August 23, 2004

ANN ALTHOUSE:

So it seems that Kerry's idea for how to deal with this huge Swift Boat Veterans problem is to churn up a swirly mass of impressions and imputations and then hope that he is the one who looks clean in the end. The Kerry people seem to be hoping that people are too dim to understand that a group of Bush supporters could operate independently or conspiracy-minded enough to think they all coordinate behind the scenes in plain violation of the law. There is a separate point Kerry has made that Bush should openly denounce the ads and that his failure to do so signifies a willingness to reap the advantages they bring him. That's the clean point, but it has been made, and it apparently hasn't done well enough, because we now see the campaign boat steering over the border into right-wing-conspiracy land.

But what is the solution for Kerry? I'm sure his people are racking their brains now. But they should have thought this through earlier, back when they were so sure that if the candidate stood up at the convention as a war hero that he would be greeted with candy and flowers. They convinced each other that what they wanted to believe was true, and, as a consequence they never had a plan for how to deal with the attacks that they should have known were there.

Indeed.

MORE LOCALITIES SHOULD FOLLOW THIS EXAMPLE: "Boulder decided last spring to replace its three-decades-old punch-card voting system with a system that, in some respects, is even more antiquated. Primary voters were handed a 81/2-by-11-inch sheet with candidates' names and told to fill in the squares with a ballpoint pen."

As I've said for a while, it's the way to go.

JAY ROSEN IS SAD THAT WE'RE STILL TALKING ABOUT VIETNAM -- and he's also sad that Douglas Brinkley isn't talking:

This is sad because Brinkley (who is said to be writing an account for the New Yorker) should be in the business of giving out knowledge, and that doesn't include eluding the press when you so often use the press to broadcast your work.

I agree, on both counts. Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Several readers email that Brinkley -- who was, as Rosen notes, dodging the press -- appeared on Hardball tonight, where he did yeoman duty as a rather vigorous defender of Kerry. Maybe Mark Steyn flushed him out by remarking that "hagiographer Douglas Brinkley, after an intriguing interview with the Telegraph's David Rennie, seems to have entered the witness protection programme."

MERYL YOURISH notes a very American response to disaster.

HMM. DOESN'T SOUND LIKE MORALE is suffering:

The largest Alabama Guard unit to return from Iraq, the 877th Engineer Battalion, had its first weekend drills earlier this month at its northwest Alabama armories. And at those drill sessions, only 19 of the 555 soldiers who attended said they wanted to hang up their helmets or were seriously considering it. . . .

Of the 19 soldiers who may leave, about half had served more than 20 years and were eligible for retirement, while the others had reasons to leave that ranged from job conflicts to their desire to spend more time with their families, Holland said.

When Guard units such as the 877th were deployed for up to a year in and around Iraq, many of their members had never been away from home for such a lengthy period, and more than a few vowed to get out once they got home.

Apparently, some of them changed their minds. (Via The Mudville Gazette.)

I WONDER IF HIS POSITION HAS CHANGED? Roger Simon points to this story from March on New Jersey Governor James McGreevey's opposition to gay marriage.

TRASHING A CANDIDATE'S WAR RECORD: In 1992.

THE DISAPPEARING TOM HARKIN: The real mystery, of course, is why he ever appeared on that issue, given his history. What was the Kerry campaign thinking?

527 COORDINATION? American Thinker has some observations, and an example. (And here's more -- along with this "web of connections" that you've probably already seen).

Meanwhile Bush is denouncing ads by outside groups:

Bush's campaign heatedly denied any connection with the anti-Kerry group, and called on the Democratic challenger to join the president in a call for all outside groups to pull their ads.

Bush has himself been subjected to a multimillion-dollar barrage of attack ads aired by groups seeking to help Kerry win the White House.

If this election doesn't prove anything else, it seems to me that it's proven campaign-finance "reform" to be even more damaging than the critics feared. And yes, Bush deserves part of the blame for signing it instead of vetoing it as he should have.

