The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Thursday, August 26, 2004
John Kerry’s Monica Moment
Andrew McCarthy offers us an interesting analogy on NRO to “I did not have sex with that woman”: he casts the revelations about Kerry’s Vietnam service as Kerry’s “Monica Moment”:
The faux episode is not, as Kerry's how-dare-you bluster would have it, immune from analysis and judgment because to weigh it would somehow impugn his military service or his patriotism — in fact, it would do neither. It is not immune any more than President Clinton's infamously self-righteous declamation was, as his apologists maintained, beyond consideration because it was "just about sex." Christmas in Cambodia, like the 1971 testimony, is worthy of exploration because it is a barometer of basic honesty, raising the specter of a core lack of conviction and authenticity — one embedded in character, not developed over time.
Therein lies the problem for Kerry. Americans did not form their lasting impression of Clinton's pathology until after he was already elected president. Removing a president is a much different proposition than choosing not to elect him in the first place. Clinton, in addition, had many things going for him that Kerry does not — while both men are highly intelligent, Clinton is charismatic, instantly likable, a tremendous communicator, and a politician whose opportunism (on welfare reform, a balanced budget, stiff anti-terror laws, etc.) could often connote a prudent pragmatism whereas, at this point, Kerry's (on Vietnam, Iraq, abortion, gay marriage, troop reduction, etc.) seems nakedly craven.
The faux episode is not, as Kerry's how-dare-you bluster would have it, immune from analysis and judgment because to weigh it would somehow impugn his military service or his patriotism — in fact, it would do neither. It is not immune any more than President Clinton's infamously self-righteous declamation was, as his apologists maintained, beyond consideration because it was "just about sex." Christmas in Cambodia, like the 1971 testimony, is worthy of exploration because it is a barometer of basic honesty, raising the specter of a core lack of conviction and authenticity — one embedded in character, not developed over time.
Therein lies the problem for Kerry. Americans did not form their lasting impression of Clinton's pathology until after he was already elected president. Removing a president is a much different proposition than choosing not to elect him in the first place. Clinton, in addition, had many things going for him that Kerry does not — while both men are highly intelligent, Clinton is charismatic, instantly likable, a tremendous communicator, and a politician whose opportunism (on welfare reform, a balanced budget, stiff anti-terror laws, etc.) could often connote a prudent pragmatism whereas, at this point, Kerry's (on Vietnam, Iraq, abortion, gay marriage, troop reduction, etc.) seems nakedly craven.
