John Moore–hi!

Rich Lowry says to leave Vietnam alone. I doubt if he knows all the negative info out there, nor the fact that Kerry refuses to release the critical records (the military documents on his site are a selected subset).

Well, this is one of those areas where I think conservatives may have a blind spot, though don’t take my word for it.

I keep mentioning how much conservatives loved the Vietnam footage . . . and I think that’s because conservatives just plain love our soldiers, end of story.

Plenty of liberals love our soldiers, too, but I think the relationship is sometimes more ambivalent (and I sincerely hope this doesn’t open up a whole new torrent of abuse-of-liberals. If you’re talking about Leftists, my feeling is: Fire away. But liberals are another story.)

There’s more to it than that.

Many, many baby boom liberals protested the war, got arrested in demonstrations, became C.O.s & did alternative service, etc. and while to a conservative those actions seem cowardly, and of course were cowardly compared to somebody getting shot at on a swift boat, they weren’t only that.

To understand what I think I’m saying, consider the fact that John Kerry, who knew he wanted to be president, didn’t have the stones to refuse to serve. I know the word “stones” is probably going to majorly tick-off conservatives here, as well as people who did serve in Vietnam, so I should say I’m sorry; that’s not what I mean to do. But I’m pretty sure what I’m saying about Kerry is true.

I don’t think this is going to be a positive line of thought to pursue, so I’ll just say that war protesters, back in the day, paid a price for being war protesters, and many of them knew they were paying a price, as did Kerry.

Kerry decided the price was too high.

Kerry didn’t want to be stuck in an academic ghetto for the rest of his life, let’s put it that way.

The other thing, in terms of whether or not to “stay away” from Vietnam, is the issue of John Kerry freely shooting civilians, assuming that’s true.

I think that’s just about the worst thing any moderate-to-liberal voter could hear about John Kerry.

I myself was repelled when I read Kerry’s superior officer saying he had Kerry transferred because Kerry was shooting too many civilians.

Bob Kerrey is untouchable because of whatever it was he was involved in in Vietnam, and he believed in the war. He wasn’t there as a career move.

John Kerry didn’t believe in the war, didn’t care one way or the other as far as we can tell who won or who lost, and he had to be transferred because he was shooting civilians.

My feeling, and I could be deeply wrong about this, is that folks like Rich Lowry are projecting their own feelings about Vietnam and our soldiers onto undecided voters who are not conservatives.

I might add that I don’t think most liberals and moderates are going to be scandalized by Kerry faking his war wounds. Think about it. Draft dodgers faked everything they could think of to get out of the draft!

BUT liberals and moderates need to know about this in order to believe that Kerry wasn’t sincere in his service. It’s the sincerity to the cause, and to the fighting, that is meaningful to liberals.

What liberals & some moderates will be offended by is the image of Kerry serving cynically, as a means to further his political ambitions, and shooting so many civilians his superior officer had him transferred out.

From the point of view of a liberal, and I think I can generalize, if Kerry genuinely believed the war was wrong (and remember, he gave a speech saying so before he enlisted) then he shouldn’t have shot one single civilian in Vietnam, ever.

So I’m wondering whether this is a case of “real” conservatives not knowing how the other half thinks.

Rich Lowry would be offended by an attack on the service of a candidate who fought in Vietnam.

But I’m not so sure most centrists or liberals would be offended by a valid, factually supported attack on the service of a candidate who fought in Vietnam & was transferred out for the reasons Kerry was apparently transferred out.

I know I wasn’t.