In the wake (and damn if it didn’t feel like a funeral) of the 2004 election, we made a conscious decision to not engage in a round of Kerry bashing for the sake of Kerry bashing. He took the high road and lost to a man who, at least tacitly, allowed his campaign to leave no fact undistorted. Reading the many other writers who piled on Kerry left us nonplussed. We didn’t quit our jobs to go door to door in a swing state for a year like many others did, and neither did we have any access to information that led to certain choices that we may have disagreed with. So we focused on the voting trends and looked forward to pretty much exactly what we expected: A man governing like he won a Man Date after winning by just three points.
Until very recently, I was happy with our decision. The appropriate lessons are sinking in, key leadership roles have changed hands for the better, and rather than curling up to die, Democrats are displaying a willingness to fight that has been missing for far too long. But that was before this story broke:
Kerry allows Navy release of military, medical records
Senator John F. Kerry, ending at least two years of refusal, has waived privacy restrictions and authorized the release of his full military and medical records.
Kos calls it “Unbelievable.” I call it “unacceptable.” Here’s why.
Shortly after the absurd 2000 Presidential election (and no, I’ll never let that go), it became crystal clear that the 2004 election was going to be very important for the country in general and Democrats in particular. After George W. Bush took office and stocked his cabinet with people determined to represent the interests of their former industries rather than those of the American people, the urgency increased. When the 9/11 terrorist attacks became an excuse to tear up the Constitution in favor of egregious intrusions on civil liberties, and flout international laws like the Geneva Conventions in order to exact a kind of sadistic revenge on people with brown skin, even people not usually interested in politics realized the need to make a change. And when the President and his top advisors lied (face it, there’s no other word for it) to take this country to war in Iraq, the 2004 election became the top priority for an unprecedented number of citizens.
12 months before the 2004 election, there were 10 Democrats in the race for the nomination, some more qualified than others. A series of missteps by frontrunner Governor Howard Dean, and the growing consensus that “electability” was the preferred characteristic, virtually handed the game to Senator John Kerry. The same 24-hour news channels and political blogs that made it easy to overdose on campaign coverage created a situation that compacted the selection process down to just three weeks. Six months of pre-primary campaigning became just as irrelevant as the six months of primaries that came after New Hampshire, where Kerry locked up the nomination.
We endorsed General Wesley Clark for the Democratic nomination and were quite disappointed that the race was essentially over before his campaign could hit its stride. But rather than gripe and moan about someone else becoming the nominee, we decided that John Kerry would make a significantly better leader than the sitting President, and with that, did everything within our power (fundraising, phone banking, letter writing) to aid in his election.
While clearly not as difficult as defending the record and priorities of the Bush administration with a straight face and clear conscience, supporting the Kerry campaign on a daily basis was no walk in the park. With his wins in the first few primaries virtually guaranteeing him the nod, Kerry and his handlers telegraphed and then ran a campaign based on one principle alone: “Just Don’t Screw Up.” Though underwhelming, it was initially hard to argue against the safe route. Bush had low poll numbers and a cache of issues that put him at odds with the majority of Americans. The Kerry campaign, most people forget, did well early in the general campaign, scoring points on a range of issues and not committing any real errors or consequence.
That all changed when Kerry uttered possibly the most idiotic statement politics has seen since Dan Quayle was on the national stage:
“I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”
The Bush campaign couldn’t have bought a line for their own candidate that helped him that much, but Kerry gave it away for free. With 13 words, he managed to hit the trifecta: 1) reinforced the “flip flopper” tag, 2) opened the door to charges of being “soft on defense”, and 3) became the stereotypical politician by trying to have it both ways. This was a major slip, but alone it would not have been fatal. It should, however, have marked the end of the “Just Don’t Screw Up” campaign: once you screw up, you’ve broken the seal.
I’ll admit to having the same general reaction as the Kerry campaign probably did when word trickled out (would “bubbled to the surface” be more accurate?) about the existence and mission of a group called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT). It seemed comical, like a Chappelle’s Show sketch come to life. Here’s a group closely tied to the Bush campaign (not to mention Richard Nixon) with a TV spot and barely enough money to run the ad more than a handful of times. They were a punchline, and the Kerry campaign was right to ignore them. At first. Answering all queries about the SBVT with canned statements along the lines of “We’re not going to dignify that with a response” became untenable when the media did the “dignifying” all by themselves. Constant (free) airings of the SBVT ad during news programing gave the story a life of its own, but the Kerry campaign refused to acknowledge the baby that was tearing up everything in sight. Even as the SBVT’s completely disproved claims began to take hold in middle America (thanks bitch), Kerry’s response lacked the intensity needed to undo their damage. He lined up men he served with to rebut the charges but stubbornly refused to do the one simple thing that would have ended the whole episode: authorize the U.S. Navy to release his complete service records.
