Campaign '04: Good Morning, Vietnam

September 15 2004
Counterbias.com
Scott C. Smith

Despite the fact that we currently are engaged in daily combat in Iraq, the so-called liberal media is more focused on a different war, a war that ended over thirty years ago. 

John Kerry put at the center of his campaign his tour of duty in Vietnam, and was very focused on that one part of his history. Focused, until a group called Swift Boat Veterans for The Truth began to run a series of commercials casting doubt on Kerry's version of events from 35 years ago. The ugly commercials by the Swift Boat Vets, filled with misinformation and distortions of the truth, sent the media into frenzy and put John Kerry on the defensive. Prominent Democrats began to offer Kerry advise on how to handle his campaign: stop talking about Vietnam. Kerry took the advice of Bill Clinton and others and shifted the focus of his campaign to current events.

Through all of this, George W. Bush's own military service, while questioned in the past by newspapers like the Boston Globe, was not a topic the media was particularly interested in, at least not interested in the same way the media was interested in John Kerry's military record.

Through most of his political career, questions followed Bush about his service in the Texas Air National Guard, particularly a period of time in 1972 and 1973 where Bush allegedly did not show up for drills. The issue was brought up during the 2000 presidential race, but it didn't seem to affect Bush's campaign.

The media can be fickle. When it smells blood it attacks, with the bleeding this time coming from George W. Bush.

The CBS News program Sixty Minutes II aired a segment on September 8, with Dan Rather interviewing former Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes, who claims to have pulled strings to get Bush a coveted slot in the Texas Air National Guard. "...I got a lot of young men from prominent families in Texas in the National Guard," Barnes told Rather. It was a decision Barnes said he was not proud to have made: "As I reflect back, particularly after I walked through the Vietnam Memorial recently in Washington and saw the thousands of names of the young men who lost their lives there -- it's a fact that I'm not really proud of. But I was a young, ambitious politician -- doing what I thought that was acceptable, that was important to make friends."

In addition to the interview with Barnes, Rather presented to the world four memorandums written, according to CBS News, by Bush's Guard squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian. The memos, written in 1972 and 1973, appear to back the allegations that Bush did not fulfill all of his military obligations as a member of the Air National Guard.

The documents soon sparked what might be a major controversy: the possibility that the documents are a forgery.

The media is gorging itself.

Bloggers began to spread the word that the memorandums were forgeries, pointing out that the formatting of the text looked more like a document composed in Microsoft Word than a document created with a typewriter. Experts in typography were brought out; some claimed the documents genuine, others claimed the documents an obvious forgery. 

The media frenzy was so intense that Robert Novak, the columnist who outed a CIA operative and then refused to reveal his source of that leak, began to demand that CBS News reveal its source for the Killian memos. "You think reporters ought to reveal sources?" an incredulous Al Hunt asked Novak on CNN's Capital Gang. Apparently, in Novak's world, information that is harmful to someone in opposition to the Bush administration should be protected (the source to Novak that provided the name of Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife, the CIA operative, after Wilson had written a newspaper column critical of the Bush administration), while other sources should be revealed. Situational ethics, Mr. Novak?

Actually, I think the media should stop focusing on events from over thirty years ago, and concentrate on this century. Frankly, what Kerry did in Vietnam or what Bush did not do in the Air National Guard have no bearing on the fitness of the individual to be President of the United States. Young men in their early 20s are not necessarily going to make the best decisions. Those decisions need not be held against someone running for public office. I'd rather the media examine a political candidate's entire life and present a more complete picture of that individual. I admire John Kerry for serving in Vietnam. But I wouldn't vote for him based only on that aspect of his life. People change. At 36, I'm not the same man I was at 21. 

I'm dreading the moment when the first presidential nominee from my generation runs for office, and the inevitable questions are asked about what that candidate did or did not do during Operation Desert Storm. And the cycle continues.