This past weekend, Bob Dole described Kerry's Viet Nam problem as succinctly as it can be:
"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[...] The next day he's standing there, 'I want to be president because I'm a Vietnam veteran.'"
On its very face, Kerry's justification for using his wartime experience as the ultimate qualification for his candidacy is absurd. He called the American military a bunch of murderers in Viet Nam and accused his fellow veterans of being war criminals. He did this early and often ---and rode the anti-war sentiment of liberal Massachusetts all the way to the state house and beyond. He even claimed to be a war criminal himself.
So how does it work that a man can denounce and renounce his country's military and his own involvement in a war and yet expect this country to feel comfortable making him its Commander-in-Chief? It is absurd.
Did veterans of America's other wars rise to prominence by such reasoning? I cannot think of any examples. Lincoln, who had served in his state militia during the Black Hawk War as a young man, was opposed to the Mexican-American War, but emerged a decade later as a powerful voice against slavery ---a consistent position, actually, that was ultimately vindicated in the triumph of the Union.
But in the latter half of the Twentieth Century ---in the fight against Communism--- it was our system of democratic capitalism that finally won. Which is why I reject the notion that our sacrifices in Asia were for nought. We preserved Japan and South Korea against Communism. We largely contained Red China and the Soviet Union, and demonstrated to them our commitment to Asia, both economically and militarily. And even where we failed (most importantly in Viet Nam), we permanently subdued and transformed the Communist impulse. America's involvement in Asia has served a great purpose in the projection of our power against Communism, whether one sees that positively or not.
So where does John Kerry figure into that purpose? He has succeeded politically despite our triumph against Communism. Because, in the end, the Most Liberal Member of the United States Senate has not been on the right side of too many important questions of America's foreign policy. He was wrong to have given his support to the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese, which he unquestionably did. He was wrong about Communism in Latin America when he attacked Reagan for supporting the Contras. He continues to be wrong about intelligence and military funding.
Kerry's distrust of American power is a dangerous trait to want in a Commander-in-Chief at any time, but especially now. He has obviously made a fetish of "internationalizing" his foreign policy views, but this is just code for French and UN approval, which is a joke.
No one needs this man in power while we face a borderless and psychopathic enemy. He may have gotten over on the liberals in Massachusetts and played to their brahmin sense of superiority to things that come "out of Texas," but his anti-war candidacy is a fraud based on nothing more than opportunism. That was true in 1970 and it's true today.