# Posted 8:49 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

DOES THE WEEKLY STANDARD TRUST THE SWIFT VETS? Friday's Daily Standard features no fewer than four articles about Kerry and Vietnam. Even though all of them are critical of Kerry and assert that he has disorted his service record, I was very surprised to see no real endorsement of any the accusations made by the Swift Vets.

In The Kerry Wars, Matthew Continetti engages in a detailed examination of the Swift Vets' charges. With regard to Kerry's Bronze Star and 3rd Purple Heart, Continetti writes that "The documentary evidence available so far backs Kerry's story" but generously concludes that "In the final analysis, however, such claims boil down to Kerry's word versus his opponents'."

Next, Continetti rips apart John Kerry's version of what happened in Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968. In three earlier posts (click here, here and here) I take positions on the issue very similar to Continetti's. There is no medal at stake in the Cambodia issue, however. Kerry's credibility is on the line to a certain extent, but not his record of heroism.

The weakest of the four pieces in the Standard is Bill Kristol's editorial proclaiming that

More than any presidential candidate since George McGovern, John Kerry is a creature of the anti-Vietnam war movement. His entire public career makes clear that he was and is--and I use this term descriptively, not pejoratively--a McGovernite. The difference is that George McGovern acknowledged this. John Kerry doesn't.

And he shouldn't. No true McGovernite -- including McGovern himself -- wanted to give Bush the authority to invade Iraq. Nor would a McGovernite have praised the invasion just after its success. Now it's true that Kerry's position on the war has been far from consistent, but that's exactly what distinguishes him from McGovern and the true Vietnam liberals.

Kristol's editorial also contains a strange allusion to Henry V. By asking how Henry might have felt if Exeter, Bedford and Westmoreland [Wasn't he also in Vietnam with Kerry? --ed.] had challenged his account of the battle at Agincourt, Kristol implies that there is something to the Swift Vets' accusation. Yet Kristol shies away from giving any sort of particulars.

Fred Barnes' essay focuses almost entirely on how tactless it is for Kerry to brag at every possible moment about his war record. At one point, Barnes asks:

Has a candidate's having heard "the thump" of mortars or seen the "flash of tracers" ever before been used as grounds for election?

His answer to the question is 'no'. But weren't all the attacks on Clinton for "dodging" the draft quite similar? Part of the issue with Clinton was that he wanted to avoid service while others were dying. But as I recall, critics also questioned whether Clinton was fit to serve as Commander-in-Chief.

Toward the end of his article, Barnes writes that

A group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has charged Kerry with lying about his record in Vietnam or exaggerating it. The Kerry campaign can't dismiss the group as men who ducked Vietnam duty. The anti-Kerry veterans stayed in Vietnam for full 12-month tours, longer than Kerry did. Many were in the same unit as Kerry. Their criticism of Kerry is over specific incidents that require a specific response.

Given how much information is already available on this subject, I'm surprised that Barnes doesn't get into the details. Kerry may not have given a specific response, but many journalists already have.

The fourth and final article in the Standard is Andrew Ferguson's commentary on just how ironic it is for the Democratic party to portray wartime heroism as the ultimate qualification for office after fighting for decades to establish that civilians are no less qualified than military men to take charge of our national security.

But then, Ferguson turns around and blasts Republicans for attacking Kerry. He writes that

The dissonance and frustration this year's election rouses in the mind of the dedicated Republican cannot be underestimated. Conservatives actually do revere the military, without reservation. It is not their inclination to debunk combat heroes...

Yet in 2004, Republicans find themselves supporting a candidate,
George W. Bush, with a slender and ambiguous military record against a man whose combat heroism has never (until now) been disputed...

If sufficient doubt about Kerry's record can be raised, we can vote for Bush without remorse. But the calculations are transparently desperate. Reading some of the anti-Kerry attacks over the last several weeks, you might conclude that this is the new conservative position: A veteran who volunteered for combat duty, spent four months under fire in Vietnam, and then exaggerated a bit so he could go home early is the inferior, morally and otherwise, of a man who had his father pull strings so he wouldn't have to go to Vietnam in the first place.

Needless to say, the proposition will be a hard sell in those dim and
tiny reaches of the electorate where voters have yet to make up their minds. Indeed, it's far more likely that moderates and fence-sitters will be disgusted by the lengths to which partisans will go to discredit a rival. But this anti-Kerry campaign is not designed to win undecided votes. It's designed to reassure uneasy minds.

Coming from the mouth of a senior editor at the Weekly Standard, this is quite damning.
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