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Kerry’s Dilemma: Needing to Be Who He Isn’t

Does what happened in Vietnam matter when picking a President? Does it matter what a candidate’s view of the Cold War was in the ‘70s or ‘80s? Do votes on weapons system procurements 10 or 20 years ago matter anymore?  

It is now 2004 and we have numerous new and pressing issues to deal with: the threat of terrorists, crises in healthcare and education, a mounting deficit, a feeble economy, high tax rates, a social security system that could implode … and we’re worrying about what the candidates were doing 10 to 35 years ago?  

When you boil it down to what is important in a candidate for President, there are only three main considerations: Character, Understanding, and Leadership.  

Character combines honesty, integrity, and courage. If a candidate is prone to distorting the truth to reach his objectives or is unwilling to stand up for what he really believes, he fails this test and deserves no further consideration. Without character, nothing else matters.  

Understanding reflects our assessment of a candidate’s insights into the difficult problems that face us and the potential policies/solutions that will most effectively deal with these problems (while respecting the rights of all citizens). “Feeling our pain” is nice but is, at best, of secondary importance.  

Leadership combines interpersonal skills, management skills, and the ability to express ideas in a manner that will give others the understanding and confidence to follow. But leadership is not independent of the first two characteristics. While there are notable exceptions, it helps to be of high character and to have a profound understanding of issues if you want to be an effective leader.  

So how do the events of 10 to 35 years ago help us in making these assessments? Absent a major epiphany or mea culpa, John Kerry’s history from Vietnam through the Cold War is damning to any fairminded assessment of his Character, Understanding, and Leadership abilities.  

Note that his having served in Vietnam is extremely laudable and, even without medals or heroics, Kerry deserves, along with close to a million of his fellow servicemen of that era, immense credit. But those that served cannot all be elected President. The problem comes when considering Kerry’s post-Vietnam service choices. These are what show him to be unsuitable for the Presidency.

Kerry’s testimony before the Senate upon his return reflected both an utter lack of Understanding of what was at stake in Vietnam (defending the free world … including our lives and liberties … against an evil and ever expanding and powerful Soviet empire). His willingness to lie and exaggerate during the Senate hearings open up serious questions regarding his Character. His lies and distortions were designed solely to advance his political agenda … an agenda that aided our enemy and weakened our country.

By doing so, Kerry betrayed his country and his fellow soldiers including those being tortured in North Vietnamese prison camps. His false testimony (along with the anti-American campaigns of his fellow “protesters”) undermined our resolve, emboldened our enemies, and put us at risk of losing the global battle with communism. This loathsome action, by itself, should disqualify Kerry from the Presidency.  

But the beat goes on. With the US failure in the Vietnam War behind us, Kerry eventually went off to the Senate and did everything a Senator could do to undercut our ability to survive the Soviet threat. Kerry favored appeasement not confrontation, weakness not strength, and spoke of differences of opinion not differences of principle or right versus wrong.  

Kerry consistently voted against modernizing our military (including nearly every weapons system we now depend on) and he opposed the development and testing of the technology needed to defend us from a Soviet nuclear strike (i.e., Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative). You can’t develop or deploy any weapons system if you can’t test it, and Kerry opposed space-based testing of SDI technology.  

Kerry’s record reflected a fundamental lack of understanding of our global struggle with the Soviet Union and what we needed to do to win that battle. At every turn, Kerry fought Reagan’s plan for weakening the Soviet Union while protecting the US as the communist empire crumbled. On Understanding the most important threat that faced the US in his lifetime, Kerry gets an F.  

Now, as we address the next threat to our nation’s future, Kerry seems unable to take a position and stick to it. It would be OK if he took a position that, based on a change in circumstances, needed to be revised. But Kerry alters his position with every new poll … well, maybe THAT is the change in circumstances that Kerry needs to revise his war plans.  

This is not leadership. It is merely a self-serving and desperate quest for power. It shows Kerry’s disregard for our nation’s interests while sacrificing such interests to advance his personal political fortunes.  

Does this remind you of his anti-war days when he gained political prominence while disregarding the interests of his countrymen and his fellow servicemen? His constant flip-flopping speaks to both Character and Leadership and shows that these critical traits, along with Understanding, are in short supply.  

Kerry knows that his record doesn’t square with what the American people require of a President. He keeps trying to be something different than what he is to the point that even he may have lost touch with who he really is. Like Alice, he may be thinking to himself, “I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, because I’m not myself you see.”
 

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