[Nat Review - yeah...I know] Imagine you heard that someone got a "direct diploma" from Harvard but didn't actually have to do four years of papers and tests.The term "veteran" wields a strange talismanic power in American politics today; the military is almost the only institution in American life that has maintained very high favorability ratings over the past 30 years. Invocation of the sacred words "military service" invariably grants a presumed license to make ad hominem arguments: "Oh yeah? What do you know about it? Did you serve?" A military past, regardless of how extensive it was, tends to be seen as a shining jewel on the résumé of a politician.
Democrats especially seem to think this way: A party that suspects, with excellent cause, that people have noticed its doubtfulness about the merits of the American experiment is if anything even more eager to find veterans to convey its message. The party hopes that having served in the military will immunize a candidate against doubts about a given candidate's patriotism. This theory reached a loony apotheosis when the 2004 Democratic party nominated for the presidency a veteran who had become famous for characterizing the U.S. military as a gang of war criminals and thrown away his medals in disgust. "We saw Vietnam ravaged equally by American bombs and search and destroy missions, as well as by Viet Cong terrorism," Kerry said, characterizing the military as racist and calling a vicious Communist regime that would later cause millions to flee South Vietnam "the threat we were supposedly saving them from." No way anyone could have any misgivings about this guy's patriotism! Or so Democrats think. Democrats are odd.