August 28, 2004

JOHN F. KERRY: GATSBY MINUS THE CHARM

        F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby is the fictional hero of the Great American novel. He is the archetypal American self-creator. He was born Jay Gatz but repudiated his origins and background while inventing a grand new persona. The perfect hero for a country born by casting off its European origins and creating a new world wherein success was determined, not by background, but by individual talent. Fitzgerald’s tale is, however, a cautionary one, because he warns against the inescapability of the past, the dangers of trying too hard to escape from history. Gatsby comes to grief because he rejects not only his personal parental past, but also the moral and ethical constraints handed down from one generation to the next. His romantic dream of himself finally collided with reality. As Nick Carraway said of him:
“No — Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and shortwinded elations of men.”
        John Kerry is his own fictional creation, a Gatsby minus the charm. He has invented a romantic self: the bold, bemedalled and courageous warrior who fought in defense of his country. Now, like Gatsby, the foul dust that has floated all these years in the wake of his dreams is destroying him. Like Gatsby, Kerry’s hubristic dreams utterly blinded him to the fate that awaited at the hands of the veterans he sought to erase from history. His enablers in the Democratic party are now trying desparately to save his sinking ship by attacking the veterans who refuse to let him ignore the foul dust of his post-Vietnam betrayals and the lies of his 4 month, 3 scratches, Purple Heart bugout. Mark Steyn captures this when he writes: “…So Kerry is now the first self-confessed war criminal in the history of the Republic to be nominated for president. Normally this would be considered an electoral plus only in the more cynical banana republics. But the Democrats seemed to think they could run an anti-war anti-hero as a war hero and nobody would mind. As we now know, a lot of people -- a lot of veterans -- do mind, very much. They understand that, whether or not he ever mowed down civilians with his 50-caliber machinegun, Kerry is responsible for a lot of wounds closer to home..." See the rest here.
        Horsefeathers suspects that Kerry's lack of personal charm will make it easier for his fellow Democrats to turn their knives on him. Whether that happens before or after Nov.2 is an open question. Whenever it happens, the age of Hillary will be upon us.

August 27, 2004

QUESTIONS NOT ASKED BY THE NEW YORK TIMES

SHORT GUIDE TO THE KERRY-VIETNAM CONTENTIONS
By Bruce Kesler

I am partisan, opposed to Kerry in 1971 and 2004. Below, I will also try my hardest to be fair. Judge for yourself.

1. Did Kerry want to go to Vietnam?
He first sought deferment from military service.

2. Did Kerry exaggerate his service on the USS Gridley, offshore Vietnam, for Douglas Brinkley’s book Tour Of Duty?
His 2-levels up commander and a shipmate say he did.

3. Did Kerry want to be in combat?
The Swift Boats were an offshore patrol unit at the time Kerry volunteered for it.

4. Was Kerry’s first Purple Heart merited?
The senior officer there on the boat at the incident says there was no hostile fire.
The wound was probably “self-inflicted” from an American M-79 grenade.
The wound was a paper matchstick piece of likely M-79 grenade treated with a band-aid.
It does not appear to rise to the qualifications for a Purple Heart, and Kerry’s request for it was denied by his superior.
Mysteriously, 3-months later after those who knew the facts were gone from Vietnam, the Purple Heart was issued from Saigon.

5. What is the significance of this first Purple Heart incident?
It, along with two others, permitted Kerry to leave Vietnam 8-months early.

6. Was there political influence or other explanation for the issuance of the first Purple Heart?
Kerry refuses to release his full military records or his journal. No witnesses have emerged as to how the first Purple Heart came to be issued.

7. Has the merit of Kerry’s second Purple Heart been challenged?
No. It has not been seriously challenged.

8. Did Kerry’s account of his second Purple Heart vary from facts?
Yes. The Kerry campaign site’s display of partial documents contained that Kerry was the commander of the boat that day. When the actual skipper challenged that, the Kerry campaign removed a 20-page batch of documents from its website.

9. Did Kerry merit the Silver Star?
A Kerry supporter who commanded another boat involved in the incident writes that it was the members of other boats that first and primarily mopped up from the encounter with VC. Kerry went ashore and killed a fleeing, wounded, armed VC. Kerry’s actions do not rise to the standards of the Silver Star. The other sailors and officers on the three boats involved did not receive the Silver Star.

10. Did Kerry merit the Bronze Star?
Difficult to say. The standards of the Bronze Star are lower than for the Silver. The timeline of differing witnesses of whether there was enemy fire, and most particularly whether Kerry was under fire when he picked up Rassmann, have not been clearly delineated. Similarly, the facts of how Kerry came to go ½ to 1 mile downriver from the mine explosion under another boat, later returning to the other boats that did not leave the scene, are unclear.

