Bringing back one of my every-Friday features after a one-week hiatus, I thought I’d share some of my favorite Carpetbagger emails from this week. It’s a little segment I like to call the Correspondents’ Corner.
First up is an insightful email I received from a long-time reader, whom I fondly call Morbo. Sure, this email may seem a bit cynical, but I believe Morbo raises an excellent point. (Sorry, Morbo, I edited out a few profanities.)
Like you, I wondered why the GOP was making a big deal out of Kerry’s military service record, since it just serves to remind people that Kerry got five medals, got shot three times and saved a guy’s life while Bush was dodging Guard duty in Texas. Sounds like a dumb thing to do, right?
But I have this new theory that might explain it. It’s called the “I heard something about that on the news” theory of voter manipulation. It goes like this: The average American…doesn’t read a paper or even watch TV news or listen to it on the radio in a systematic way. He gets bits and pieces here and there, maybe sees a headline or two on the web when firing up Yahoo. So, all the GOP has to do is plant the seed, or the “news nugget.” In this case, the nugget planted is that Kerry did not really deserve his first Purple Heart. He won’t release his records. He has something to hide. Kerry responds by releasing his records. But the idiot only “heard something about that on the news.” What did he hear? That Kerry didn’t deserve his first Purple Heart? That he failed to provide his records in a timely manner?
It does not matter that a full story later comes out that exonerates Kerry and explains his service to the nation. Sure, you read it and I read it. The idiot…only saw a headline or “heard something in the news” about it.
I have my own version of this: sports and entertainment. I get all of my information about those things involuntarily through osmosis. I’m firing up Yahoo and I see a headline that Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz have split or that some sports team has won some game. Maybe I even hear people talking about it. I don’t care, but I “heard something about it on the news.” In this case, it is harmless because the “news” that two vacuous celebrities have split up does not influence my voting behavior. But the “news” about Kerry in Vietnam could affect the idiot’s vote….
Think about it. Maybe you’ll hear something about it on the news.
I’m afraid Morbo is right. The smear machine against Kerry (or whoever else it’s attacking on a daily basis) just needs to plant seeds of doubt in the public’s mind. It doesn’t matter if the smear is accurate, fair, or even based in reality. The smear machine releases the attack, Fox News and talk radio picks up on it, and it quickly becomes part of the story that people will “hear something about on the news.”
I received another interesting email from a reader named Josh Markowitz who was also troubled by the smear machine’s attacks on Kerry. Josh explored the fact that Kerry fought in a war he didn’t agree with, while Bush and Cheney avoided the war they did agree with.
What I think is missing from the debate over military service is not just that neither Bush nor Cheney served, but that they both are clearly lying when they say they supported the war.
When W was asked why he joined the National Guard, he stated, “I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes.” Obviously, there was another option available: serving his country if called upon to do so. Bush’s statement is completely irreconcilable with any statement that he “supported” the war. If he supported the war, why wasn’t serving his country even an option?
Cheney’s answer regarding why he did not serve shows equal contempt for service to his country: “I had better things to do in the 60s than fight in Vietnam.” Every single person who served, I am sure, “had better things to do,” but they served all the same (of course, most of those who served did not have the connections that Cheney had to enable them to avoid the war, the exception being John Kerry who could certainly have evaded service, but chose instead to enlist).
If these two “patriots” believed that the war was just and proper, why would they refuse to fight? Was their support qualified, in that they would support the war as long as they did not have to fight? If so, then by Kerry fighting, he certainly earned the right to criticize the war.
Now don’t get me wrong, I certainly understand why one would avoid the war, and had I been of draft age at the time, I would have done my damndest to avoid the war. Conscientious objectors were certainly justified in refusing to fight in that immoral war. However, for these two to claim they supported the war, while refusing to fight in it, and then accusing a certified war hero of embellishing his accomplishments and then “dishonoring” the tens of thousands of kids who died by criticizing the establishment, that is beyond disgusting.
The most ridiculous thing is when “patriots” say that Kerry gave aid and comfort to the enemy with his comments and thus cost men their lives. When Bush and Cheney ducked service, the Army did not decide to just go with two fewer people. Instead, two other American kids, most likely poor black kids, took their place. Who did more harm to those two soldiers, Kerry’s comments that helped fuel the antiwar movement that lead to de-escalation and ultimately withdrawal, or Bush and Cheney finding “better things to do”?
I think the question must be put to both how they can reconcile their comments with their avowed support of the war. Let them say they thought only the poor and the minorities should fight. Let them say that their lives were too important. Then let them criticize Kerry.