Month: September 2004

That Awful Day

The best way to show your respect for those who died three years ago today is to read the 9/11 Commission Report. You can download it here or you can get it at any bookstore.

It is a harrowing account of years of political confusion leading up to an administration that pushed it down the list of priorities to that final day of reckoning.

That the man who presided over that day, with all his early inattention and his terrible performance at the time and in all the days that have followed, may be rewarded with another term is sobering indeed.

Dupes And Skeptics

Not that it matters, because the echo chamber seems to have made a decision, but there are a couple of interesting articles today in the SF Gate (“Authenticity backed on Bush documents”) and the Boston Globe (“Some skeptics now say IBM typewriter could have been used”) about the premature conclusions reached by the so-called experts in typewriter-gate. There are some who are sticking to their guns but at least two of them are questionable themselves.

I would like to see someone do a thorough forensic investigation on how the skepticism on the memos made its way so quickly into the mainstream. This is a good start. What it says is that once again, the Mighty Wurlitzer played the press for chumps. And, I suppose it won’t be the last time because press feels no shame or guilt about falling for GOP super-spin time after time.

Today, we hear the startling news that General Hodges now says he was misled into believing that the memos were handwritten, which for some reason is supposed to make a difference. He claims that he said, “well if he wrote them, that’s what he felt.”

According to the Washington Post, the conversation went like this:

A senior CBS official, who asked not to be named because CBS managers did not want to go beyond their official statement, named one of the network’s sources as retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, the immediate superior of the documents’ alleged author, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. He said a CBS reporter read the documents to Hodges over the phone, and Hodges replied that “these are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time.”

Now, it’s possible that CBS is just lying outright on a story that was guaranteed to put the entire Republican establishment into a frenzy. Or, perhaps they were terribly sloppy. If you believe Hodges today that is what you have to assume because whether or not these memos were handwritten is irrelevant if they were simply read to Hodges over the phone. And the quote from CBS is entirely different from the one that Hodges claims he gave them.

I will take the big leap here and say that the likely scenario is that when Hodges heard that they had these memos he figured he might as well tell the truth, which was that they reflected Killian’s feelings as he remembered them. After the memos were called into question he lied about what he told CBS. (I would say that he’d better be sure they didn’t have it on tape, but then the tape will be called a forgery and we’d be back on the merry-go-round.) Logic says that CBS, being a professional news organization, knew that this was an explosive story and was extremely careful with its quotes.

None of the hysterical forensic evidence produced so far has held up. The Boston Globe article pretty well establishes that the “experts” who were contacted by the Post and others in the first cycle had their heads up their asses about what was and wasn’t in use during the period. Nobody, as far as I know, has done the basic forensic task of comparing Killian’s other memos of the period with these, which would probably shed real light on the subject.

Meanwhile, Killian’s wife and son, who if you believe them must have spent many Thanksgivings and Christmases engaged in fond recollections of that fine first Lieutenant George W. Bush, say that they know their husband/father wouldn’t have written those memos. And according to the LA Times this influenced Hodges on the issue:

On Friday night, retired Maj. Gen. Hodges, Killian’s former supervisor, said in an interview that he also now believes the documents are not real — in part because of the statements of Killian’s relatives.

Certainly it is very common for wives to have intimate knowledge of the work memo stylings of their husbands and can vouch for their reliability 30 years after the fact. One should always believe them over a man like Robert Strong, a friend and colleague of Killian who ran the TANG administrative office in the Vietnam era, and who said on camera:

“They are compatible with the way business was done at the time. They are compatible with the man that I remember Jerry Killian being,” says Strong. “I don’t see anything in the documents that is discordant with what were the times, what was the situation and what were the people involved.”

His testimony was very interesting and nobody gives a damn. What he said was that the TANG of the period was completely corrupt. That the kind of favors being granted to rich little chickenhawks like George W. Bush were commonplace. I know that it doesn’t speak directly to whether the documents are real but it’s a helluva lot more relevant than whether Mrs Killian thinks that Lil’ Georgie Bush was a nice boy.