11. Did Kerry merit the third Purple Heart for the Bronze Star incident?
It is proven that “shrapnel” to Kerry’s buttocks came from his earlier being hit when blowing up some VC rice. The “contusion” to Kerry’s arm during the Bronze Star episode may not rise to Purple Heart standards. There is confusion as to whether and when in the timeline Kerry fell and hit his arm against his own boat. The Purple Heart standard says, “A wound is defined as an injury to any part of the body from an outside force or agent…”

12. Did Kerry display physical courage in Vietnam?
Indisputably.

13. Does the Kerry website displayed documents show a “V” on the Silver Star, which is not practice?
Yes.

14. Do the three citations for the Silver Star contain varying accounts of its merits?
Yes.

15. Why do the three Silver Star citations contain differing accounts?
Not answered yet. The Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman, has not said why his third citation does, or why it was issued in the ‘80’s.

16. Was Kerry in Cambodia on Christmas 1968?
All evidence is to the contrary to Kerry’s up to 50-times repeating this story.

17. Was Kerry in Cambodia at another time?
All evidence is to the contrary. No evidence has been presented to say that he was.

18. Did Kerry accuse the U.S. and Vietnam veterans of committing pervasive, sanctioned atrocities?
Yes. Read the words and accounts of the time in 1971.

19. Did Kerry attend a meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War in November 1971 at which it was proposed to assassinate several pro-Vietnam war U.S. Senators?
Yes.

20. Did Kerry deny he was there?
Yes. Until FBI records proved otherwise.

21. Did Kerry report the danger to any authorities?
No.

22. Has Kerry ever apologized or recanted for any of his above actions and words?
No.

23. Has John Kerry released his full military records and journals?
He refuses.

24. Has the mainstream press requested their release?
Only one says so, the Washington Post, who only received about 6 of 100 pages of records, and not the journals.

25. Has there been “more smoke than wood” in much of this public debate?
Yes, in my opinion. That is why I wrote the above.

SIR, HAVE YOU NO SHAME? KERRY'S MISUSE OF CLELAND

Friend of Horsefeathers, Ruth King, submits the following timely observations on the uses of victimhood:

IT WAS A SCENE THAT COULD HAVE BEEN ORCHESTRATED BY MICHAEL MOORE: POOR MAX CLELAND, VIETNAM VETERAN, TRIPLE AMPUTEE IN A WHEEL CHAIR, OUT IN THE SWELTERING TEXAS SUN TRYING TO DELIVER A LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT.

IT WAS REVOLTING, AND KERRY SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF HIMSELF. CLELAND WON NO MEDALS FOR HIS HORRIBLE INJURIES BECAUSE THEY WERE SELF INFLICTED IN AN ACCIDENT, BUT THERE HE WAS, RUNNING AN ERRAND FOR KERRY WHO WON MEDALS FOR SURFACE WOUNDS. CLELAND HAS BECOME KERRY'S POSTER BOY- WHAT A TERRIBLE WASTE.HE WAS DEFEATED AT THE POLLS, NOT BY HANGING CHADS, BUT BY A MAJORITY VOTE AGAINST HIM. NONETHELESS KERRY USED HIM AT THE CONVENTION AND CONTINUES TO USE HIM.

DID KERRY EVER HIRE DISABLED PEOPLE IN HIS SENATE STAFF? DID HE EVER MAKE ANY SPEECH ABOUT "AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES"? IS THERE ANY LEGISLATION BEARING HIS NAME ABOUT DISABLED AMERICANS?

MAX CLELAND IS CRUELLY USED AND INFLICTS DAMAGE ON HIMSELF. HE COULD HAVE TURNED HIS REMARKABLE ACHIEVEMENTS IN SPITE OF SUCH HANDICAPS INTO A CRUSADE FOR THE DISABLED...LECTURED TO AND INSPIRED YOUNGSTERS, GIVEN HOPE AND COMFORT TO AMPUTEES, VICTIMS OF ACCIDENTS, INJURED VETERANS ETC. INSTEAD THERE HE IS A PATHETIC SIGHT, SHILLING FOR KERRY WHILE THE LATTER SITS IN AIR-CONDITIONED COMFORT WHINING AND NEIGHING ABOUT THE "SWIFTIES."--Ruth King

August 26, 2004

DIRTY LITTLE SECRET: THE PURPLE HEART SCAM

        When I served as a Navy psychiatrist from 1967-69 at St. Alban's Naval Hospital I heard the war stories of hundreds of courageous, wounded men. Astonishing tales of selfless sacrifice were told by modest men who suffered from uneasy doubt about whether they'd done enough, and were subsequently troubled by depression and anxiety. They were invariably reluctant to talk about themselves and never, ever boasted of what they'd done. They possessed dignity, and in fact tended to be too self demanding and self-critical.
        In addition to these men, who often suffered the guilt of survivors, there were of course the schemers and scammers, the sociopaths, troublemakers and cowards. There were the prevaricators and the braggarts---and all of them somehow found their way to the psychiatrist. They were behavior problems for their unit commanders and their fellow soldiers. There was almost never anything that could be done, because these were individuals with character pathology that consisted primarily in projection (blaming others for their failings) and denial (fabricating a self-flattering heroic reality). They were immature, self-absorbed narcissists, who cared little about their fellow warriors. Unlike the modest heros who often suffered psychological torment, these few never did, because they were always ready to blame others for their own failings. These schemers were often quite clever in their search for ways to evade combat. A standard procedure was to fake psychosis, a psychosis which miraculously vanished upon leaving Vietnam. Another way out, known to all physicians, was to claim minor scrapes and bruises were battle wounds, worthy of a purple heart. Three and you're out. Now, in the wake of John Kerry's strutting warrior pose, questionable purple hearts and 4 months in country, one of those physicians is speaking out.

