As I'm sure you are already aware, Swift Boat Veterans who served with John Kerry are releasing a book which, presumably, will serve to severely wound Kerry's war record. Human Events Online has made one chapter ("The Purple Heart Hunter") from UNFIT FOR COMMAND available for download for free.
If you don't have the patience to read, there's now a commercial to go along with this...
After seeing the "Manchurian Candidate" off course the suspicion arises, if all 13 crew members of Kerry that came with him to the DNC plus the Green Barret who carry thanked on stage for his courage have been hypnotized and injected with brain-chips too ;-)
But seriously: I will of course read the downloadable chapter during the weekend, but the exploits of Kerry's crew members about his ledaership seem honest enough and sanguine according to what I saw during the DNC reportage. I don't know if any of the authors of the book was serving directly under Kerry or not, which would be the main thing for judging their writing.
It is of course obvious that someone needs to attack on the one point where GWB looks the weakest in comparison.
My personal opinion is, that I can not judge a man today just by what he has done or not done some 25-30 years in the past. Being an able leader of a small unit in combat situation does not necessarily make someone a good comander in chief if he has not shown promise enough to command large units and make more abstract decisons since than. To this point I am a poor judge, because I am not enough involved in US politics to judge Senator Kerry for the past deceade(s).
Same is true for the weaknesses the GWB showed in his youth (alcohol, possible drugs if I read correctly, and maybe not to eager to be at the front in Vietnam himself). I can not judge the president decades after that morally, I have to look at the overall achievments over time. The great apostel Paulus, after all, used to be a Saulus before.
Just a few thought on this issue, bringing me again right between all biased sides. But I seem to love living between the aisles, just as long as I do not fit in any standard drawer.....
Cheerio from Old Europe
Posted by: Pat | August 05, 2004 at 02:06 AM
TGOM: you may want to check out Spinsanity, there is a neat rebuttal of the claim of the Kerry camp that he volunteered for the most dangerous assignment possible, the Swift boats. It would appear that at the time he volunteered for this assignment the first time, it was more like a cake run and considered to be relatively out of danger. Thought you would like that....
Posted by: Patq | August 05, 2004 at 06:49 AM