UPDATE: Reader Brett Bellmore is much more unhappy with Bush:

Seems to me, Bush has earned more than just a little part of the blame; I'd originally put his signing the BCRA to his inexplicable phobia about vetoing legislation,. (Last President to go this long without vetoing anything was John Adams.) but with his recent statements, it appears obvious he's bought into the whole campaign censorship cause, and become as enthusiastic an enemy of the First amendment as McCain. He's lost my vote over this, I can tell you; I always thought he was at best the lesser evil, but with his embrace of censorship added to everything else, (The steel tarrifs which practically bankrupted my employer, lying in order to get his Medicaid program passed, sabotoging the Armed Pilots program, I could go on in this vein for some time...) he's just not enough "lesser" for me to stomach voting for anymore. I just can't bring myself to care all that much which of the major party candidates wins.

I'm no fan of the steel tariffs, or the foot-dragging over armed pilots, or -- God knows -- campaign finance "reform." (I don't know much about the Medicaid issue). But I'm pretty much a single issue voter here. If Kerry had given me something to work with, I might be comfortable on the fence, or even voting Democratic. But that sure hasn't happened so far.

ANOTHER UPDATE: N.Z. Bear has more thoughts on the 527 issue. And Powerline offers this thought: "President Bush is doing the politically smart thing. I just don't think he's doing the principled thing. Signing McCain-Feingold was smart, but not principled, in exactly the same way. . . . The battle for free speech is one that will have to be fought someday, by a different President. President Bush has enough battles for the moment."

All sorts of people (not me) supported campaign finance "reform" when the bill passed. It's certainly interesting to see the bien pensant crowd turn on McCain-Feingold as this election progresses. Bush's endorsement may serve to accelerate this process. [When life hands you lemons, make lemonade! -- Ed. Only if life also hands you water and sugar. . . .]

HERE'S AN NPR COMMENTARY BY AUSTIN BAY from Baghdad. Follow the link for audio and a photo, taken by Austin with the digital camera I sent him. (Your donations at work!)

It's also worth reading this New York Times oped by a Marine in Najaf:

When critics of the war say their advocacy is on behalf of those of us risking our lives here, it's a type of false patriotism. I believe that when Americans say they "support our troops," it should include supporting our mission, not just sending us care packages. They don't have to believe in the cause as I do; but they should not denigrate it. That only aids the enemy in defeating us strategically.

Michael Moore recently asked Bill O'Reilly if he would sacrifice his son for Falluja. A clever rhetorical device, but it's the wrong question: this war is about Des Moines, not Falluja. . . .

No, I would not sacrifice myself, my parents would not sacrifice me, and President Bush would not sacrifice a single marine or soldier simply for Falluja. Rather, that symbolic city is but one step toward a free and democratic Iraq, which is one step closer to a more safe and secure America.

Read the whole thing.

DALE FRANKS HAS A PEACE PROPOSAL:

In order to move the presidential campaign away from what happened or didn't happen in Vietnam 35 years ago, I offer a suggestion. Since the Kerry camp wishes to argue that official Navy records are conclusive proof that Kerry served honorably and with distinction, I suggest that those of us opposed to Kerry offer to accept that argument, as long as the Kerry people accept the logical corollary: the official Air Force records indicating George W. Bush was honorably discharged from his service is conclusive proof that he properly met his obligations as well.

Sounds fair to me. But will the MoveOn folks go for it?

UPDATE: Here's an interesting argument that Kerry's problems stem from violating the Vietnam truce that had prevailed for years in American politics.

ECONOBLOGARAMA: This week's Carnival of the Capitalists is up!

THIS SEEMS LIKE GOOD NEWS:

Financial support for al Qaeda and the size of its operating budget have plummeted in the three years since the Sept. 11 attacks, but the network "continues to fund terrorist operations with relative ease," according to new findings released Saturday by the 9/11 commission.

The report from the panel also says that the Saudi government provided lackluster cooperation in the effort to stanch the flow of money to al Qaeda for two years after the attacks, but began to respond more aggressively after several al Qaeda strikes in the kingdom last year.

Al Qaeda's annual budget appears to have shrunk from about $30 million a year before the Sept. 11 attacks to as little as a few million dollars per year now, the commission reported.