'Trying to acquire Purple Hearts'
By Martin L. Fackler
"I served as a combat surgeon in DaNang, (U.S. Naval Support Hospital) from Dec. 10, 1967, through Dec. 11, 1968. While there, I evaluated and treated hundreds of severely wounded combatants.
During my year in DaNang, a few combatants urged me to verify small abrasions as "wounds" so they could get a Purple Heart. Each freely admitted trying to acquire Purple Hearts as rapidly as possible to take advantage of the policy allowing those with three Purple Hearts to apply to leave Vietnam early. I refused them. But some went shopping for another opinion. Unfortunately, we had some antiwar physicians in Vietnam who were happy to become accomplices in these frauds. Most with valid Purple Hearts didn't need to apply to leave Vietnam: The seriousness of their wounds demanded it. Lt. John Kerry's collecting three Purple Hearts within 100 days — all for wounds too minor to require hospitalization — recalls the distasteful memories of having to deal with those few miscreants in DaNang. More disturbing is the revelation that crewmen on Mr. Kerry's boat denied they had received any gunfire from shore at the time when Lt. Kerry claimed such gunfire had caused his wound..."

See the rest here.

August 25, 2004

VANITY THY NAME IS KERRY

"I am saddened that Vietnam has yet again been inserted into the campaign."

-JOHN F. KERRY--1992

"...For why did Wolsey by the Steps of Fate,
On weak Foundations raise th' enormous Weight
Why but to sink beneath Misfortune's Blow,
With louder Ruin to the Gulphs below?..."

--The Vanity Of Human Wishes, by Samuel Johnson

        Ignoring his own advice to candidates for President in 1992, John Kerry inserted Vietnam at the center of the 2004 campaign. Horsefeathers is not saddened, but rather welcomes his doing so. Why? Because more important even than who becomes President, is the need to redress, as much as possible, the harm done by Mr. Kerry to so many honorable men. That is happening, as his fellow Vietnam veterans weigh in on the character of this bloviating braggart who took the first opportunity he could to bug out on his 'band of brothers', then built a career trashing them as war criminals, like "Jen-Jus Khan". Yes, indeed, 'Bring it on'. Mark Steyn thinks Kerry is stupid: "...What sort of idiot would make the centrepiece of his presidential campaign four months of proud service in a war he's best known for opposing?.." Horsefeathers is more inclined to think that, like many intelligent people, Kerry is driven by self-defeating forces of which he is utterly unaware. And if his campaign is collapsing under the 'enormous weight' of his own past, thereby costing him the Presidency, well that would be psychologically fitting, and provide some small solace to those who believe that punishment deferred is better than punishment escaped.

August 24, 2004

HORSEFEATHERS GOES BALTIC

(Posted by Dr. R. for Dr. K.)

If you have a very short attention span, cruising is for you. If you have a bee-like mind that alights on a flower, sucks it dry of nectar and moves on, cruising is for you. If you have a cognitive style characterized by short, superficial bursts of observation that result in profound generalizations and deeply held beliefs that are confidently asserted and widely circulated, cruising is for you.

The rule is that you may not spend more than three hours in any port, usually accompanied by a guide who takes you to town halls, old churches, and souvenir shops. But you will be amazed what you can learn about the people of a country in a very short time, especially if you keep your eyes open and your mind closed. What follows are some notes written about the various peoples and places of north-eastern Europe.

Denmark

Denmark is a toy country. It is the kind of country that you’d expect to see in the windows of Lord and Taylor around Christmas time. It has a population of about five million, about the size of Chicago’s. It prides itself on its hundreds of windmill farms, which produce about 15 percent of its energy needs. It will never have nuclear power, the stylish guide says proudly. In fact, one third of the population rides bicycles everywhere, even though Denmark is one of the most prosperous countries in Europe. If you want to buy a car you must pay a two hundred percent tax on it. A $25,000 car will cost you $75,000. Copenhagen is charming and clean, and its people are calm and easy, and if our guide is representative, rather droll. They are also insufferably smug and holier-than-thou about their lifestyle and the righteous way they live.

Gdansk

Gdansk, hopelessly mutilated by the Nazis during the war, and then misprized for fifty years by the Soviets because it had once been Danzig, the queen of the Baltic and East Prussia, is now a small struggling city trying to climb its way out of poverty through hard work. But whereas Germany had access to capital through the Marshall Plan, Poland has few or no sources of capital to draw on for investment.

They try to bring money in through tourism but there is nothing to see in Gdansk—the Nazis destroyed everything. There are only a few facades of buildings that have been renovated to look like the 16th century trading houses of the old Hanseatic League. Everybody who doesn’t work in the port in Gdynia scrounges for tourist money by selling postcards or toys that sound like chickens cackling, or, if you are a young music student, playing a Mozart quartet in the town square. There is not much there, and so there is not much to remember.

