If Bill Clinton is, as once said of him, an unusually good liar, John Kerry is an unusually bad one. Everything about him speaks of his being full to the rim with the rich smell of fecal matter. I’ve considered him to be a quasi-psychotic piece of work ever since first hearing of his “Band of Brothers” which, in its overt attempt to draw attention to itself, rang false in light of the experience I’ve had in close relationships with three generations of warriors.
Veterans with real experience of war, real military heroes, don’t talk about it in public at the drop of a hat. Everyone with a grandfather who fought in WWII or a father who fought in Vietnam knows that it’s like pulling teeth to get them to talk about it, even in private. It’s only those who never served and what the front-line fighters call REMFs who boast about their bold and fearless exploits.
This is why Kerry was considered sketchy from the start by so many who otherwise mindlessly laud anyone who ever served in the military. Now that facts of his pathetic four-month service are coming out – like the patently false claims to have spent Christmas in Cambodia in 1968 that he has repeatedly and publicly made – these suspicions are being shown to have had strong foundation.
It still amazes me that the Democrats nominated this utter charlatan. Senators have a horrible Presidential track record, and Massachusetts liberals haven’t exactly distinguished themselves either. The Democrats would surely have avoided this debacle if they’d only had a few people familiar with the military – besides political officers like Wes Clark – in a position to influence the decision-making back when the DNC leadership decided to trash Howard Dean in favor of Kerry. But then, I suppose it’s hard to identify one specific stink when you’re wallowing in sewage.