I hope that John Kerry will indeed be the last Presidential candidate who needs to...or can...use the Vietnam War as a recurring theme in his or her campaign (or as a bludgeon to use against his opponent.) I don't want to forget it...it is an informing scar on our collective history that should forever teach us lessons about the way we deal with the world...but I'm tired of it being used as a litmus test for the Presidency.
I was 17 when the war ended (I remember this well because as I neared my majority my mother and I disagreed on what role I might take if it were still going on when I was eligible for the draft...I was, however naively, leaning towards serving because that's what the country might ask me to do; she was adamantly opposed to that path for what she saw as a pointless war)...31 years later it is still informing our political discourse with disproportionate emphasis.
John Kerry's service in the war was brave and worthwhile (as was, in my opinion, his willingness to protest the war after returning home) but I'm more interested in hearing his ideas for the future than reliving his exploits from decades in the past. Constantly using his former shipmates and other Vietnam veterans as props for his campaign comes off as exploitive and cynical. (Yeah I know...imagine that, cynical exploitation in a political campaign...that never happens :-)
Presidents Bush and Clinton and Vice President Cheney used the options available to some people to avoid having to slog through the jungles of Southeast Asia and that's, when you get right down to it, a choice they made in their own best interests...the same choices that many, many others in a position to do so freely exercised. Not being able to walk in any of their shoes, I'm willing to accept that their reasons were...for them and at the time (which was, of course, very different from this time)...reasonable enough and let it go.
Remembering the war is important...wallowing in it for political gain is tedious and myopic...and yes, again, cynical and exploitive.
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"Hope is on the way"....thanks, John, I feel so much better now.
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I'm not Al Sharpton's biggest fan but I have to give him credit for going off-script (apparently he gave Kerry's "vetters" one speech and then proceeded to give another, much more passionate...and, apparently, 18 minutes longer than its allotted time... oratory.) The dull convention needed to slapped out of its collective, stage managed stupor with a little purely partisan, firebrand preaching and Reverend Al delivered just that.
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John Edwards' story of rags to riches is inspiring and all that. BUT millionaire lawyers who made their fortunes by getting large fees from malpractice suits really should spend less time trying to convince us poorer people that they're still one of us. However hardscrabble your youth, John, you...like Bill Clinton...are no longer "one of us" (anniversary dinners at Wendy's notwithstanding)...deal with it.
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