Tallin

Estonia is a curious little country. It has a population of 1.5 million people, a little less than Queens’, a third of whom are Russians left over from the Soviet Union, who for whatever reason have chosen to stay in Estonia. It seems most proud of its long history of being conquered. It has been conquered by just about every country in Europe north of the Mason-Dixon line: Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Germany, etc. Its two major industries are timber and tourism. And except for Tallin, its capital, there is not much there except forests. The “old town,” of which there is much left, is medieval, the new town is just old and run down. But there is a hopeful spirit there that is missing from Gdansk.

St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg, aka Petrograd, aka Leningrad, aka St. Petersburg was invented by Peter the Great about three hundred years ago because he wanted Russia to have more contact with the West. He saw that Russia was hopelessly backward and hoped to create a window on the West so that Russians might take as a model the advances that the enlightenment had brought to Western Europe. Alas, even after three hundred years Russia still has a lot of catching up to do.

St. Petersburg is still the Second World. As we walked down the gangplank to the quay, we heard the sounds of a lively little brass band playing “Hold that Tiger,” and then “There’ll Always Be an England,” then “God Save the Queen.” At first we all thought that this was a cheerful introduction to the city arranged by the city fathers. But then we realized that this was only a group of elderly musicians scrounging a few rubles from tourists wherever and whenever they could. Our early pleasure turned to sadness as we grasped that these were once professional musicians who were reduced to degrading themselves for tourists playing the “Tiger Rag.” Wherever we went in St. Petersburg we saw such musicians, sometimes a soloist, sometimes a group of three or four scrounging for a few coins in front of tourist attractions. In front of the eighteenth century Peterhof Palace they had donned silly looking powdered wigs as they played what they thought would please the endless parade of tourists. Sad, very sad.

St. Petersburg was the only place in Europe where we had to show our passports and get landing cards from passport control on leaving the ship. We were warned that unless you had an individual visa, you were obliged to stay with the group. This entailed getting and giving up our landing cards several times during our thirty-six hour stay. And passport control was deadly serious as they examined our passports and looked—not glanced—at us to make sure our faces matched our pictures. They appeared to mean business.

There is no better example of the Second Law of Thermodynamics—entropy— which says that things tend to break down and become degraded unless they are supplied with energy, than St. Petersburg. The place has broken down, is breaking down, or is about to break down. Most things are in a state of disrepair, cracked, in need of paint, pot-holes everywhere.

Although most people on the street wear cheaply made clothes there are plenty of cars on the street—Hondas, Toyotas, Fords—and according to one of our guides most people go off on weekends to their summer cottage and their vegetable gardens.

“You are forbidden to take pictures without a charge.” This sign appears in the Peterhof Palace and in most museums. In fact the phrase “You are forbidden…” appears constantly in public places and casts a pall over Western sensibilities. It is a manifestation of an authoritarianism that Americans are not used to. It is easy to feel that officials—public servants—in this country have power over you rather than that they are there to serve you.

An example will suffice. On the bus on the way back from a performance of the ballet “Giselle,” the bus driver turned on the bus radio to some American pop-music sung by a Russian in heavily accented English. The music was loud, unpleasant and totally out of keeping with the beautiful performance we had just seen and heard.

At first we all thought that as soon as the bus started the driver would turn the music off. But he didn’t, and after about ten minutes of this obnoxious situation, I made my way up to the front of the bus and spoke to the uniformed woman who seemed to be in charge of the bus. “Couldn’t you turn that music down,” I said querulously, “It is very loud and unpleasant.”

“Loud? Unpleasant? Why is it unpleasant?” she asked sharply, acting as though I had insulted Russian culture. I opened my mouth to say ‘Listen you Russky apparatchik, I didn’t come four thousand miles and spend a hundred and fifty bucks on this concert to have you ruin it with a lot of Russky pop trash.’ But just at that moment the Goddess-of-Safe-Return sped down from Mount Olympus and wrapped my mind in a cloud of tact. The serious man at passport control flashed into my mind and I realized that I was still in the Second World, Glasnost or not. “It is very loud,” I said, “and my wife is getting a headache.” She turned and barked a command to the driver, who switched the radio off. As I returned to my seat a round of applause and cheering went up. “Well done,” a voice in the back of the bus shouted. The rest of the group, all Brits, were too polite to say anything on the bus, but kept coming up to me the next day, on the deck and in the dining room, to thank me for taking action. What would they do without us?

One of the highlights of St. Petersburg was Ludmilla, one of our tour guides, who told it like it is in Russia. She is a fat, ugly, middle-aged woman who had lived in Holland for many years before returning to her native St. Petersburg. She is very intelligent and witty, with a sardonic sense of humor, especially about Russian men, who are like mentally defective children, she says.

While the rest of the passengers on the tour were off shopping we were able to have a nice chat with her. She says that the two main problems in St. Petersburg are the unending influx of Chechen Muslims and the pervasive corruption in government. The Chechens are primitive and do not want to learn the ways of city life. They take over a neighborhood and make it so threatening that the Russians move out. And there is no law enforcement available to protect the ordinary citizen from them.

