political graveyards
Democrats are gloating over new attacks on Bush's Vietnam-era service in the National Guard, resuming the old cry: Draft dodger, draft dodger, draft dodger. Signs all point to a new offensive from the Kerry campaign on the "issue." Kerry apparently regards this as "hitting back." Kerry is a combat veteran, Bush pulled strings to stay out of Vietnam.Okay, folks, let's review. Bill Clinton avoided military service in Vietnam. He ran against George H.W. Bush, a combat veteran, and won. Then he ran against Bob Dole, a (grievously wounded) combat veteran, and won. In both instances, voters overwhelmingly chose the candidate who avoided service in Vietnam, rejecting the person who served in combat.
Now.
How effective a campaign message is "I was in combat, and my opponent avoided service in Vietnam"?
How long is the Kerry campaign going to fuck this corpse? Haven't they noticed that it's cold and stiff? Haven't they noticed that they've already done the "draft dodger" thing, and they're losing?
Yes, the Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth campaign damaged Kerry. That doesn't mean -- does not mean -- that similar attacks on Bush will damage him. Why? Because Bush has never bragged about his National Guard service, never pumped it up, never played it as a campaign issue. He has acted like it doesn't matter. (For good reasons, really.)
Kerry rode into the Democratic National Convention with his swift boat crew, saluted at the lectern, and reported for duty.
One has presented his Vietnam-era service as the reason (really, the reason) why he should be elected; attacks on this candidate's Vietnam-era service speak to the way he's presented himself -- to who he thinks he is, and who he says he is.
The other candidate has said that, hell yeah, I was drunk until I was forty. Attacking him for youthful irresponsibility is not...going...to fucking work.
We might as well skip the rest of the campaign. How fucking tone deaf can these folks be?
posted by Chris Bray @ 10:32 PM
4 Comments:
From my understanding of the argument (and I'm not claiming that I understand it that well) the issue is not simply that Bush was a draft-dodger, but that he is a warmongering draft-dodger--someone who avoided combat through string-pulling, who wants to send more soldiers to Iraq. And I do think that exposing Bush's guard record makes sense at this moment, given the Swift Boat advertisements. I don't think Kerry's campaign is under the illusion that simply being a combat veteran will get you elected--but they think it will be affective to draw attention to Bush's hypocrisy. I guess whether or not the public cares about Bush's hypocrisy is the real question.
- Tamara
Thanks for the comment. I think you're right -- the argument is that he's a warmongering draft dodger -- but I also think this kind of chicken hawk label is tough to apply successfully.
Case in point: Bill Clinton ordered the bombing of Serbia, an order that led to the deaths of civlians (and Chinese diplomats) in Belgrade. He also ordered a cruise missile attack on a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant (and it's not like the Sudanese could really spare it), and ordered a large-scale bomb and cruise missile attack on Baghdad in December, 1998 (because, he said, Saddam was known to have weapons of mass destruction).
Are those actions made less defensible by the fact that Clinton didn't serve in Vietnam? Does a man's personal history change the significance of his policy choices?
A good case against the war in Iraq demands that it speak to the war in Iraq, just as a good case against the attack on Serbia would have needed to speak to the specifics of that policy decision. "Clinton went to Oxford" isn't an argument against an attack on an aspirin factory several decades later. "Bush was in the National Guard" is not an argument against attacking Iraq. It's a distraction and a waste, and it's losing an election.
I've been thinking about this a bit more, and I think I'm more inclined to agree with you. I think Kerry and others are attempting to use Bush's background against him not because they personally think that avoiding combat is that despicable, or think that the general public will think so, but because they think that Bush's current supporters will. And I guess I would agree that it doesn't seem to be working. The Swift Boat ads show that Bush's supporters are being riled up by it, but they're still willing to stick by Bush.
- Tamara
Chris, damnit, stop inflaming our only reader!
Well except for the 3 people who have apparently scanned this site in order to find add-hominem attacks for using against me (hey Palooka, Bill, and Bob). Actually, Palooka thinks my attack on Marxism prooves I'm a far leftist.
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