I'm surprised that it's not getting more attention.

MSNBC: "Why Kerry's War Record Matters," from Roger Franklin. Note the LBJ comparison. Great minds think alike, I guess.

UPDATE: Though it's of largely historical interest, here's some background on LBJ's Silver Star -- which, unlike Kerry's, seems quite clearly fraudulent.

SOME INTERESTING PERSPECTIVE ON 527 GROUPS, complete with some useful graphics.

TWO DAMAGING QUOTES for the Kerry Campaign. The first is from Bob Dole:

"One day, he's saying that we were shooting civilians, cutting off their ears, cutting off their heads, throwing away his medals or his ribbons," Dole said. "The next day, he's standing there, 'I want to be president because I'm a Vietnam veteran,'" said Dole, whose World War II wounds left him without the use of his right arm.

Maybe Dole's mad because Democrats sneered that his World War II wounds were self-inflicted back during the 1996 campaign. Why didn't Chris Matthews put a stop to that?

Then there's this quote from within the campaign itself:

When you're basically running on your biography and there are ongoing attacks that are undermining the credibility of your biography, you have a really big problem.

Yes, and a predictable one. What's worse is that it didn't have to be this way.

UPDATE: More biography back-pedaling from the Kerry campaign.

ANOTHER UPDATE: This timeline of missteps and fumbles indicates that it's been a month of miscalculations for the Kerry campaign. This is a striking chronology even for those of us who have been following things. My favorite entry is the one for August 12.

THE GERMAN MAGAZINE DIE ZEIT notes the irony of German complaints about American troop withdrawals. MedienKritik has a translation:

Just a year and a half ago the majority of Germans were certain the USA and its President represented a greater danger to world peace than Saddam Hussein, and the US armed forces were considered fearsome executors of the sinister US plans for world domination. Now, however, German politicians and union people, who marched at the very front of the peace demonstrations, are pouting and grimacing like children who feel they have been left in the lurch by Daddy because the number one war-monger wants to deny us the trusted presence of our uniformed American friends.

Heh. Actually, they were totally consistent. Opposition to the war against Saddam was based on a fear that it would cost Germany jobs and money, and so is opposition to the U.S. troop withdrawal. On a related note, read this.

MICKEY KAUS notes an outbreak of "Clintonism" from the Kerry campaign.

ARTHUR CHRENKOFF has posted his latest roundup of underreported good news from Afghanistan, and once again it's hosted by the Wall Street Journal folks.

THE BLOG-DEBATE between Eric Muller and Michelle Malkin continues with this latest installment from Muller.

It's too bad that Old Media types like Chris Matthews can't comport themselves in the dignified and fact-centered manner of the blogosphere.

August 22, 2004

I BLAME BARNEY. Hey, if Bert could be evil, why not? . . . .

THOSE TRICKY REPUBLICANS: A strategy to lock down the Senate, co-authored by my law school classmate Michael Paulsen. I think, though, that it's about as likely as this scenario was. . . .

BOOKBLOGGING: I enjoyed Steve Stirling's new book, Dies the Fire, which takes place as a sort of flipside to his Island in the Sea of Time books. Though it was a bit disturbing as I drove past the Society for Creative Anachronism guys on Cherokee Boulevard and envisioned them as the inheritors of the earth.

But heck, we could do worse.

LARRY DIAMOND offers a lengthy critique of Bush Administration policy in Iraq.

If Kerry had an Iraq policy that made sense, perhaps he could be making hay out of this. In fact, I want to offer a clipping from a parallel universe, one much like our own except for a different John Kerry campaign strategy:

EAST HAMPTON, NY (IP) -- Democratic Presidential nomineee John Kerry laughs when told that most voters don't realize that he served in Vietnam, winning three purple hearts, a bronze star, and a silver star.

"Why should they? That's several wars ago," Kerry laughs. "Old stuff. I'd much rather people be talking about my detailed plan to rebuild Iraq, using an oil trust mechanism that would give the Iraqi people a stake in reconstruction. That's why I focused on that in my acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention. What was I going to do, rehash events from 35 years ago?"