What about the Hermitage? Ah yes, the Hermitage. Isn’t that First World? Well, yes and no. Catherine the Great started the collection in the eighteenth century. She was not a connoisseur—Catherine’s collecting, like her sex life, emphasized quantity over quality—and she bought art wholesale to fill the space on her many walls. Her representatives all over Europe made arrangements with dealers to buy various collections that came on the market. You can imagine that dealers took the opportunity to get rid of lots of inventory that wasn’t moving. And, of course, this process of wholesale art buying went on for two hundred years. The net result is a huge collection of art with a handful of masterpieces and the remainder made up of objects that are often not quite top of the line. The Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection is perhaps the best—because it was purchased for the Tsar by an industrialist who knew the artists and something about art. If you are impressed by the quantity of art rather than its quality, then the Hermitage is the museum for you.

HELSINKI

Helsinki is surely the neatest and cleanest city in Europe. There is no garbage visible at all and almost no graffiti. The streetcars are beautiful, and everything seems to be the opposite image of St. Petersburg. Here everything works, and looks well. There are no grand or even beautiful buildings, only well designed ones. Moderation, modesty, simplicity, common sense, are all words that seem to fit Finland. The people are friendly, polite, and appear to live comfortable lives. One could easily live a pleasant, dull life here. Words like “passion,” or “grandness,” probably do not appear in the vocabulary of that strange Finnish language. A psychoanalyst would go broke here.

August 23, 2004

THE RELIGION OF PEACEFUL BEHEADINGS IS ALSO THE RELIGION OF PEACEFUL HANGINGS

Girl, 16, hanged in public in Iran Fri. 20 Aug 2004

Iran Focus

On Sunday, August 15, a 16-year-old girl in the town of Neka, northern Iran, was executed. Ateqeh Sahaleh was hanged in public on Simetry Street off Rah Ahan Street at the city center.

The sentence was issued by the head of Neka’s Justice Department and subsequently upheld by the mullahs’ Supreme Court and carried out with the approval of Judiciary Chief Mahmoud Shahroudi.

In her summary trial, the teenage victim did not have any lawyer and efforts by her family to recruit a lawyer was to no avail. Ateqeh personally defended herself. She told the religious judge, Haji Rezaii, that he should punish the main perpetrators of moral corruption not the victims.

The judge personally pursued Ateqeh’s death sentence, beyond all normal procedures and finally gained the approval of the Supreme Court. After her execution Rezai said her punishment was not execution but he had her executed for her “sharp tongue”.

NEVER RESTING NEVER SLEEPING: THE NYTIMES AGENDA ROLLS ON

        Helped along by the post-modern liberal media Sen. Kerry has carefully crafted a war hero persona. He is a courageous warrior with a sensitive side who therefore deserves to be President. At the same time, the liberal media have created a Bush persona they can feel superior to: He is the bellicose fool who offends the good hearted and well meaning folk around the world. He is not a glib wordsmith, so he can be ridiculed when he speaks. Here's an example of "reporting" that simply changes the facts to convey the wanted image. It won't surprise to learn that it's author is Elizabeth Bumiller of the NYTimes. The NYTimes has decided that any mention of 9-11's impact on the city would be "exploiting" a tragedy. Mentioning reality and reminding people of how the President handled things is not sufficiently sensitive to the delicate flowers of the NYTimes. It's unfair and will make them stamp their feet and feel abused. Here is Bumiller's description of Bush's visit and the words he spoke in the ruins of the World Trade Center:

"...the convention's timing would remind voters of what the campaign considers Mr. Bush's finest hour - the moment he grabbed the bullhorn in the rubble at the tip of Manhattan and shouted that the people who had knocked down the buildings would hear from him soon..."

        Thus we see the liberal spinning of history in which mere facts are discarded. Instead we are given a self centered, bellicose president: he grabs, he shouts, he shouts what he is going to do to the perpetrators. The focus is entirely on Bush's personal response to bin Laden and the terrorists. He's mister macho man, looking for an excuse to fight. Only one trouble: he never uttered the clumsy, self referential words Bumiller casually attributes to him. Here's what he was inspired to say and it's obvious why it was so perfect for the moment, embracing all of us in the resolve to fight back. It was not a lengthy Clinton style, all-about-me peroration. It was clear, to the point and inspiring.

"..I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon..."

I guess when President Bush spoke for all of us he shouldn't have included the reporters from the New York Times.

August 22, 2004

JOHN KERRY'S LEARNING CURVE

"..I would like to talk to you a little bit about what the result is of the feelings these men carry with them after coming back from Vietnam. The country doesn't know it yet, but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence..."
--John Kerry in Congressional testimony, 1971

"..Our band of brothers doesn't march together because of who we are as veterans, but because of what we learned as soldiers.

