When a certain Vermont governor pulled his Screamin' Dean act earlier this year, it heralded the impending death of a campaign always doomed to be nothing more than a historical footnote. Similarly, future historians might one day mark Sen. John Kerry's near-hysterical reaction to his Vietnam service being questioned as the beginning of his campaign's end.
Anyone following the election recently has probably heard of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group of more than 240 retired military men who served on or commanded Navy swift boats in Vietnam dedicated to taking down Kerry, who served on a swift during his tour of duty. SBVT has thus far released two television advertisements and one book critically questioning Kerry's war record.
Kerry reacted in the only reasonable way he could: by accusing the SBVT group of being a "front for the Bush campaign" doing the president's "dirty work." This argument is apparently based on the fact that a wealthy Republican has donated money to both the Bush campaign and the SBVT non-partisan, 527-designated group --named for the Internal Revenue Service code governing their tax-exempt status. Considering how much the deep pockets of millionaire liberals like George Soros have come in handy for both Kerry and leftist 527s such as MoveOn.org, that's an awfully odd charge to make.
However, it's Kerry's other "defense" that really nudges his reaction into the gentlemen-doth-protest-too-much category. On Friday, his campaign officially filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against SBVT, alleging that their "inaccurate ads" have been "illegally coordinated" with the Bush campaign.
Are the words of the SVBT not entirely accurate? Possibly. Several journalists and Kerry defenders have sprung up to demonstrate that many of the vets from SBVT who served with Kerry have made claims that are inconsistent or unsubstantiated. What's worth noting right now, though, is Kerry's reaction.
Or overreaction, more accurately. If you don't think that the Kerry team is acting with undue panic, there is indeed a recent precedent for how a major politician should behave when his military record is unduly questioned. A while back, it suddenly became all the rage to claim that during the Vietnam years, a young George W. Bush had skipped out on his service in the Texas National Guard. The Bush team reacted by calmly producing pay stubs and records of a military dental visit from the time frame when the president was supposedly "AWOL." End of discussion.
Quite the opposite with John Kerry: He may or may not have behaved gracefully under fire back in Vietnam, but he certainly isn't now. Criticizing your opponent for not condemning supposedly sleazy attack ads is maximum hypocrisy for a guy who let Michael Moore have a VIP seat at his nominating convention, and trying to legally silence commercials is just plain dirty pool.
It's an open secret that John Kerry has built his entire candidacy around his four months in Vietnam. Criticisms about his voting record, his plan to get us out of Iraq or his flip-flopping desire to be both on sides of every issue have all been brushed off because "Hey, he's John Kerry and he served in Vietnam. He spent four months in the bush so who are you to question him, you pansy-ass draft dodger?"
Perpetually hiding behind four months of service from 35 years ago was always a house of cards, but it's been a fortress for Kerry. SBVT are storming that fortress, and the Massachusetts senator's inadequacies are bubbling to the surface, such as conflicting stories about being on a clandestine mission to Cambodia in Christmas of 1968, or his campaign team all but admitting that his first Purple Heart wound was indeed self-inflicted.
The most telling sign so far has come from poor, panicked Kerry last Thursday. In between trying to sue his fellow vets and calling them liars and Bush cronies, Kerry was able to fit in some more feeble bluster at a campaign rally. "If [Bush] wants to have a debate about our service in Vietnam," he puffed, "here is my answer: Bring. It. On!"
Of course, Kerry has proven that any attempts to "bring it on" to him will be met with whining and lawsuits, so his wannabe tough-talk falls just a little flat. Unlike screaming Howard Dean, that's the way Kerry's campaign will end: not with a bang, but with a whimper.
Eric Spratling is a public relations senior who never served in Vietnam. Reach him at Eric.Spratling@asu.edu.
