Much has been made over the years about the GOP’s superior ability to frame debate. “Tax Relief” is the classic example of Republican phrasing that has no democratic counter for opposing policy. Similarly, it is almost always the Republicans who fare much better at defining themselves and their opponents.
A comparison of this with the last election season is an educational look at the way this paradigm extends to military service.
Few will forget anytime soon the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth and their campaign to attack Senator John Kerry’s military record. Kerry is a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War who willfully joined the Navy Reserve in 1966, during his senior year at Yale. In 1968, while serving stateside, he requested duty in Vietnam. He was awarded three Purple Hearts, the second for an injury that left RPG shrapnel in his leg which remains there to this day. He did not spend any time away from active duty because of this injury. He received a Silver Star, an award given to US military personnel for galantry in action (here’s the citation for that award) and a Bronze Star for rescuing a green beret who had been knocked overboard from an explosion close to the boat. His third Purple Heart was awarded for injuries he sustained in the explosion.
Yet the SwiftVets commanded considerable media attention in 2004 with their claims that Kerry’s awards and accolades were undeserved. They challenged the validity of injuries for which he was awarded Purple Hearts. They claimed they were deliberately self-inflicted so that he could earn medals which would get him discharged from Vietnam. They falsely claimed that he lied before Congress and that he portrayed his fellow service members as “baby killers”. They said his account of the event that earned him a Silver Star was a lie, that his claim of turning the three swiftboats he commanded toward enemy fire from a shoreline ambush, running his boat aground and chasing a Viet Cong soldier armed with an RPG into the thick was a gross fabrication. They said in fact he had shot a wounded and fleeing teenager in the back.
(For some of my previous work in debunking the SwiftVets’ lies, see posts 27, 41 and 371 here)
Despite the fact that most of the SwiftVet’s significant claims were exposed as exaggerations, unsubstantiated assumptions and often enough, outright lies, the SwiftVets were never really discredited in the mainstream media. Representatives of the SwiftVets were frequent guests on cable, national network news, local affiliate TV and they dominated talk radio for three solid months, from early August to late October in 2004.
Fast foward to 2008.
Last month we saw Gen. Wesley Clark absolutely eviscerated by the mainstream media for stating on CBS’ Face The Nation, “I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.” It simply blew me away that such a statement would draw any significant ire. First, however crass some might or might not find it, it’s certainly true. The notion that getting shot down singularly qualified John McCain for the Presidency is simply absurd. Saying so isn’t blasphemous. Second, Clark did not offer this statement up out of the blue as an attempt to belittle or discredit McCain’s military service. It was Schieffer who introduced the notion of getting shot down as a Presidential qualifier:
SCHIEFFER: Well, you — you went so far as to say that you thought John McCain was, quote — and these are your words — “untested and untried.” And I must say, I had to read that twice, because you’re talking about somebody who was a prisoner of war. He was a squadron commander of the largest squadron in the Navy. He’s been on the Senate Armed Services Committee for lo these many years — how can you say that John McCain is untested and untried, General?CLARK: Because in the matters of national security policy-making, it’s a matter of understanding risk. It’s a matter of gauging your opponents, and it’s a matter of being held accountable. John McCain’s never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands of millions of others in the Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Air — in the Navy that he commanded, it wasn’t a wartime squadron. He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn’t seen what it’s like when diplomats come in and say, “I don’t know whether we’re going to be able to get this point through or not. Do you want to take the risk? What about your reputation? How do we handle it” –
SCHIEFFER: Well –
CLARK: — “publicly?” He hasn’t made those calls, Bob.
SCHIEFFER: Well — well, General, maybe he –
CLARK: So –
SCHIEFFER: Could I just interrupt you? If –
CLARK: Sure.
SCHIEFFER: I have to say, Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down. I mean –
CLARK: Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.
SCHIEFFER: Really?
Third, Clark is a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War in his own right who was shot four times while there. Regardless, the media pounced on him for that single sentence as if he’d called McCain a deserter or worse.
The next night, The CBS Evening News said Clark had “dismissed John McCain’s military record as an irrelevance.”” A guest on ABC’s World News Tonight said the following, uncontested, ““This is almost the equivalent for them of an attack on Obama’s race by the McCain side. It’s just something you don’t do.” “
And the cable Nets were simply relentless, as it was the primary topic of the campaign for several days. The Obama campaign quickly cut their losses and disavowed the statement.
Interestingly, there is an Vietnam Veterans against John McCain PAC that actually has some loose ties to the SwiftVets. While I can’t imagine their claims are on the whole any less honest than those of the SwiftVets, they don’t get regular bookings on talk radio or cable news and most people have never heard of them.
UPDATE
In response to Daily Kos and others the questioning the validity of an anecdote McCain tell on the McCain trail about a compassionate guard in his North Vietnamese POW camp who drew a cross in the dirt, the McCain Campaign has released a statement which includes the following:
It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman’s memory of war from the comfort of mom’s basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others. John McCain has often said he witnessed a thousand acts of bravery while he was imprisoned, and though not every one has been submitted into the public record, they are remembered by the men who were there (one such only recently reported by Karl Rove though it escaped mention in any of Senator McCain’s books). But as Swindle said, this is a “desperate group of people trying to make something out of nothing.”
Where were you in 2004 when the target was John Kerry, Mr. Senator?
