October 27, 2004

JOHN KERRY: POST-MODERN FABULIST

        Horsefeathers is not especially troubled by the dissembling of politicians. President Bush insists "Islam means peace"--and we all nod politely, understanding the requirements of diplomacy. As long as he keeps pursuing the Jihadists we can live with this tribute that vice pays to virtue. When John Kerry asserts that he is not really a tax and spend liberal, we nod and understand the requirements of a national campaign. More interesting, because revealing of the character of the man, are the compulsive, repetitive lies, some quite small, designed to create a public persona. Horsefeathers is grateful that the lengthy campaign has given us an opportunity to assess the character of the man who would replace President Bush as Commander in Chief.
        It is not the ordinary political stretchers that are especially revealing. Nor is it the mock certitude about one or another tactical position. It is personal lies, sometimes small ones, that allow us a glimpse below the suface of the self-created persona. Thus John Kerry's post-modern narrative of his magical mystery tour in Vietnam and Cambodia is a heroic self creation fantasy. Meet John Kerry, bold defender of America, collector of more medals in far less combat time than Audie Murphy. Yet we sense this is a fraud because no real heros boast about their military exploits. But then all-American John was also Hanoi John. When he betrayed his fellow veterans, condemning their "Jen-Jus Khan" tactics he reinvented himself as the putative President, heroic battler for truth, peace and justice, against an evil war waged by a criminal government.
        Then the Massachussetts fabulist punctuated his upward political rise with small fables worthy of a barroom braggart. This is Kerry as Baron Munchausen by way of Forrest Gump. There he is, in countless photo-ops- windsurfing, ice skating, hunting, tossing a football or a baseball, reminiscing about Boston marathons, for which no records exist of his having competed and for which he doesn't recall his finishing time or his qualifying time. (Horsefeathers ran the Boston Marathon several times in the late '70's and, like every fellow runner, remembers his finishing time to the second, as well as his qualifying time.)See the bold sportsman, John Kerry, the man's man. And if his hair is just a touch too coiffed and his face overly botox-ed, well don’t mistake him for a metrosexual fop; after all, didn’t he hunt down the VC in ‘Nam? Over the years John Kerry has deployed so many sports related self inventions that a website, Football Fans for Truth, is devoted to just those fables. His recent self-parodic emergence from the brush in his costly L.L Bean camouflage outfit, proclaiming his prowess at goose hunting, was more of the same. The one athletic skill he surely possesses and practices regularly is Monday morning quarterbacking. Whatever George Bush does, he, John Kerry, would have done it differently, better or not at all.
        In the sporting realm, Horsefeathers' partiality to baseball alerted us to John Kerry's oft proclaimed devotion to the Boston Red Sox. His favorite Red Sox player? Eddie Yost. Unfortunately Yost was a Washington Senator. Oh well, John Kerry was never in Cambodia either, but it's "seared" into his memory? Such a devoted fan, Kerry has repeatedly insisted that he was there at the tragic moment in 1986: "I was 30 yards away from Billy Buckner in that famous Shea Stadium game in '86." (Cite: ESPN Page 2)
"Talking baseball on the plane, he reminisced, "I was at Shea Stadium, 30 yards from Bill Buckner," recalling the error that many consider cost the Sox the 1986 World Series." (Cite: "Sox Detour for Kerry", New York Daily News, 7/26/2004)
"The Bay State senator says he....watched in anguish as the ball rolled through Bill Buckner's legs in the 1986 Series against the Mets." (Cite: "Bogus Bosox Fan", New York Post, 9/19/2004)
"I was about 30 yards away from Billy Buckner when that ball wiggled away" (Cite: Kerry tries to rejuvenate his campaign, USA Today 11/24/2003)
        Game 6 of the 1986 World Series was held in New York City, on the evening of October 25, 1986. Only one problem-the Boston Globe reports, John Kerry was at a banquet in Boston on the evening of October 25, 1986.
        Now we have new evidence of the true character of the man, as revealed by his self inventions. Here is a letter to the Wall Street Journal written by John Kerry’s Yale classmate, David Schlossberg, M.D.

The Editor
The Wall Street journal

Dear Sir/Madame:

As a graduate of the Yale class of 1966, I resent the self-serving lies and misrepresentations advanced by my classmate John Kerry. Herewith, a few corrections:

John Kerry has been using the Pershing name to dramatize his Vietnam experience, claiming to have been a close friend of Richard Pershing, the grandson of General (Black Jack) Pershing. Richard Pershing was a member of the Yale class of 1966, and he was killed in Vietnam shortly after we graduated. However, Kerry’s constant references to his ‘dearest’ friend are exaggerated and exploitative. In fact, Dick Pershing and I roomed together for all 4 years at Yale. I don’t remember John Kerry ever being in our room or even being a particular favorite of Dick’s. In this regard, it is particularly revealing that a recent biography of General Pershing, Until The Last Trumpet Sounds (by Gene Smith), includes an entire chapter on Dick, primarily on his years at Yale; the name John Kerry does not appear.
The Pershing Family did know Kerry, but they disliked him intensely. This antipathy stemmed primarily from an incident at the Pershing home on Park Avenue not long after Dick’s death: at a gathering of friends and family, Kerry worked the room with his anti-Vietnam message, incurring the undying enmity of Mr. and Mrs. Pershing and Dick’s older brother Jack, a Green Beret. The family was shocked and insulted by Kerry’s insensitivity.
Kerry has implied – as recently as the first Presidential debate – that he became disillusioned about Vietnam by his military experience. However, as early as 1965, in his Junior year at Yale, he was giving anti-war speeches; and his Class Day Oration in 1966 – prior to graduation – criticized American involvement in Vietnam. These sentiments clearly antedated his Vietnam experience. So why did he join the Navy? He told some classmates that it would help his career.
The above pattern suggests a callous and opportunistic personality – hardly what I would call Presidential.

David Schlossberg, MD
Yale ‘66