Interestingly,in the LA Times Hodges seemed to walk back a little bit on what he said to ABC:

He also said that he could not recall any conversations in which Killian had complained about Bush’s performance or about the fact that Bush failed in August 1972 to take a physical exam, removing him from flight status

“I have no recollection of anything like that happening,” said Hodges. “It’s possible we did talk about the physical not happening, because we would have to ground him.”

In other words, after he’d shot his mouth off, Hodges remembered that he signed off on the grounding. It goes on:

The retired Guard general, who favors the president’s reelection, called Bush “a truly outstanding pilot.” He called Killian “a good guy” who “ran a tight ship” and might have had concerns about Bush’s service.

“But he was maybe a little bit too conscientious, because he wanted his pilots to do everything perfect,” Hodges said. “Pilots, like everyone else, are not perfect. [Killian] was conscientious to a fault.”

So, if the memos do turn out to be real, it was Killian’s fault because he was a tight ass perfectionist about pilots being qualified to fly million dollar airplanes.

(Still think this guy didn’t tell CBS what they say he told them?)

(As for Bush being an outstanding pilot, this brings up some new questions on that.)

Perhaps we will never know what the truth is, but we do know three very important things.

First, contrary to the malarky that the Wurlitzer began circulating almost immediately, every single so-called anomoly in the douments that made them questionable could have been produced by typewriters in use at the time. The press jumped the gun and the “experts” were wrong.

Second, CBS had every reason to be extremely careful with its quotes on this story. Hodges, the Bush supporter, has every reason to lie about what he told CBS now that the documents have been called into question. His babbling about handwritten vs typewritten makes no sense. He admits that Killian had very high standards and didn’t hold with pilots not meeting them. Therefore, it’s not reasonable to assume that Hodges saying that he told CBS “if he wrote it, it must be true” is more credible than CBS’s original quote. Indeed, it is ridiculous.

Third, the statements of Killian’s family are irrelevant compared to the statement of Strong who handled Killian’s work documents and others like it at the time. Unless you believe that spouses and children have better direct knowledge of workplace events than co-workers, that is the only conclusion to which you can come.

But, that is not going to be the story. From this point forward it will be who in John Kerry’s campaign (Clinton??) forged the documents:

McClellan made this clear:

Q Scott, on the National Guard documents, do you have any suspicions about their authenticity?

MR. McCLELLAN: We don’t know whether the documents were fabricated or are authentic. You know, the media has talked to independent experts who have raised questions about the documents. CBS has not disclosed where the documents came from. But, regardless, it does not — the documents do not change the facts. The President met his obligations and was honorably discharged. And the one thing that is clear is the timing and the coordination going on here. There is an orchestrated effort by Democrats and the Kerry campaign to tear down the President because of the direction the polls are moving. And it’s not surprising that we’re seeing the same old recycled attacks. The Democrats are determined to throw the kitchen sink at us, and I suspect this is just the beginning.

Q When you use the word “coordination,” it seems to suggest in a legal sense that the Kerry campaign is illegally coordinating with the 527 —

MR. McCLELLAN: It’s clear. I mean, look at the media reports, they’ve documented the coordinated efforts by Democrats to tear down the President here, because they’re falling behind in the polls. You look at the — The Washington Post had a story about it today, talking about the multi-front effort by the Democratic National Committee, other Democrats. You have outrageous comments being made by Senator Harkin. You have the Democratic National Committee using the term “Operation Fortunate Son.” “Fortunate Son” was the name of a book by an ex-convict that was widely discredited in the 2000 campaign.

This whole pushback by the right, from the blogosphere to the Wurlitzer to the Whitehouse, is absolutely masterful. And, it should give everyone pause if they think there is even a snowball’s chance in hell that any member of the Bush administration will ever get justice for the crimes they have committed while in office. Clearly, the press and much of the public are so willing to be used that it is hopeless. This entire episode is nothing but a pathetic reminder of how easily they manipulate perceptions.