Kerry's friends say that, like other veterans, he's been known to tell a few tall tales about his service over beers with others who served, but that he seldom talks about his combat experience otherwise. "He's put that behind him," says his wife Teresa. "And he thinks it would be unbecoming to make a big deal about his service when others, like [Senator] John McCain or [former P.O.W.] Paul Galanti went through so much more."

"I would have invaded Iraq regardless of the WMD issue," Kerry observes. "Saddam Hussein was a threat, and a menace to his own people. And a free, democratic Iraq will be the first step toward addressing the 'root cause' of terrorism -- despotic Arab regimes that spew hatred to distract their people from their own tyranny. But as I said last year, the reconstruction needed more resources. That was why I voted for the $87 billion in reconstruction money, but urged the Bush Administration to ask for more, to do it right."

Kerry also takes a dim view of leftist filmmaker Michael Moore. "I think that his film 'Fahrenheit 9/11' was scurrilous and dangerous to the morale of our troops. That's why I asked that he be excluded from the Democratic Convention, despite Jimmy Carter's wishes. And that's why he wasn't seen there. In a time of war, we don't need guys like that. We can win this campaign based on our ideas, not propaganda films. That's also why I told Chris Matthews to 'stuff it' when he tried to make an issue out of President Bush's National Guard service."

Kerry's detailed plans for Iraq, and for carrying the war on terror to Al Qaeda and its backers elsewhere, seem to have left the Bush Administration floundering. Sources close to the Bush campaign say that some Bush operatives are considering an attack on Kerry's Vietnam record, but many are skeptical. "I don't think that'll work," says cyber-pundit Glenn Reynolds, who calls Kerry's Iraq plan promising. "Most voters have no idea Kerry was even in Vietnam. He never talks about it, so where's the traction? It's ancient history."

Others are even harsher. "They can't attack the message," says Matthew Yglesias of The American Prospect, a liberal publication. "So they're attacking the messenger. That's because they don't want to talk about Kerry's real accomplishments, the ones Kerry touted at the Convention, like his role in busting BCCI, the terrorists' money laundry. Kerry's talking about that, and his plans for Iraq, and they're talking about Vietnam? Who cares about that? Pathetic."

I'd actually prefer that parallel universe.

UPDATE: Tom Carr observes: "The Kerry 'Parallel Universe' wouldn't be so parallel if you replaced all the instances of Kerry w/Lieberman...including on the ballots. *sigh*"

Yeah. And reader Dave Schuler emails: "You'll make me weep. Why can't our reality be more like that beautiful fantasy?"

Beats me. Because Kerry couldn't have gotten the nomination if he'd sounded like Lieberman?

ANOTHER UPDATE: N.Z. Bear comments on this scenario.

MORE: Chris Lawrence: " Left unpondered is whether or not 'parallel Kerry' has one of those cool-looking goatees like Spock did in 'Mirror, Mirror.'” Yeah, definitely.

THINGS ARE REALLY HEATING UP: "Former Republican Sen. Bob Dole suggested Sunday that John Kerry apologize for past testimony before Congress about alleged atrocities during the Vietnam War and joined critics of the Democratic presidential candidate who say he received an early exit from combat for 'superficial wounds.' Dole also called on Kerry to release all the records of his service in Vietnam."

That would be the easiest way to resolve these things. I wonder if Pat Oliphant will produce a cartoon about Bob Dole now.

UPDATE: Ann Althouse notes that Kerry should have seen this coming:

What is to stop this story from being the central story of the Presidential campaign? . . . It's distressing that the candidate did not take this foreseeable problem seriously. Dole's remarks today (on "Late Edition") included the fact that he warned Kerry that he was going "too far" with his use of Vietnam. How could the Kerry people have blinded themselves to the risks they were taking?

Groupthink.

LOST-CATBLOGGING

JAMIE KIRCHICK observes that Republicans need to come to terms with gay rights.

Yes, they do.

