Playing to the media in attacks on service

WASHINGTON
AS MOST people know because they are conventionally wise, John Kerry is about to lose the presidency because he is a commie-helping traitor who invented his Vietnam service and finally got caught 30-plus years later.

For those dupes who still support him, there is consolation in another bit of conventional wisdom -- that this is entirely his fault because when Bush supporters tried to destroy his service record he was unconscionably slow to respond.

By contrast, it is also accepted that because President Bush is such a strong leader it is of no political consequence that the liberal media and partisan opponents present evidence that Bush benefited from big shot connections to escape Vietnam via the National Guard, where he then proceeded to benefit from big shot connections in order to shirk his duty and get away with it.

As her latest best-seller (highly critical of the Bush family) hits the shelves, Kitty Kelley must be quaking in her boots as she awaits the onslaught this same wisdom asserts will marginalize her work.

But the only existing, objective evidence shows that the first three above bits of "wisdom" are flat-out false, and that leads me to at least want to read Kelley's book before judging its impact.

The evidence would indicate that the critical variable with regard to Kerry's Vietnam service and later opposition to the war has not been Kerry but the press, and that the public's judgment of this garbage is so negative and partisan that you could almost make the case that the more the subject is discussed the better it is for the Democratic nominee.

On the other hand, while the National Guard matter is an ongoing story, the fact that the establishment press has driven this issue accounts for a limited but measurable impact on what people in politics like to call "swing" voters. It is no accident that leading Democrats (but not Kerry or running mate John Edwards themselves) are pushing the Guard issue openly, while their Republican counterparts take to the hills at the mere mention of Kerry and Vietnam.

There is much support for this point of view, but the most useful is the work of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Center, which polls continuously in the election cycle and thus has a sample far greater than others have.

In interviews with more than 3,200 potential voters between Aug. 10 and Sept. 4, Republicans and Democrats were predictably partisan in their views on the basic question of whether Bush fulfilled his Guard obligations. However, the polling found that among independents, the split was a more interesting 49 percent Yes and 35 percent No. Among those considered "persuadable," the division was 47 percent saying Bush met his obligations, but 26 percent saying he did not, with plenty of others who were unsure or didn't know.

These interviews ended just before the latest blast of publicity, most importantly 60 Minutes II's treatment of the issue last week. That broadcast is currently a controversy all by itself, involving authenticity of documents. In the middle of a breaking story, it should be obvious that any press sloppiness will be as injurious to credibility as even cursory examination was to the swift boat veterans' claims. For now, the story clearly has modest political legs.

Kerry's Vietnam experience is different. The Annenberg people have been asking potential voters whether he earned his decorations in the conflict. From a low of 23 percent who said he did not earn them in the first part of last month, the number reached a high of 30 percent on Aug. 19 -- when the swift boat ads were running and their message was being uncritically reported on cable TV. But by the end of the month, the number had fallen back to 24 percent once the press coverage turned critical. Kerry may or may not have been slow to "respond." It appears to have been more important politically that the news media was.

As for Kerry's later opposition to the war, a minority (44 percent) said they had seen, heard, or read something about it. Within that group, opinion was 52-39 percent negative, but included Republicans and veterans out of proportion to their size in the overall population. The Vietnam War is still with us, but political impact is often wildly overstated and in this case it clearly was.

More important, Kerry was an unfocused candidate in August who made a decision not to use campaign funds for TV advertising in the weeks following his formal nomination. By contrast, Bush was a very focused candidate in the period leading up to the GOP convention in New York.

That deeper reality is what influenced the campaign last month. Kerry's Vietnam record was more sideshow than main event. As for Bush's Guard service, stay tuned.

Thomas Oliphant's e-mail address is oliphant@globe.com.