We’d better be content to congratulate ourselves for having integrity because it’s clear that we do not get any public credit for it. Indeed, we are perceived as being just as bad as they are. If that’s the case, does it even matter that we aren’t?

Compassionate Conservative

Re: “Hospitals Are Gouging the Uninsured,” Commentary, Sept. 7: Ruth Rosen’s article regarding hospital bills to the uninsured focused on one issue of our current healthcare crisis and ignored many more.

[…]

Rosen uses the example of single mothers who work at Wal-Mart but can’t afford their “unaffordable” health premium. I agree this happens to some. But, in my experience, for most it is about financial responsibility and responsible decision-making.

Many lower-income employees can afford the premiums; it just means they may have to prioritize and possibly give up the cellphone, keep the used car another year or two or give up a $5 pack of cigarettes each day. Or, God forbid, develop healthful dietary and exercise routines.

Gordon Tagge MD.

Those poor people would be able to afford the four or five hundred a month in insurance premiums if they’d completely give up their car and walk. It’s good exercise. And if only they stopped eating so much they’d lose weight and be healthier.

Clearly, being unable to afford health insurance is another bullshit socialist excuse for being lazy.

Of course, there is this:

Since 2000, the cost of employee health insurance has risen 59%, Kaiser found, and workers’ share of their health insurance premiums has surged 57% for individual coverage and 49% for a family. During that period, wages increased just 12% — 2.2% this year.

Well, maybe they could give up shelter, too. There are plenty of gas station bathrooms to clean up in before they walk to work. There is simply no excuse for them to not pay for their health insurance.

Case Closed

I think the Poorman has finally found the way to properly evaluate the claims of document forgeries:

Let me save everyone a whole lot of time. They are genuine. How do I know? Because the internet is currently awash in wingnuts claiming the memos are fakes. Ergo, they are for real. Q.E.D.

Some people may feel that I’m just being flip here. Is that so, some people? Tell me: how rich would you be right now if, every time something was posted on a right-wing message board, or everytime Drudge had an exclusive, or any time Rush Limbaugh revealed a secret truth that the liberal media won’t tell you, you called up your bookie and put down $20 even money on “bullshit”? The correct answer is: “pretty fucking rich”. The correct answer is: “I would never, never lose.” So, if anyone doubts my methodology, I have a crisp new $20 bill that just told me that I’m 100% right and you’re just too dumb to see it. If any of you champs out there think me and Andrew Jackson are both wrong, well then, today’s your lucky day, because we’re paying 2:1. If you need us, we’ll be on the couch playing ESPN NHL 2K5. Peace.

And, I’ll be drinking cheap wine in an undisclosed location. I’m convinced.

Tooth And Nail, Might And Main

As we think about the relentlessness of the Republican machine and its propensity for playing hardball, it pays sometimes to remember that their ruthless tactics are actually a matter of temperament rather than ideology. Conservatives have always been this way. The problem today is that they are operating with a radical agenda, an incompetent president and a country with much too much power to be allowed to run wild with either.

This interesting post from Steamboats Are Ruining Everything takes us back to 1820 and reminds us that brutish conservatives are nothing new:

William Hazlitt explained the nature of it in his 1820 essay, “On the Spirit of Partisanship.”

Conservatives and liberals play the game of politics differently, Hazlitt wrote, because they have different motivations. Liberals are motivated by principles and tend to believe that personal honor can be spared in political combat. They may, in fact, become vain about their highmindedness. Hazlitt condemns the mildness as a mistake, both in moral reasoning and in political strategy. “They betray the cause by not defending it as it is attacked, tooth and nail, might and main, without exception and without remorse.”

The conservatives, on the other hand, start with a personal interest in the conflict. Not wishing to lose their hold on power, they are fiercer. “We”—i.e., the liberals, or the “popular cause,” in Hazlitt’s terminology—“stand in awe of their threats, because in the absence of passion we are tender of our persons.