SOUP NAZIS:

Arsonists set fire to a Jewish soup kitchen in central Paris early on Sunday morning and daubed Nazi symbols on the building, police said, in the latest anti-Semitic act in France.

But not the funny kind. (Via Eugene David).

MICHAEL BARONE'S LATEST COLUMN looks at the Christmas in Cambodia story: "This month the Kerry Campaign abandoned one claim that John Kerry had made for years about his Vietnam War service and put another into question. The claim that has been dropped: that Kerry was in Cambodia at Christmastime in 1968."

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY WRITES:

John Kerry says he'll fight claims he lied about or exaggerated his service in Vietnam. The best way to fight such charges would be to stop calling people names and start providing some answers.

He'll have to show that the charges by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are false. That's a tall order. The allegations are numerous, well documented and quite serious. . . .

After all, it was Kerry himself — with the smart salute and "reporting for duty" opening of his convention speech — who made his military service the keystone of his campaign. And it is Kerry who has repeatedly compared himself favorably with President Bush on that score.

In so doing, he's all but ignored his undistinguished 20-year career in the U.S. Senate and his decade as an anti-war activist.

Fair enough. Now we have questions about Vietnam. . . .

If Kerry thinks he's being slandered, he should answer with facts —not with insults, threats and lawsuits.

We have questions, senator. We're ready for your answers.

Read the whole thing. Kerry's campaign would be well-advised to follow this advice, instead of acting as if they've got something to hide.

ON MY WAY INTO THE OFFICE today, I passed a big crowd waving signs. Was it an anti-war protest? I wondered. If so, it would have been the biggest one so far by a substantial margin. But something about the crowd looked . . . not quite right for that.

On closer inspection, it was a big sorority event. So begins the year.

FIRST THEY IGNORE YOU. Then they attack you. Then you win.

THE RIGHT-WING ASSAULT MACHINE has been after Kerry for a while, it would seem. Who knew its tentacles extended so far? . . .

UPDATE: My God, they've been after him since the beginning!

IMPORTANT AUTOMOTIVE ADVICE from Ambra. (Who will shortly have a column.)

A NEW ERA: Thomas Lifson responds to Adam Nagourney. (Via Roger Simon). It's worth reading this column by John Leo from U.S. News, too. Best bit: "When the Los Angeles Times finally decided to notice the story, it had an obvious problem: How should it report news it had ignored for 11 days?"

UPDATE: Varifrank wonders why the press is suddenly so angry. "As long ago as last December, the press was laughing at John Kerry and his chances to win the nomination. Now, they seem deeply offended that President Bush has even decided to run for re-election. Where it gets really weird is to watch the same people who were deriding Kerry just a year ago, [who] now are willing to 'go to the mattresses' for him."

August 21, 2004

KEEPING IT "CLEAN:" SEAN HACKBARTH NOTES double standards at Hardball.

UPDATE: More double standards noted here.

THIS PAT OLIPHANT CARTOON is pretty awful, considering that one of the guys it's aimed at spent nearly 7 years as a North Vietnamese P.O.W.

UPDATE: Reader James V. Somers thinks that Kerry's defenders are losing it:

Things like the revolting Oliphant cartoon you link to, as well as Maureen Dowd's hysterical screed this morning attacking the Swift Vets as, inter alia, "sleazoids", suggest that Kerry's Big Media allies may overplay a mediocre hand in defending him.

Though you sometimes wouldn't know it from listening to those who criticize the Swift Vets, they served in combat too, just like John Kerry, and in many cases for longer periods of time and under even more difficult circumstances (like being a POW for seven years). Flamethrower attacks like Oliphant's will go over well with liberal-leaning journalists and diehard Blue-Staters, because those people take it as received wisdom that the Vietnam War was an immoral excess of American Imperialism, and thus the only soldiers from it who should be admired are those who later opposed it. Such people, as Oliphant's cartoon suggests, view the other Vietnam vets as just a bunch of illiterate drunks - probably from Red States - who spent the war either cleaning latrines or committing war crimes. But such an attitude could backfire badly with average people in battleground states. The Democrats and their allies need to remember that just because George Bush didn't fight in Vietnam, it doesn't mean that Kerry's critics didn't.

