He Volunteered For Combat
Here’s a little anecdote on a Friday morning from the neighborhood Starbucks that I think illustrates a little bit of the Scumbags For Truth dilemma.
Overheard argument (and I swear it isn’t one of those taxicab confessions.)
Why would those guys lie about Kerry?
Because he said that soldiers committed atrocities in Vietnam.
Well he did and it was a shitty thing to do.
Yeah, well at least he fought instead of having his rich daddy get him into the guard.
The argument developed into a back and forth about Bush going AWOL, Kerry running from enemy fire etc, until it ended up with “Who the hell does Bush think he is?” Say what you want about Kerry, but he volunteered for combat and Bush didn’t, end of story” and the other guy blathering on for a while about Jane Fonda.
According to the Annenberg Center Survey (pdf) released today the ad’s effect seems to track pretty closely along the partisan divide, so I’m not sure whether we’ve seen any erosion in support (despite what people are saying):
Respondents who saw or heard about the ad are split about its believability. Forty-six percent find the ad very or somewhat believable and 49 percent find the ad very or somewhat un-believable. Beliefs about the believability of the advertisement are strongly associated with partisan inclinations. Seventy percent of those with favorable opinions ofBush find the advertisement somewhat or very believable while 19 percent of those with favorable opinions of Kerry find it believable. Independent voters are nearly evenly split over whether they find the ad believable; 44 percent find the ad somewhat or very believable while 49 percent find the ad somewhat or very unbelievable.
But, there’s another side to this and one that wasn’t addressed in this survey. It’s the other side of that argument I heard in Starbucks this morning. As David Gergen said on Hardball last night, it’s a bit inexplicable that Bush would want Kerry’s service back on the front page of the news in any capacity because it inevitably highlights the contrast between his own actions and Kerry’s. You have to wonder if Lee Atwater were alive if he wouldn’t have proposed this smear as a whisper campaign instead of a Willie Horton style feed-the-mediawhores special. Bush Sr wasn’t vulnerable on the crime issue like Dukakis was so he could afford to go nuclear. Over the long haul, keeping Vietnam on the front burner is not necessarily a winner for Junior. When Kerry said yesterday, “Well, if he wants to have a debate about our service in Vietnam, here is my answer: Bring it on,” that’s what he was talking about.
That “he volunteered for combat” argument is hard for Bush to rebut. It’s simple and appeals to the common sense of average Americans. (And believe me, there isn’t a person in the country who doesn’t associate Bush with the attack. Most people believe in their gut that the campaigns are behind the ads whether they are or not.)
I’m not suggesting that this smear is good for Kerry, but I am suggesting that it doesn’t necessarily help Bush all that much with undecideds and may end up hurting him a little. (The GOP talk radio neanderthals will believe anything they’re told, so they are not worth worrying about at the moment.)
Rove probably feels he has no choice but to tear down Kerry’s heroism because Junior is extremely weak on every issue but terrorism so he has to run on his alleged cojones to grab the undecideds. (The “compassionate, uniter divider” side of his agenda is a total joke and everybody knows it.) But, it’s a dicey proposition. Regardless of whether people know the details of Bush going AWOL in the Guard, or even if they’ve heard about it, it is indisputable that he went in the Guard instead of volunteering for combat as Kerry did. That is the bottom line contrast and it doesn’t reflect well on him to attack Kerry’s war record because of it.
Kerry and his surrogates continuing to tie the attack to big Texas Republican money closely associated with Bush is an important element because Bush is doing something here that doesn’t make sense. One of the perverse advantages of the 527’s is to be able to claim that they are independent and don’t represent your view while they stick it to your opponent. It makes the media very suspicious when you don’t follow the pre-ordained script and Bush is not following the script on this. That makes the media skeptical.
It’s very interesting that Rove has adopted this odd hedging routine instead of taking the high road freebie offered by the 527 “independence.” The best explanation is that he’s worried about offending his base or his Texas contributors if he explicitly condemns the ad. And that is a sign of weakness. If that is right then Kerry is correct to hammer on Bush having these people do his dirty work for him. It puts him in a box.
I’ll repeat what I’ve said here too many times before. The operative motivation in a smear is not to convince people. It’s to “get it out there” and raise doubts. There’s almost nothing you can do when people are determined to smear you like this to completely contain the damage. Once it’s out there it’s out there. And in that sense, they have succeeded very well.
However, there is an interesting example of how a smear can be fought to a standstill (although with your reputation forever shredded.) That is the method by which Clinton fought the Monica frenzy. He turned it into an attack on Ken Starr. And it largely worked because people instinctively recoil at the idea of nosy creeps like Starr rifling through other people’s underwear drawers.
There are elements of the same thing here if the Democrats can correctly keep the frame where they want it to be. A man who maneuvered his way out of Vietnam is now ruthlessly tearing down the war record of one who volunteered for combat. That just doesn’t sit well — it breaks the unwritten rules we have about military service. Just as with the Starr counter attack, the rabid GOP base will become even more agitated and wild. But, the majority of the country will likely begin to see through the smokescreen to what is really going on. And it could end up hurting Bush more than Kerry.
It’s probably also why the Scumbags are now pushing this idea that Kerry “planned” to go to Nam and shoot himself three times and phony up his medals for political purposes. This absurd notion will be pushed to contrast with the all-American Bush, who honestly served in the Guard rather than do something so dishonest. Apparently, this idea has been out in the ether for some time. I quoted a Navy wife a couple of weeks ago saying it: “He was just planning to run for president, right from the beginning, that’s what I think,” said Margaret Leonie Dent, the wife of a Navy retiree. “They say his wounds were paper cuts. Just look at the man. He looks French for God’s sake.”
The sad thing, of course, is that Kerry will never have his reputation back and at a time when Vietnam veterans were finally beginning to receive their due for their service a bunch of self righteous, petty old men stepped in to cast doubts on them all over again. Nice bunch of patriots selling out their brothers toward the end of their lives to protest a man they claim sold them out when they were young. By any means necessary I guess.
I am e-mailing the following quote to members of the press today. And, I think that all talking heads should have it on a 3×5 card and repeat it everytime they face a swift boat liar or one of their mouthpieces. Everybody needs to be reminded of what the real contrast is here. It’s not between Kerry the hero vs Kerry the alleged liar, but rather, the combat volunteer vs the chickenhawk smear artist.
“I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes.” George W. Bush on why he joined the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, 1990.