They beat us in courage and in intellect, because we have nothing but the common good to sharpen our faculties or goad our will; they have no less an alternative in view than to be uncontrolled masters of mankind or to be hurled from high—

“To grinning scorn a sacrifice,

And endless infamy!”

They do not celebrate the triumphs of their enemies as their own: it is with them a more feeling disputation. They never give an inch of ground that they can keep; they keep all that they can get; they make no concessions that can redound to their own discredit; they assume all that makes for them; if they pause it is to gain time; if they offer terms it is to break them: they keep no faith with enemies: if you relax in your exertions, they persevere the more: if you make new efforts, they redouble theirs. While they give no quarter, you stand upon mere ceremony. While they are cutting your throat, or putting the gag in your mouth, you talk of nothing but liberality, freedom of inquiry, and douce humanité. Their object is to destroy you, your object is to spare them—to treat them according to your own fancied dignity. They have sense and spirit enough to take all advantages that will further their cause: you have pedantry and pusillanimity enough to undertake the defence of yours, in order to defeat it. It is the difference between the efficient and the inefficient; and this again resolves itself into the difference between a speculative proposition and a practical interest.

It is not fair play, and Hazlitt thinks that liberals who decline to fight fire with fire are fools. “It might as well be said that a man has a right to knock me on the head on the highway, and that I am only to use mildness and persuasion in return, as best suited to the justice of my cause; as that I am not to retaliate and make reprisal on the common enemies of mankind in their own style and mode of execution.”

Hazlitt was right. And never more than today when the stakes are so high.

As I said, we have been fighting this beast forever. Conservatives are just more inclined to fight and more serious about winning. But, I have seen the Republican agenda change from conservative to radical in the last 30 years and their candidates from steady, stolid leaders to firebrands and incompetents. America is the most powerful nation on earth. If the modern GOP boasted prudent, tested leadership and a simple desire to avoid radical change, I would still oppose them but I would not be worried. But, these people want to wildly experiment on a global scale and their track record of the last three years is devastating. History proves that bad things do sometimes happen. Being barely left standing to say “I told you so” will be no compensation.

Thanks to reader K Greier for the link.

Negativity Rising

Liberal Oasis has a typically trenchant take on the latest polls that comports with my gut feeling about the state of the race at this moment. There’s plenty of good news, so go ahead and click the link and read the whole thing. But I’d like to focus on a specific point that I think we still need to keep in mind:

There’s no getting around Kerry’s negatives were raised by the GOP convention onslaught.

Even in the dead heat polls, Kerry lost ground in areas like leadership, personality, ability to fight terror, flip-flopping and favorability.

Of course, there’s still conflicting data.

In the Gallup poll, Kerry’s favorable-unfavorable rating is 53-43, down from 57-37 after the Dem convention.

Not good, but manageable (Bush is a similar 55-44).

The CBS poll, which appears not to have pushed undecideds to choose, has far worse data for Kerry: 32-41 (with Bush at 47-39).

Can a candidate win with unfavorables in the 40s?

Well, yes. Bill Clinton did in 1992.

Near the end of the race, his fav-unfav was similarly polarizing and conflicting: 51-45 (Gallup), 52-45 (LA Times) and 33-39 (CBS/NYT).

It’s not that there was widespread love for Clinton, who was dogged with attacks on his “character” by Poppy Bush, and won with just 43%.

In fact, a late CNN/Time poll had vastly more people saying Poppy was more “honest and trustworthy” than Clinton.

But Poppy’s fav-unfav was still worse than Clinton, with his unfavorables generally in the low 50s.

That’s Kerry goal, to jack up Bush’s negatives.

Like any Bush campaign, this race will be filled with muck, making it impossible to stay positive and generate warm feelings.

Kerry can’t expect his unfavorable numbers to go back down to the 30s.

But with Bush probably at his high-water mark, just after his convention, Kerry should be able to get Bush’s unfavorables higher than his.

This is not to say Kerry shouldn’t try to talk himself up and articulate his compelling, alternative agenda.

