penwil

Did any of us think two weeks ago that this story would not only still be out there on August 20, but on the front page of the NYT, no less?

Well, I’m going to brag (which I realize is a VERY BAD MISTAKE) and tell you that I did expect to see it. (Though I wouldn’t have bet the ranch.)

I expected this story to take hold because of Vietnam Syndrome and THE CULTURE OF DEFEAT.

This isn’t any old “smear campaign.”

The Swifties are attacking the very heart and soul of Kerry’s campaign, and are directly confronting an old and open and still-bleeding wound.

We’re not talking about an intern.

We’re talking about Vietnam.

I was thinking. A couple of months ago I took the kids for a haircut, and our haircutter, who is in her early 30s, told me we should get out of Iraq, because “what are our guys doing there?’

Then she told me her father fought in Vietnam, and when he came back people spit on him in the airport.

Vietnam wasn’t just a trauma for baby boomers.

It was a trauma for at least some of their children, too.