Indeed.

THIS PIECE in the Chicago Tribune doesn't seem to add all that much considering how it was being spun. William Rood, who served with Kerry, weighs in strongly on the Silver Star medal debate, in Kerry's favor. But as I've mentioned before, the medals are something of a distraction.

Did Kerry deserve the Silver Star? Ultimately, that's a subjective decision that is unlikely to be resolved 35 years later. If it turns out that Kerry put himself in for the Purple Heart, that will be embarrassing for him, but that's not addressed here. (We'll find out, of course, if Kerry ever releases the records, something that he seems rather reluctant to do). But although putting himself in for a medal would make Kerry look self-serving, it's only an embarrassment. As for the rest, well, it's degenerated into a he-said / he-said argument that suits the spinmeisters.

Meanwhile, Cambodia isn't mentioned -- but of course, the Kerry campaign has already admitted that the Christmas-in-Cambodia story is false. It would provide a bit more perspective, though, if the Tribune noted that he'd been caught out on that one.

And, of course, none of this bears on Kerry's post-war activities. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: This story from tomorrow's Washington Post illustrates the problem with the medals:

The Post's research shows that both accounts contain significant flaws and factual errors. This reconstruction of the climactic day in Kerry's military career is based on more than two dozen interviews with former crewmates and officers who served with him, as well as research in the Naval Historical Center here, where the Swift boat records are preserved. Kerry himself was the only surviving skipper on the river that day who declined a request for an interview.

Things like this aren't readily susceptible of resolution. But it's interesting that these questions are getting much more attention than the Cambodia story, which was susceptible of resolution and which was in fact resolved -- in a fashion that showed that Kerry wasn't telling the truth.

And there's another paragraph from the Post that's worth noting:

Although Kerry campaign officials insist that they have published Kerry's full military records on their Web site (with the exception of medical records shown briefly to reporters earlier this year), they have not permitted independent access to his original Navy records. A Freedom of Information Act request by The Post for Kerry's records produced six pages of information. A spokesman for the Navy Personnel Command, Mike McClellan, said he was not authorized to release the full file, which consists of at least a hundred pages.

Kerry could clear this stuff up by releasing the records, and he ought to. There's also some embarrassment for Douglas Brinkley:

In "Tour of Duty," these thoughts are attributed to a "diary" kept by Kerry. But the endnotes to Brinkley's book say that Kerry "did not keep diaries in these weeks in February and March 1969 when the fighting was most intense." In the acknowledgments to his book, Brinkley suggests that he took at least some of the passages from an unfinished book proposal Kerry prepared sometime after November 1971, more than two years after he had returned home from Vietnam.

In his book, Brinkley writes that a skipper who remains friendly to Kerry, Skip Barker, took part in the March 13 raid. But there is no documentary evidence of Barker's participation. Barker could not be reached for comment.

Brinkley, who is director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans, did not reply to messages left with his office, publisher and cell phone. The Kerry campaign has refused to make available Kerry's journals and other writings to The Washington Post, saying the senator remains bound by an exclusivity agreement with Brinkley. A Kerry spokesman, Michael Meehan, said he did not know when Kerry wrote down his reminiscences.

Releasing everything would do a lot to clear this up. (And Hugh Hewitt notes that Kerry promised to release all this stuff months ago, but hasn't.) Refusing to simply fuels suspicion -- logically enough -- that it's being held back for a reason. More comments on the Post story here, noting that it's more supportive of the Swift Boat Vets' story than the headline would suggest.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Ed Clark notes that although we're talking about the past, we've actually learned rather a lot about the Kerry of today:

While I'm glad the vets are finally getting their chance to be heard, it's not the Vietnam stories that bother me. It's Kerry's reaction to the books and ads. This is showing his character today, not in the past, and it's not pretty.

For almost a year there have been attack ads against Bush. Bush displayed much more character by not demanding that the books and movies and ads that have been attacking him be banned the way Kerry is trying to do. Bush stood up for the rights of even those who opposed him and lied about him.