We fought for this nation because we loved it, and we came back with the deep belief that every day is extra. We may be a little older, we may be a little grayer, but we still know how to fight for our country..."
--John Kerry speaking to the Democratic convention, 2004

August 21, 2004

JOHN KERRY'S SELF INVENTION: 'NARRATIVE TRUTH' COLLIDES WITH HISTORY

        Vietnam veterans share painful memories. Among them is the experience of returning to the United States to be spat upon and screamed at as baby killers, by the anti-war left. As difficult as that was, it was more painful for many when a fellow veteran like John Kerry returned from battle to be spokesman for those accusing our troops of widespread atrocities. What tends to be forgotten is that while he was making his public anti-war speeches, there were Americans languishing in North Vietnamese prisons. Some, like John Mc'Cain, have been able to forgive and forget. Who can dispute that this has been the most satisfactory personal way he could find to deal with memories of war crimes inflicted on him by his captors? However, for some those memories can't be so readily transcended, especially when Kerry himself deletes all but 4 months from his own resume. In his vanity, sounding more like another bloviating soldier, Baron Munchausen than Audie Murphy, Kerry thinks he can salute, report for duty, and sell a heroic self-narrative to a public looking for a strong war leader. Many, many veterans refuse to become props in this grand, post-modern narrative. They are angry. They remember Kerry, the anti-war leader, not the Kerry presented at the Democratic convention. They don't believe that truth consists in a plausible and compelling narrative. They refuse to acquiesce in Kerry's attempt to shove important elements of the past down the memory hole. For this they have brought down on themselves the full wrath of the liberal establishment sensing their chance at victory is doomed if Kerry's post-modern self invention is challenged. Here are some surviving POW's offering a corrective to Kerry's updated for prime time, personal version of Vietnam:

Comments of former POW, MIKE BENGE

I keep hearing Vietnam Veteran everytime this joker makes a speech. Below adds some perspective.

As Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, considers a bid for the White House, Americans should know a few things about him that he might prefer go unmentioned - and I don't mean his $75 haircuts.

When Mr. Kerry pontificated at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Veterans Day, a group of veterans turned their backs on him and walked away. They remembered Mr. Kerry as the anti-war activist who testified before Congress during the war, accusing veterans of being war criminals. The dust jacket of Mr. Kerry's pro-Hanoi book, "The New Soldier," features a photograph of his ragged band of radicals mocking the U.S. Marine Corps Memorial, which depicts the flag-raising on Iwo Jima, with an upside-down American flag.

Retired Gen. George S. Patton III charged that Mr. Kerry's actions as an anti-war activist had "given aid and comfort to the enemy," as had the actions of Ramsey Clark and Jane Fonda. Also, Mr. Kerry lied when he threw what he claimed were his war medals over the White House fence; he later admitted they weren't his. Now they are displayed on his office wall.

Long after he changed sides in congressional hearings, Mr. Kerry lobbied for renewed trade relations with Hanoi. At the same time, his cousin C. Stewart Forbes, chief executive for Colliers International, assisted in brokering a $905 million deal to develop a deep-sea port at Vung Tau, Vietnam ??? an odd coincidence.

As noted in the Inside Politics column of Nov. 14 (Nation), historian Douglas Brinkley is writing Mr. Kerry's biography. Hopefully, he'll include the senator's latest ignominious feat: preventing the Vietnam Human Rights Act (HR2833) from coming to a vote in the Senate, claiming human rights would deteriorate as a result. His actions sent a clear signal to Hanoi that Congress cares little about the human rights for which so many Americans fought and died.

The State Department ranked Vietnam among the 10 regimes worldwide least tolerant of religious freedom. Recently, 354 churches of the Montagnards, a Christian ethnic minority, were forcibly disbanded, and by mid-October, more than 50 Christian pastors and elders had been arrested in Dak Lak province alone. On Oct. 29, the secret police executed three Montagnards by lethal injection simply for protesting religious repression. The communists are conducting a pogrom against the Montagnards, forcing Christians to drink a mixture of goat's blood and alcohol and renounce Christianity. Thousands have been killed or imprisoned or have just "disappeared." The Montagnards lost one-half of their adult male population fighting for the United States, and without them, there might be thousands more American names on that somber black granite wall at the Vietnam memorial.

As Mr. Kerry contemplates a run for the presidency, people must remember that he has fought harder for Hanoi as an anti-war activist and a senator than he did against the Vietnamese communists while serving in the Navy in Vietnam.

MICHAEL BENGE Foreign Service officer and former Vietnam POW (1968 to 1973)
See the accounts of others here.

August 20, 2004

JOHN KERRY'S BAND OF VICTIMS

Contemporary Liberalism has become a shared faith, whose belief system raises victimhood to the highest status level. No wonder; if one can assume the stance of aggrieved and abused victim there's no need to respond rationally to criticism. All such criticism is assumed to be basely motivated and abusive. Freed from the constraints of rational argumentation, it then becomes alright to do to critics what you claim is being done to you. For a perfect example of this projective mental operation, read Michelle Malkin's description of Chris Matthews's behavior towards her on MSNBC's Hard Ball. Matthews's loutishness is probably symptomatic of the panic now sweeping through the Kerry supporting mainstream media. Here's a sample:
"...Are you saying he shot himself on purpose?" Matthews hammered. I repeated myself again clearly that I was referring to the allegations about self-inflicted wounds in the book. When I tried to explain that the vets who were with Kerry had cast a lot of doubt on whether enemy fire occurred during the first two incidents, Matthews cut me off again. "Why did you say that?" he badgered. Because, I said, I was talking about what was in the book, which he had admitted he hadn't read.