It’s always a balancing act: promoting yourself, tearing down the other guy.

And since Kerry can’t single-handedly put this campaign on the high road, going after Bush is the bigger priority.

One of the keys roles that we in the blogosphere could play is to keep hurling the negative crap out there, build on good stories from the widely read blogs like Atrios and kos and just keep up a relentless pace. If the Killian documents prove to be a distraction from the ongoing negative stuff, just pull back and pick something else. There is plenty to choose from. This isn’t pretty, but it’s absolutely necessary to raise Bush’s negatives over the next couple of months and to do that we have to be a bit….icky.

Kitty Kelley’s book has some interesting items, I’m sure. Sy Hersh could provide a new angle. Cheney says something stupid almost every day. We should take a page from Rove and Cheney and Card and Condi and do as they did when they were building their case against Saddam. “We just keep hurling stuff against the wall and hope that some of it sticks.”

I know it sounds unattractively shrill to keep pointing this out, and there are those who do not believe that anything substantial will change in everyday Americans’ lives if Bush is elected to a second term, but I truly believe that winning this election is more vitally important than any in my lifetime. (My first typewriter was a manual, which after our recent crash course in typewriter history should tell you that I’ve observed a few.) George W. Bush and the modern Republican party are not business as usual.

I think the country is far more likely to survive a negative campaign from the Democrats than endorsing what George W. Bush has been doing for the last three years and validating the very worst beliefs about America all over the world. This is as serious a problem as terrorism itself. We just have to win.

Playing By The Rules

It’s admirable that lefty bloggers are being duly skeptical of the CBS documents and diligently reporting it on their blogs. It means that we have more integrity than the other side and will probably go to heaven.

Unfortunately, it also means that we are helping Republicans spin their lies and hurting our candidate. Again.

But, now that professional Republican propagandists are on the case, if you can’t stomach the idea of not standing up for truth, justice and the American way in all circumstances, the better part of valor may be to blog on the myriad other Bush atrocities and let the right do its own dirty work:

Throughout the Swift Boat smear campaign, the veterans involved asserted they had no political agenda and were unaffiliated with any political party. But Creative Response Concepts, which was obviously paid some undisclosed amount for its Swift Boat work, has many links to the Republican Party and the conservative movement. Among its clients are the Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee. Its client list also includes the Christian Coalition, National Taxpayers Union, Media Research Council and Regnery Publishing. Regnery is the firm that published “Unfit for Command,” the SBVT screed against Kerry’s military record.

Now Creative Response is working the case against CBS’s “60 Minutes” report on Bush’s questionable service in the Texas Air National Guard…By Thursday, the online Drudge Report and the Weekly Standard were also trumpeting the accusations. And Creative Response Concepts sent out a press release to major news organizations stating that the “documents on Bush might be fake.”

In the release, Creative Response promoted a Web site called Cybercast News Service, one of several groups directed by Brent Bozell, a longtime right-wing activist who has devoted years to attacking the “liberal bias” of the mainstream press. His Media Research Center and other similar efforts have been heavily funded by conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife.

They have the Mighty Wurlitzer fully cranked. Do we really need to help the right turn what is an irrefutable charge that Bush was given A LOT of special treatment when he was in the National Guard into a charge against John Kerry? Because, mark my words, that is coming next.

If voices of the left blogosphere work to actively advance the idea that the documents are forgeries, no matter what their earnestly high minded motives, then whatever influence the blogosphere provides certainly doesn’t benefit our side.

Imagine the shoe on the other foot.

updated for clarity

The SS

Atrios has a disturbing post up about the Secret Service preventing the press from interviewing protestors. This isn’t the first example of the Secret Service behaving badly toward the press. In fact, I would venture that this was even more outrageous:

Inside the Fleet Center, the working press sits at tables that flank the convention stage. Except during major speeches, the reporters — like the delegates themselves — seldom pay much attention to what’s happening on the stage. They talk among themselves, burn through their cell phone batteries and write pieces on their laptops.