Kerry tries to silence any opposition, in much the same way as portrayed in Fahrenheit 451 (the original book). That is frightening!

And to make matters worse, the mainstream media is in collusion with him.

Yes, the notion that the answer to speech is more speech doesn't seem to have found a home at the Kerry campaign. Or, as Mickey Kaus noted, at The New York Times.

More on the Tribune story here, and read this too.

THANKS TO EVERYONE who inquired about the health of the Insta-Mother-in-Law. The Insta-Wife was over there this afternoon and reports that she's doing much better.

WHY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT VIETNAM? Because, as Matt Welch writes, Kerry's war policy is all Vietnam and no Iraq:

Ever since the Democratic Convention in Boston last month, the John-John ticket has been grumbling about having to fend off accusations that would-be president John Kerry previously fudged vivid details of his war record in Vietnam and (most controversially) Cambodia. There is indeed considerable merit to the notion that a nation at war should be focusing on 2004 instead of 1968, but if Kerry's convention performance was any guide, his go-to selling point for taking the reigns of the "war on terror" is the fact that he was piloting swift-boats up the Mekong back when Osama bin Laden was busy trying to grow his first beard. . . .

"How to handle Iraq is the most important question facing the president," wrote a disappointed Matthew Yglesias of the liberal American Prospect magazine, just after Kerry finished, "and he just punted."

But he was in Vietnam!

THIS KERRY SERVICE TIMELINE from the Associated Press in the Boston Globe says Kerry was honorably discharged in 1970, and then joined the anti-war movement:

January 1970: Kerry requests discharge. He is honorably discharged, and later joins Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

But that's wrong:

Kerry was transfered to the Naval Reserves in 1970, and Honorably Discharged in 1978. There was no two year service gap, despite the impression given by his press releases.

But not all of his press releases. In fact, it's made quite clear in this July release from the Kerry campaign:

Kerry volunteered for the United States Navy after college and served from 1966 through 1970 rising to the rank of Lieutenant, Junior Grade. Afterwards, Kerry continued his military service in the United States Naval Reserves through 1978.

(Same here, too: "John Kerry Enlisted in the U.S. Navy; November 1968 through March 1969, Served in Vietnam; 1970-1978, Served in U.S. Navy Reserves.") In other words, when Kerry was protesting the war and holding private meetings with North Vietnamese and Viet Cong representatives in Paris, he was still a Naval officer in the reserves. The folks at AP and the Globe might not think that matters, but they ought to report this so that people can make up their own minds -- and they ought to get it right. Especially when the correct information is right on the Kerry website, and when their fellow journalists are accusing blogs of sloppiness. . . .

UPDATE: Reader Larry Ferguson emails: "Maybe the official US Navy document on John Kerry's website listing Kerry's service dates in the Navy (including the reserve) does not rise to Tom Oliphant's level of verification for use in journalism."

Heh.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A military perspective on this stuff, at The Mudville Gazette.

I MISSED IT, but Eugene Volokh was on Air America radio last night, talking about gun control. He has posts on his appearance here and here.

UNLIKE THE STORY OF THE MEDALS, this will be harder to spin:

William Ferris was confined to a bed in a military hospital, his severed sciatic nerve reminding him of the attack on his Navy Swift boat in a Vietnamese river. A shot from a recoilless rifle had pierced the boat's pilothouse and then Ferris's body, leaving him in constant agony.

But it was what appeared on Ferris's television that really pained him. John F. Kerry, a decorated fellow Swift boat driver, was testifying before Congress about atrocities in Vietnam, throwing his medals away, speaking at antiwar rallies. Ferris, who was trying to rehabilitate himself back to active duty, felt betrayed.

"I was livid," Ferris, 57, of Long Island, N.Y., said yesterday, recalling how his dislike for the presidential candidate began in the early 1970s. "I said to myself at the time, this is someone who is using his experience for his own purposes, and this was long before he ever ran for office. I thought he was using, actually manipulating, what he had done in Vietnam. Just like he's doing now." . . .

