This campaign is all about contrasts, and there are few better than the one between “Swiftboat Veterans for Truth” and “Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change.” One is real; the other isn’t.
The Swiftboat Vets made a splash early last month with a couple of high-profile media events in which the veterans attacked John Kerry for his heroic military record. The group complained, in particular, about Kerry’s post-war protests. Joe Conason took a closer look and discovered that the group was little more than a GOP-orchestrated smear effort, organized by the same right-wing operatives who went after John McCain and his military record during the GOP primaries in 2000.
It was, unfortunately, a largely successful smear. The group’s attacks generated high-profile stories in all the major papers and the Kerry campaign was briefly put on the defensive.
So on one side we have Vietnam vets, some of whom never served a day with John Kerry, attacking the Dem as “unfit” for office in order to help Bush. Who’s on the other side? An impressive group of former military and diplomatic officials, including Republicans, who believe Bush has undermined our national security and needs to be replaced.
A group of 26 former senior diplomats and military officials, several appointed to key positions by Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, plans to issue a joint statement this week arguing that President George W. Bush has damaged America’s national security and should be defeated in November.
The group, which calls itself Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, will explicitly condemn Bush’s foreign policy, according to several of those who signed the document.
“It is clear that the statement calls for the defeat of the administration,” said William C. Harrop, the ambassador to Israel under President Bush’s father and one of the group’s principal organizers.
Those signing the document, which will be released in Washington on Wednesday, include 20 former U.S. ambassadors, appointed by presidents of both parties, to countries including Israel, the former Soviet Union and Saudi Arabia.
Others are senior State Department officials from the Carter, Reagan and Clinton administrations and former military leaders, including retired Marine Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, the former commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East under President Bush’s father.
True, none of these officials are particularly famous or recognized outside their fields, but then again, neither were any of the Swiftboat Vets group.
But this isn’t really about name recognition. As the LA Times’ Ron Brownstein explained, “It is unusual for so many former high-level military officials and career diplomats to issue such an overtly political message during a presidential campaign.”
That’s putting it mildly. These officials, many of whom served with Reagan and Bush I, have largely avoided politics and campaigns throughout their careers, but are so concerned about this Bush’s policies, they feel compelled to speak out and urge Americans to choose a better leader. That’s a pretty unusual occurrence that deserves far more attention than some front group organized by some GOP hacks to raise baseless questions about a war hero’s credentials.
Jack F. Matlock Jr., ambassador to the Soviet Union under Reagan and the first Bush, explained a bit about why the officials feel this is necessary.
“Ever since Franklin Roosevelt, the U.S. has built up alliances in order to amplify its own power,” he said. “But now we have alienated many of our closest allies, we have alienated their populations. We’ve all been increasingly appalled at how the relationships that we worked so hard to build up have simply been shattered by the current administration in the method it has gone about things.”
I also liked the way Phyllis E. Oakley, the deputy State Department spokesman during Reagan’s second term and an assistant secretary of state under Clinton, put it.
“The core of the message is that we are so deeply concerned about the current direction of American foreign policy … that we think it is essential for the future security of the United States that a new foreign policy team come in,” said Oakley.