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| Home Front: Politix |
| McCain & Kerry -- exactly alike, except for the enormous differences |
| 2008-03-31 |
| Jonah Goldberg, National Review From First Read: *** “I’m Reporting For Duty,” Part II: The comparisons between McCain's '08 bid and Kerry's in '04 have been unmistakable: Both men, early on, were their party's overwhelming favorites to win the nomination; then they encountered trouble and got overshadowed by other candidates; and then — almost out of nowhere — they locked up the nomination. Now, as McCain today embarks on his "Service to America" tour across the country, there's another comparison between the two men: the emphasis of their military experience. . . . I hear this sort of thing a lot and I just think it's entirely unpersuasive. John Kerry's attempt to run as a war hero struck lots of people as preposterous even before the Swift Boat Vets went to work on him. Kerry made his name as a passionate opponent of the Vietnam War. He rose up within the ranks of liberalism for confirming what the left said about the war. Whether or not he gave back his medals, he was certainly happy to have lots of people think he gave them back when it was politically convenient. He came from the dovish wing of the dovish party. To the extent his military service really appealed to activist Democrats it was purely a matter of winking irony. He was the Daily Kos crowd's anti-chicken-hawk candidate. Kerry was supposed to prove that even vets could be doves. When he "reported for duty" at the Democratic convention the people who cheered the loudest were the anti-war and anti-military crowd. Meanwhile, John McCain's entire career and political persona comes from an entirely different direction. To the extent their military-service narratives reinforce an ideological stance the two men couldn't be more different. Kerry invoked his military career as a fig leaf for his dovishness and as a means to undercut Bush's inauthenticity (in the eyes of Democrats). The important part of Kerry's life-story isn't his service but his denunciation of what he was called to service for. McCain's story arc is entirely different. More importantly, the voters who are swayed by such things are not evenly distributed between the two parties. Even if McCain's and Kerry's stories were morally and politically equivalent, the audiences they're appealing to are very different. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #4 Did not mean to upset you OP. The point of the article was "equivalence" (or lack thereof) between the two. Both spent Christmas in Vietnam? Kerry claimed he spent Christmas in Cambodia. McCain suffered in the North. No disrespect to any vet was intended. |
| Posted by: Skunky Glins5285 2008-03-31 21:51 |
| #3 #2 Both spent Christmas in Vietnam. So did I, and about 400,000 other people at the same time. Does that mean I'm qualified to run for President? My ego isn't that big. Nor are the egos of most of my contemporaries. Big difference spending Christmas watching Bob Hope and spending it in a POW camp. McCain on points. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2008-03-31 16:56 |
| #2 Both spent Christmas in Vietnam. |
| Posted by: Skunky Glins5285 2008-03-31 13:29 |
| #1 No, no, the Shinola's the OTHER ONE. |
| Posted by: Perfesser 2008-03-31 13:03 |