have no reservations about voting against John Kerry. And I'm not alone.

  Muravchik goes further:

  If -- as seems almost surely the case -- Kerry himself has lied about what he did in Vietnam, and has done so not merely to spice his biography but to influence national policy, then he is surely not the kind of man we want as our president.

• Conclusion. In decades to come, Senator John Kerry will be remembered as the man who lost Vietnam--twice. With two assists from the press. Give 'um both a gold medal.