That’s what we were doing Thursday afternoon when a Secret Service agent had another idea. “Excuse me sir,” his voice boomed from behind us. “It’s the presentation of the colors, and I think it’s important enough for you to stand up.”

The agent had noticed — we had not — that the American flag was being presented in the still half-empty convention hall. We acknowledged his right to his opinion, then we returned to our work. At that point, the agent ordered us to stand — ostensibly so he could confirm that our press credentials were valid. We complied with the order, then turned on our tape recorder and asked if he was actually ordering us to stand for the flag.

“No sir, I’m not. I’m looking at your deal,” he said. “I’m ordering you because I want to see your credentials, and you’re going to stand here until the flag is over with.”

What’s your name? “I’m Chad Reagan, and I’m checking your credentials, out of the New York field office. I’m checking your credentials.”

Because we’re working during the presentation of the flag?

“No sir, because I’m wondering who you are.”

We told him that we worked for Salon.

“Great,” he said, “I’m checking your credentials.”

Nearby officials from the Congressional Periodical Press Gallery instantly confirmed the validity of our credentials. We asked the agent if he always orders people to stand for the flag, and whether Secret Service policy either authorized or required him to do so.

“I served for six months in the United States Marine Corps overseas, sir, so I like it when people stand. The reason I came over here was to credential you. You can think what you want, but the reason I came over here was to credential you. And I’ll stick to that. I’m allowed to credential anyone I want. That is Secret Service policy.”

But you told us to stand for the flag, right?

“No sir, I didn’t tell you. I said that I think it’s important enough to stand, and then I said, ‘Let me see your credentials.’ There’s a difference.”

If they are now behaving in a blatantly partisan manner and keeping the press from interviewing protestors, I can only assume that they will not be happy guarding a Democrat. If I were President Kerry, I would not feel particularly secure with people who think like this guarding me.

The Power Of Workplace Chit Chat

Donkey Rising asks:

Why would September 6-8 be a better period for Bush than September 3-5, right after the convention?

Because by the 6th, everybody had heard that Bush kicked ass at his convention and he had a huge lead in the polls. When people came back to work on the 7th, the water cooler chatter passed it around.

Then he asks:

And could Fox’s polling period, which does not include September 6, mean they missed Bush’s best day and he was starting to go downhill a bit?

Could be. As the news that his bounce was questionable began to filter through the grapevine, people probably started to get a grip. Now, with these new numbers based upon the old numbers, the process may reassert itself for awhile.

But reality bites. If Bush has a lead it is still small and manageable. And nobody’s measured since the news came out that he was a perfumed little sissy in the national guard who called his daddy in every time he had to do something he didn’t want to do. That could slow his alleged big mo just a tad.

Gut Instinct

One of Josh Marshall’s readers writes in to criticize this latest storyline about Bush’s guard service because he feels it does not address the real issues in the campaign and will not persuade undecided voters. I hear this a lot — the whole Vietnam thing is allegedly a distraction from what is really important and Kerry has brought all this trivia on by emphasizing his wartime experience.

I disagree. Campaigns run on several levels only one of which is to reach people with an explicit message in the hopes that they will make the rational decision of voting for your candidate. There are complicated tactical and strategic matters that are just as important (and I would argue more important in this campaign) than telling voters you have a better plan.

The first reason is tactical in that every day Bush and his campaign staff have to defend themselves against these charges is a day they are not getting their message heard. The staff is distracted and worried, they have to weigh all of their statements carefully, the campaign takes on a seige mentality and they make mistakes. It’s not a particularly elevating aspect of politics, but it’s effective and necessary.

Another reason is that undecided swing voters just don’t make decisions based upon the rational assessment that Bush has been a terrible president. Most voters have a complicated range of reasons why they vote the way they do, from tribal identity to personal likeability and reasoned discussion of the issues is way down the list. But, as this very interesting and widely read article says, undecided swing voters are the most susceptible to personality impressions and marketing manipulation:

The advice to the political professionals is: Don’t assume that your candidate’s positions are going to make the difference. “In a competitive political climate,” as one article explains, “informed citizens may vote for a candidate based on issues. However, uninformed or undecided voters will often choose the candidate whose name and packaging are most memorable.