The combination of the $87 billion quote and the SBVT attacks ended up being an obstacle too high for the Kerry campaign to overcome. But it didn’t have to be that way. And the recent, belated release of Kerry’s records, seven months after the election, just adds to the original sin.
The records, which the Navy Personnel Command provided to the [Boston] Globe, are mostly a duplication of what Kerry released during his 2004 campaign for president, including numerous commendations from commanding officers who later criticized Kerry’s Vietnam service.
The lack of any substantive new material about Kerry’s military career in the documents raises the question of why Kerry refused for so long to waive privacy restrictions.
The Globe is right to say that the documents raise questions, but the problem is that the answers are neither forthcoming, nor hold any possibility of being sufficient if they were. Kerry may have decided that his privacy was more important than releasing the documents under demand from a bunch of unprincipled liars. He could have taken the position that the records he did release during the campaign met a standard of proof. For all anyone knows, he wanted to protect the same people who were accusing him of dishonorable service. He may yet provide an answer that his supporters have been seeking, but he may not. But nothing, nothing he could say would change the fact that he did a tremendous disservice to his party and this country by refusing to release his full records when it would have made a difference.
For the hopeless candidates who populated the Democratic primaries (Al Sharpton, Dennis Kucinich, Carol Mosley-Braun, etc), it was an exercise in vanity. We criticized them for taking up time and space at the debates, as well as for some of their lesser ideas. But in the end, they were only in the race to increase their name recognition. A party’s nominee carries a huge burden, one that the foes he eliminated do not: He must fight to win the office of President of the United States. In no way does that necessarily require a nominee to “fight dirty” or do anything unethical. But John Kerry and each of the other candidates knew what they were up against. When recent history provides examples such as an extended investigation of a President’s sex life played out in the headlines, no one can expect to keep their past a secret. Want to maintain secrecy in military records, financial records, or anything else? DON’T RUN FOR PRESIDENT.
Saying “my family’s privacy comes first” or anything similar is simply not an option anymore. Sure it’s chivalrous, but American politics hasn’t been about chivalry since the Eisenhower administration, if not earlier. No one in the upper echelon of national politics in either party should be under any delusion that disclosure can be avoided. But deluded seems to be an apt description of Kerry’s thinking in this case. His unwillingness or inability to fight on behalf of his party is, as I said above, completely unacceptable.
With the revelation that his records could have only helped his candidacy had he allowed their release, John Kerry has shown his judgement to be flawed. As far as I am concerned, he has disqualified himself from contesting the Democratic nomination in 2008. But for that one decision, this country would probably not be creaking under the dead weight of this administration’s failed policies.
Ralph Nader has become a symbol of arrogance for not pulling out of the 2000 election, an act that effectively handed that election to Bush. John Kerry displayed at least an equal level of arrogance by acting as if he was entitled to a higher level of privacy than what has been established as normal in modern America. He put himself above his responsibility to his party and country, and the result is the same as it was in 2000.
**As always, and in particular for this post, if you have something to say, feel free to email. I’ll put up any serious comments I get.
Feedback from reader Luimbe Domingos:
Reading your article, these are the types of things that make me, especially being an African American Democrat, really believe that these guys in DC are really on the same side. The way all other Democratic Presidential campaigns tanked, how he wouldn’t release these military records that would show the deceit of the guys who called him a liar, and Bill Clinton and G.H.W. Bush seem to be best buds. All 2004 I sent e-mails to countless friends to vote, donated to the Democratic Party, and argued against the iraq war day and night for the Dems. You see more and more every day that Shrum and the “above the fray” crew weren’t ready to fight for votes. Now we are in danger of losing everything from the civil rights act to row v. wade due to a circuit court of appeals full of Janice Rodgers-Browns and a Supreme Court led by Antonin Scalia.
Just like Gore being cowed into asking for a recount only in some Florida counties as opposed to across the entire state. Kerry should have won by fighting across the country, Gore should have won by fighting for the victory apparently he had won. They both should have thought it prudent to fight tooth and nail for every last vote for the most important job in the world. 2006 is their last chance, 2008 is much to far.