"I wasn't there at the time that happened," said Tony Gisclair, a veteran from Poplarville, Miss., who signed the letter, referring to Kerry's combat in Vietnam. "But look at what the man said about us when he came back."

Tony Snesko, a veteran in Washington, D.C., said he was "devastated" by Kerry's antiwar efforts, prompting him to sign on to the group's anti-Kerry message.

Kerry's postwar conduct is all a matter of public record, and as Tom Maguire has already noted, the Kerry campaign isn't in a position to fault those who are unhappy with having their military service besmirched. That Kerry was still a Naval officer while doing so only makes the charges more potent, though -- as Maguire also notes -- the press has been slow to pick up on that point.

C.D. HARRIS is sensing a pattern.

JIM DUNNIGAN HAS AN INTERESTING ANALYSIS OF THE SITUATION IN IRAQ:

It’s more of a civil war than a rebellion, and one the government wants to resolve with as little bloodshed as possible. With enough well trained troops, the government could round up a lot of the looted weapons, arrest known Sunni Arab troublemakers and shut the rebellion down. That’s because, unlike the two previous rebellions, the current one involves only a small fraction of the population. Most Shias are not interested in any more fighting, none of the Kurds are, and a majority of the Sunnis are not disposed towards violence either. There are also over a thousand hostile Sunni Arabs coming in from other Arab countries, and some hostile Shia from Iran.

After over a year of fighting this “rebellion,”, U.S. combat deaths are less than 600, Iraqi and other coalition forces have suffered about as many. The rebels have lost over 10,000 dead. The rebellion isn’t over yet because, unlike the earlier ones, the rebels are so outnumbered, they cannot fight battles. In 1920 and 1941, large groups of armed Iraqis would confront British troops, in addition to guerilla attacks by small groups. The current hostilities are a very lopsided civil war, with over 90 percent of the population on one side. The Sunni Arabs fight on partly because they fear war crimes trials for atrocities committed when they served Saddam, and partly because they really believe that Iraq can’t do without them. The foreign terrorists fight because of the non-Moslem foreigners, and later will fight because Iraq will be seen as not Islamic enough because of cooperation with infidels (non-Moslems).

Read the whole thing.

MORE SLOPPY AND UNSUBSTANTIATED CHARGES THIS POLITICAL SEASON: They're from the New York Times, which writes:

In fairness to Mr. Kerry, his aides were faced with a strategic dilemma that has become distressingly familiar to campaigns in this era when so much unsubstantiated or even false information can reach the public through so many different forums, be it blogs or talk-show radio.

As is usual with such big-media comments about unsubstantiated information on blogs, no examples are given. (Specific examples with hyperlinks to sources are for those evil untrustworthy blogs, not the meticulous Big Media!) As reader Richard Kleiner emails:

A couple of thoughts here:

Could you imagine the NY Times sneering at the blogosphere's coverage of the Trent Lott affair as "unsubstantiated and even false?" As I recall, blogs were hailed as heroic for pointing out something that was public record, but which the Big Media studiously ignored.

Apparently, reading old copies of the Congressional Record when the New York Times can't or won't now constitutes peddling "unsubstantiated and even false" information.

Indeed.

TOM MAGUIRE NOTES that the Kerry campaign has inadvertently endorsed the Swiftboatvets ad. He also observes:

It has been widely reported that Kerry was honorably discharged prior to becoming a war protestor. Not So! When Kerry was meeting with the North Vietnamese, accusing his fellow officers of war crimes, and meeting with a group that discussed the assassination of US Senators, he was an officer in the Naval Reserve. This was only acknowledged by the Kerry campaign in May of this year, correcting a phony Harvard Crimson interview from January 1970. Readers of the NY Times, the LA Times, and the Boston Globe are in for a surprise.

More information on that in this earlier post from Maguire, who has been tracking this issue for a while, and with far more dedication than the Big Media outlets mentioned above.

As I've said before, the medals are a distraction, and Kerry's real problems lie elsewhere. So expect the pro-Kerry spin to involve a lot of talking about the medals, as if that were the only issue.