"Don't you wonder?" I asked.

"No, I don't," he bellowed. "It's never occurred to me."

With that, I was kicked off the second segment.

As the show broke for commercials, Matthews scrambled for his producers to see if what he said was true. And I'm irresponsible? One staffer ran to the office where I had left my copy of the book, and handed it to Matthews, who--for the first time, apparently--started flipping through it. I asked for my book back and politely said thank you. After I left, he trashed me again on the air and his scurrilous charges were repeated by his MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann, who called me an "idiot."

I am used to playing hardball. I expect it. I am used to ad hominem attacks. I get more in a day than most of these wussies have received in their lifetimes. But what happened last night was pure slimeball and the unfair, unbalanced, and unhinged purveyors of journalism, or whatever it is they call what they do at MSNBC, should be ashamed.

What I take away from all this is that the Democrat Party waterboys in the media are in full desperation mode. I have now witnessed firsthand and up close (Matthews' spittle nearly hit me in the face) how the pressure from alternative media sources--the blogosphere, conservative Internet forums, talk radio, Regnery Publishing, FOX News, etc. --is driving these people absolutely batty.

Keep bringing it on..."

Read the rest here.

August 18, 2004

HORSEFEATHERS ON THE HIGH SEAS

HORSEFEATHERS’ LOG: DAY 1 AND 2
Dateline: August 14 and 15 aboard the Minerva II in Copenhagen Harbor
(posted by Dr. R. for Dr. K.)
Technical note: Horsefeathers may not be able to transmit on a daily basis via the internet from this ship as we hoped. The reason is that in order to use the ship’s internet computer setup we would be subject to confiscatory charges for each minute of use—about fifty cents/minute. At the glacial speed that Horsefeathers composes we would be ruined in a matter of days. At the moment we are trying to find a way around this bottleneck. Mathias, a nice computer guy on the ship’s staff has promised to help out, but I don’t know how much we can depend on him.
The Minerva II is about three years old and is big—about 500 feet long, 80 feet in the beam, twelve stories high, and weighs thirty thousand tons. It is no aircraft carrier, but it is handsome and reassuringly staunch. There are five hundred or so passengers—mostly British—and a crew of three hundred. The Officers are “British and European” and the crew are “mainly Filipino [males] and Ukrainian [females].” The Filipinos are sunny, helpful, and grateful for the regular work, the Ukrainian women, one senses, are secretly derisive of these rich, spoiled children at play.

But the “British and European” officers run a brilliantly shipshape vessel. Everything works like clockwork and the running of the ship is very serious business. Within a few hours of boarding the passengers were required to participate in an emergency drill. We were told that when we heard the signal we must get our life-preservers and proceed to our “muster station” where we were taught how to don the preserver, how to abandon ship—don’t jump off, step off—and what to do if you see someone fall overboard: we were relieved to discover that we did not have to observe politically correct rules and shout “person overboard,” “man overboard” is still allowed at sea.

HORSEFEATHERS LOG: DAY 3 AND 4

Dateline August 16 and 17 enroute from Gdynia to Talinn

There is no doubt that if Dr. Johnson had booked passage on the Minerva II he would never have said what he did. He would have loved the trip. The public rooms are spacious, commodious, filled with comfortable chairs, Persian rugs, and there is easy access to good whiskey, brandy, port wine and sherry. There is a fabulous library with several thousand of the most interesting books. There is the unabridged OED, a Greek-English lexicon, and even a concordance to Shakespeare.

Our cabin is cozy and comfortable, with plenty of room for a queen sized bed. It has a floor to ceiling window which slides open to a small balcony where we can sit and enjoy the sun and sea privately. The bathroom in our cabin would have been a little tight for Dr. Johnson, but for us it works fine.

A word or two about the food. It seems to be enjoyed heartily by the Brits aboard. That is because they understand the fundamental idea behind it, and that is that British food partakes of certain military virtues that kept the Empire going for three hundred years. It is, first of all, sanitary: it is cooked until all disease is permanently eliminated. Then it is, of course, like everything else British, built to last. Thus, one does not look for delicacy or tenderness from British autos, footwear, or food.

August 17, 2004

IT'S THE "WAR ON TERROR" NO MORE

        Horsefeathers has long argued that the war we are in is not a "war on terror", and that calling it such reflected a struggle within George Bush between the warrior and the 'We Are The World', kinder, gentler P.C. conservative. By refraining from naming the enemy, he sought to maintain the multi-cultural fantasy that "Islam means peace". From the beginning though, he also recognized that our enemies are totalitarians who, like the Nazis and Communists before them, wish to impose their ideology--Wahhabi Islam--on the rest of us, or at least on those who remain alive after they annihilate as many Jews and Christians as possible. While Bush has been relentlessly attacked by Liberals as a far too aggressive Cowboy, it has actually been the politically correct W. who has worried Horsefeathers. He seemed too ready to embrace any and all Muslims first, while saving questions about their ideology for later. At times, during the war itself, he seemed to hesitate from using force to annihilate our enemies out of fear of igniting their hatred. But this seemed foolish since they hated us to begin with, and we know their backward and cowardly minds become submissive in the face of overwhelming force. Now, however, the man whom liberals apoplectically accuse of never admitting a mistake, has made a huge admission by saying, "...We actually misnamed the war on terror. It ought to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world. And, you know, that's what they do. They use terror, and they use it effectively..." So it seems the conflict within the mind of the President has tilted in the direction of naming the enemy. Daniel Pipes hails this, while asking the President to go one step further and label those "ideological extremists" as "Islamists".
        Horsefeathers remembers that Paul Revere's midnight message was not "our enemies the muskets are coming".

