Bush's dirty work
AN ANGRY group of swift boat veterans has vowed to continue airing its odious ads attacking John Kerry's military service even after many of its claims have been discredited. Now the group is airing a commercial saying Kerry betrayed his fellow Vietnam veterans in his 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when he said, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" One veteran in the ad, Paul Gallanti, even suggests that Kerry "gave the enemy for free what I and many of my comrades in North Vietnam, in the prison camps, took torture to avoid saying." It is hard to imagine that anyone reading the full 30 pages of Kerry's testimony would see anything but a thoughtful, anguished young man trying to come to grips with his experiences in Vietnam and spare other soldiers the same. Kerry grieves for the Americans and Vietnamese killed in the war and defends returning veterans against indifference and ill treatment by their country. He calls for more money for military hospitals to treat returning soldiers, especially those with drug addictions. He specifically says he does not presume to speak for all veterans. (The testimony is available at www.c-span.org/vote2004/jkerrytestimony.asp).
Kerry does indeed recount war atrocities described by other veterans of Vietnam -- dramatic testimony excerpted in the ad. This was shortly after Lieutenant William Calley's court martial for the My Lai massacre. It was a painful truth, but it was not an act of disloyalty to try to end the war early and bring more soldiers home. Kerry's views have been vindicated by history.
Yet the smear goes on and on. Speaking on CNN Sunday, former presidential candidate Bob Dole, himself a wounded veteran of World War II, said Kerry should apologize for his testimony and questioned whether Kerry actually bled from the wounds for which he received three Purple Hearts. This is inane. It is time to steer the campaign back to the issues voters care about: jobs, health care, education, the war on terror, and the one in Iraq. The voters are ill served by an ugly, distracting campaign fueled by bitter men.
President Bush has steadfastly refused to call an end to this trash. On Monday Bush issued a broad condemnation of all so-called 527 political groups from both the left and the right that have been exploiting a loophole in campaign finance reform laws with a vengeance this season. This is fine, but the watchdog Federal Election Commission hasn't lifted a paw to do anything about it despite several formal complaints. If Bush is serious about returning this campaign to a reasonably civil plane, he will call on the FEC to close the 527 loophole immediately, and he will call his friends who are bankrolling the swift boat ads and ask them to stop.
