Posted on: Wednesday, August 25, 2004
VOLCANIC ASH
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By David Shapiro
More than 30 years after the Vietnam War ended, it continues to split a generation as a bitterly divisive force in national politics, further hardening an already brutal presidential election between George W. Bush and John Kerry.
Vietnam has absolutely no bearing on which of the two is more qualified to lead us today, but it has become more prominent an issue than even the current unpopular war in Iraq with some 70 days left before the voting.
This is the fourth straight presidential election in which Vietnam has emerged as an issue, but never before with so much ferocity.
In the last three elections, Vietnam has been contentious but never decisive. In every case, candidates who did not serve in Vietnam were elected over opponents who had seen active military duty in wartime.
Bill Clinton, who protested the war on a student deferment, won two terms against opponents who had distinguished records of military service in World War II — former President George H.W. Bush and former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole.
In 2000, the current President Bush took heat for avoiding Vietnam with a controversial tour in the Texas Air National Guard, but he bested Sen. John McCain, a former Vietnam POW, in the Republican primary and Vietnam veteran Al Gore in the general election.
This year, Democrat Kerry has built his campaign around his service as a Swift boat commander in Vietnam, where he earned the Silver Star and Bronze Star for bravery and three Purple Hearts.
Kerry has not personally drawn distinctions between his military service and the president's, but an ad by an independent Democratic group accused Bush of using family political ties to get the National Guard assignment and then skipping out on much of his service.
Kerry condemned the ad, but his campaign benefited from the doubts it raised about Bush.
A GOP-aligned group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has run ads accusing Kerry of lying about his wartime heroics.
Military records and eyewitness accounts from those closest to the battle back up Kerry's valor, but the negative ad campaign has nevertheless cost him a 15-point swing among veterans in recent polls.
The Swift boat group claimed to be independent of the Bush campaign, but one prominent spokesman was a campaign volunteer, and the group got much of its money from a financier with ties to Bush.
The president says Kerry "served admirably and he ought to be proud of his record," but he was slow to denounce the attack ads.
It's not the first time Bush has been accused of using veterans to smear an opponent's distinguished military record.
In 2000, McCain charged that Bush stood by silently while "fringe veterans groups" attacked him, including a preposterous insinuation that McCain's six years as a POW had left him mentally unstable.
McCain said Bush "really went over the line." He supports Bush for re-election this year but has strongly urged the president to repudiate the attacks against Kerry's war record.
In perhaps the most bizarre twist, Dole got in the act over the weekend by questioning the severity of Kerry's wartime injuries. After being rebuked, he passed it off as innocent "political hardball."
McCain's comment and Dole's define the issue: When do malicious attacks on an opponent's character cross the line between political hardball and dirty politics?
We'll get no answer until voters become sophisticated enough to stop rewarding mudslinging politicians by biting so readily on irrelevant negative campaigning.
(The writer was classified a conscientious objector by his draft board. He was subject to being drafted to Vietnam as a medic, but was not called because of a student deferment and a high number in the draft lottery.)
David Shapiro, a veteran Hawai'i journalist, can be reached by e-mail at dave@volcanicash.net.
