Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

Brian Tiemann
Silicon Valley-based purveyor of a confusing mixture of Apple punditry and political bile.

btman at grotto11 dot com

Read These Too:

InstaPundit
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James Lileks
Little Green Footballs
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Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
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Tal G in Jerusalem
Secular Islam
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.clue
Ravishing Light
Rosenblog

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Thursday, August 12, 2004

10:03 - What he really wants to do is direct
http://instapundit.com/archives/017139.php

(top)

Does this count as "Kerry Derangement Syndrome"? Is making this big a deal out of what's becoming clear is a baldfaced, premeditated lie with great repercussions the equivalent of going into hysterics over Bush's National Guard record or accusing him of "lying" about Iraq's WMDs?

I've seen people lately acting horrified that there are intelligent and thoughtful bloggers "taking the Swift Vets seriously". As though their very nature as an "attack" group renders their cause laughworthy.

Well, so far it looks like they're batting better than .500, and Kerry can't seem to come up with a rational or coherent defense.

Looks like that American Spectator blurb from a couple of days ago was accurate: beyond Fox News, the press is in full cover-up mode for Kerry on this one.

Yo, Media: Your candidate has apparently lied, repeatedly, over the last 30 years. He did so to embellish his credentials, and in the pursuit of various political ends. His campaign is putting out false spin that doesn't pass the laugh test. Does this say anything at all about his fitness for higher office?

(Will Collier)

The Jon Stewarts of the world will now say, "Well, okay, sure, he lied�but hey, you've got a lot of nerve, saying his lies make him unfit to lead, while you make excuses for or ignore Bush's much worse lies!" Pause for laughter and applause.

Well, let's leave aside for a moment the relative veracity of the "lie" claims for both men, and the relative seriousness of each. This argument is shining a spotlight on whether we want to claim the moral high ground by not "stooping to the same level" as the Bush-haters. It's about deciding what character flaws are acceptable and ignorable, and what deeds cannot go overlooked.

I don't give a crap about reported marital problems or daughters with see-through gowns. Those won't impact his ability to be an effective President. (Unless, of course, they end up consuming his entire attention the way Monica did Bill.) But I do care, quite deeply in fact, about Kerry's seeming inability to admit to any fault or wrongdoing, his history of inconsistency on key issues and absenteeism from Senate votes, and his rapidly unraveling contention that Vietnam made him any kind of a better person than he was before.

These are key character traits highlighted by events. They deserve scrutiny if we're to understand what makes this man tick.

In short: if the lessons he learned in the Mekong Delta were "Hey, these medals are a ticket to a great political career�gimme more" and "Could you guys just got about your business while I film you? It's for a documentary I'm making... for later" and "I can make up horrible stories that damage the President and the country's will to continue to fight"... well, I don't think a damned thing he learned is likely to help us win the War on Terror.

He seems to think that his Vietnam service will help him be taken seriously as a wartime President. I see no evidence that he thinks his Vietnam service will help him be a wartime President. I don't think the latter interests him.

This Presidency, to him, looks more and more like the culmination of a thirty-year piece of elaborate political theater Kerry's been putting on�Act Three of the self-absorbed narrative of his life, where the moral of the story is that our military is stupid and gullible and quick to turn to barbarity, that a President who orders our troops into battle is usually harboring sinister motives that betray the trust of honest military heroes like him, that American armed response to global problems is always misguided, that America has a lot to learn from its European betters, and that the American people are little more than a passive, popcorn-eating audience who want to see a happy ending, with the Stars and Stripes flying on the same pole as the French Republic's banner under a sky-blue pennant whipping in the wind at the top, set against the Arc de Triomphe on a sunny day as the credits roll.

It's no coincidence, it seems, that Kerry delivered many of his statements about his war experience by comparing it to Apocalypse Now.

True students of history know that history isn't a narrative... it's just a series of events and responses, events and responses. People deal with these things as they go. They can't foresee what will happen ten pages further into the book. However, what makes them adaptable enough to respond to those new events when they come is that they don't realize they're in a book�they aren't tempted to think they see the end of a chapter coming, or a set of reading comprehension questions, or a forced echo of some piece of narrative foreshadowing that occurred three chapters ago. If the people in the book start thinking they're in a book, they do things like film themselves at war and make up salacious stories of wrongdoing to try to discredit our motives and sap our national resolve during times of trial.

Understanding these things about John Kerry relies upon giving the full due weight to issues that come up like the accusations of the Swift Vets. One may not like they method with which they've come forward (though we have to remember, these guys aren't just out to re-elect Bush�they've been active for months, trying to get some other Democrat nominated rather than Kerry; their beef is with Kerry himself, not with "anybody but Bush"); but if we ignore their testimony, even if it's true, just because it arrives in an ugly fashion, we risk not understanding what drives the man who would transform this nation from what it's become under Bush, playing out the climactic act of his Great American Novel, with himself as the redeemed, vanquishing tragic hero.

Somehow I don't think the story would turn out the way he wishes it would.

UPDATE: Keep on tranglin, Boston Strangler.