"...For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere. "

        We trust America will hear the President's midnight message and not lapse back to sleep on November 2.

August 15, 2004

Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004)

        In the mid '50's Horsefeathers read the first challenge to his youthful left wing utopian political fantasies. It was The Captive Mind, by the Polish writer Czeslaw Milosz and, like Orwell, but with first hand knowledge, he described totalitarian barbarism in pursuit of utopian goals. More than that, Milosz made clear that totalitarianim wants and needs to control the minds of its subjects. Now that we are engaged in World War IV with the new totalitarians- Jew and Christian hating followers of Islam, Milosz's stilled voice will continue to speak to us. Milosz was a resident of Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. He witnessed the destruction of the ghetto and published the following poem in an underground newspaper on the first anniversary of the ghetto revolt, April 19, 1944. The title, Campo dei Fiori, is a reference to the market place in Rome where, in 1600, the heretic Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake by order of the Inquisition.

Campo dei Fiori

In Rome on the Campo dei Fiori
baskets of olives and lemons,
cobbles spattered with wine
and the wreckage of flowers.
Vendors cover the trestles
with rose-pink fish;
armfuls of dark grapes
heaped on peach-down.
On this same square
they burned Giordano Bruno,
Henchmen kindled the pyre
close-pressed by the mob.
Before the flames had died
the taverns were full again,
baskets of olives and lemons
again on the vendors' shoulders.

I thought of the Campo dei Fiori
in Warsaw by the sky-carousel
one clear spring evening
to the strains of a carnival tune.
The bright melody drowned
the salvos from the ghetto wall,
and couples were flying
high in the cloudless sky.

At times wind from the burning
would drift dark kites along
and riders on the carousel
caught petals in midair.
That same hot wind
blew open the skirts of the girls
and the crowds were laughing
on that beautiful Warsaw Sunday.

Someone will read as moral
that the people of Rome or Warsaw
haggle, laugh, make love
as they pass by martyrs' pyres.
Someone else will read
of the passing of things human,
of the oblivion
born before the flames have died.

But that day I thought only
of the loneliness of the dying,
of how, when Giordano
climbed to his burning
he could not find
in any human tongue
words for mankind,
mankind who live on.

Already they were back at their wine
or peddled their white starfish,
baskets of olives and lemons
they had shouldered to the fair,
and he already distanced
as if centuries had passed
while they paused just a moment
for his flying in the fire.

Those dying here, the lonely
forgotten by the world,
our tongue becomes for them
the language of an ancient planet.
Until, when all is legend
and many years have passed,
on a new Campo dei Fiori
rage will kindle at a poet's word.

August 13, 2004

THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS (CAMBODIAN VERSION)

The Horsefeathers poetry corner thanks Ruth King for sending us this tribute to John F. Kerry, by another fellow Vietnam vet, Russ Vaughn:

'Twas the night before Christmas and we were afloat
Somewhere in Cambodia in our little boat.
While the river was lightened by rockets red glare
No one but the President knew we were there.

The crew was all nestled deep down in their bunks,
While the Spook and I watched the sampans and junks.
Our mission was secret, so secret in fact,
No one else would remember it when we got back.

When out on the water there arose such a clatter
I leaped down from the bridge to see what was the matter.
The incoming friendly was starting to flash
And I knew that the ARVN’s were having a bash.

The snap of friendly fire on the warm tropic air
Convinced me for sure no one knew we were there,
On a clandestine mission so secret it’s true
That I’m still convinced only Tricky Dick knew.

While I huddled for safety in the tub on the bow,
I thought of a title, “Apocalypse Now.”
To give to the films I was I making each day
To show all the voters when I made my big play.

As I sat there sweating in my lucky flight jacket,
Spook said, “Merry Christmas!” and tossed me a packet.
And what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a new lucky cap, which I still have right here.

I keep it tucked here, in this leather brief case,
Just sharing with the press its secretive place
As I regale them again with my senate refrain,
That Christmas in Cambodia is seared into my brain.

Don’t bother to quibble with history my friend,
By pointing out Johnson was President then.
Don’t listen to Swiftees who try to explain,
For I tell you that night is seared into my brain.

Down Hibbard, down Lonsdale, and you too O’Neill,
So you don’t remember? Well it’s something I feel.
I don’t need all you Swiftvets to support my campaign,
Cause Christmas in Cambodia is seared into my brain,

Into my brain, into my brain, into my brain...

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

<< Back to Horsefeathers