Using reason to reach these voters is a waste of time. In this close election, most people have, for whatever reason, made a decision and are sticking to it. Therefore, the two bases must be mobilized and the undecideds must be reached on a marketing or entertainment level.

The article goes on to discuss the various theories to explain why the electorate as a whole is so dismally uninformed and whether that can translate into any coherent political philosphy. The theory that makes the most sense is that people use shortcuts, or hueristics, that give them a fairly accurate assessment of the candidates and the issues even while they are not specifically informed about the details.

Voters use what Samuel Popkin, one of the proponents of this third theory, calls “low-information rationality”—in other words, gut reasoning—to reach political decisions; and this intuitive form of judgment proves a good enough substitute for its high-information counterpart in reflecting what people want.

These little dramas in campaigns, which seem to be about everything but what we informed voters believe are the essential issues, actually serve as character and issues proxies for the electorate to come to its gut reasoning. Therefore, the Vietnam drama was a way of illustrating the contrast between the high achieving Kerry and the screw-up son of privilege. This was a man who did his duty without complaint but was not afraid to later challenge the orthodoxy that was leading the country into ruin. This picture provides a gut reason for people to vote for Kerry over the privileged playboy who doesn’t seem to realize that he’s made a mistake.

And, on another level the campaign controversy itself works as a proxy for each man’s will to win. In that fight, George Bush has shown repeatedly that he is determined, most recently when he winked and nodded at what is now a notorious smear campaign. In this proxy fight, it is important that Kerry be seen as giving as good as he gets. “If you wimp out when George W. Bush attacks you, what will you do if there’s another terrorist attack?” This is not particularly rational, but for many, it is a short cut to figuring out if Kerry is willing to be tough on terrorism. In this sense, the picture of Bush becomes uneasily contradictory and vague, while Kerry is sharply and consistently tough, both in his past and in the present.

Finally, this argument brings to a final head a long standing metanarrative that has been killing Democrats ever since the Vietnam war— our perceived weakness on national security. Just as Clinton had to work very hard to convince the nation that a Democrat was capable of managing the economy (after decades of relentless negative propaganda) Kerry is having to work very hard to reverse a successful decades long effort to portray Democrats as a bunch of hippies who would stick a daisy in the barrel of bin Laden’s Uzi rather than stop him from blowing up Chicago. By exorcizing the Vietnam ghost, perhaps we will actually be able to leave it behind once and for all by killing the shopworn image of Democrats as flower children.

In a long term strategic sense, then, Kerry’s history is vital to changing that narrative. His experience in Vietnam and afterward merges that narrative into a more realistic vision of Democratic national security that people can absorb and understand in their gut.

And finally, let us not forget the care and feeding of the press corpse. Stories of the murky mysterious past are far more interesting to them than stale policy arguments and they are far more likely to frame the debate in a simple way that people can understand if you give them the frame to do it. Feed that beast or they’ll continue to slurp the spoonfed GOP diet of “Democrats are immoral, spendthrift cowards.”

It would be wise for Democrats to accept that in order to win and have the power to implement the policies we care so much about, we have to be ready to construct a narrative that will instruct the public through their emotions and their gut instincts rather than through an intellectual engagement on the issues alone. It doesn’t have to be dishonest and it doesn’t have to be dirty. What it has to be is authentically connected to what you really want to do and it has to be executed in a way that respects the instincts of the populace.

Clinton said over and over again that the American people almost always get it right. I don’t know how true that is, but it’s the right thing to say. Knowing the public’s propensity for gut political decisions we should give them what they need to make the right one. In that sense, Vietnam works. As sick as all of us informed types may be of hearing about it, it gives Kerry the proper image and frame from which to make his pitch that Democrats have the right stuff to lead this nation in a time of great national insecurity.