John Kerry and medal throwing.

Great Debates
121

This may very well be true. However, this thread is now on its third page and has drawn considerable anger from some people.

Why would this be so, if the medal issue were completely meaningless.

You might want to move out of the insular world of this very liberal message board. Check out some blogs, some commentary sites, even (gasp) the opposition websites. There is a lot of anger out there about what Kerry did with his medals all those years ago. I’m certainly not alone in wanting an explanation.

122

I wouldn’t classify this board as liberal, there certainly seem to be a good number of conservatives and neocons here. Many of them make well reasoned and intelligent posts. I get a healthy dose of opposition viewpoints, from reading them here to catching FoxNews on occasion, Scarborough on MSNBC, I even catch Rush once in a while.

If there are veterans who think that Kerry’s treatment of medals is more important than Bush’s dodging the war, then dodging his dodge, then lying about dodging the dodge, then of course they may vote as their consciences dictate.

123

If I am on an airplane that has three engines on fire and is going into a nosedive to meet the ground at 500 MPH, does it really matter if the person who gets the plane under control has a well-coiffed haircut or not?

And Bush is an empty flight suit with an expensive portfolio and a rich dad. What’s your point?

I remain hard-pressed to think of any region where Bush is a stronger candidate than Kerry. Heck, I started a similar thread on the topic last month, and the best response the Bush supporters could give was “He’s not a Democrat.” :rolleyes:

124

As someone who genuinely believes this medal thing to be a non-issue, and having read through this thread completely, I’d say the ire has nothing whatsoever to do with the issue, and everything to do with the debate style / tactics of the various posters involved. This thread is on its 3rd page and there has been much anger because no one is listening, not because medal throwing is a such an emotional issue.

Just a thought.

125

I should qualify that: some posters are listening. I’m just not convinced that Mr. Moto is one of them, unfortunately. Thus the anger.

Mr. Moto: you have been given several interpretations, and even links to Kerry’s own explanation of the incident. Why do these not satisfy you? What more explanation are you looking for? How, exactly, does this allegedly reflect on Kerry’s character, and why does that matter, given that all indications are that Mr. Bush has quite a few grave character flaws of his own, many of which surpass Kerry’s medal-throwing incident. Yet, Bush still commands your undying (possibly hyperbole, possibly not…) loyalty, in spite of those flaws. So, why on earth does it matter to you what character flaws Kerry may have?

126

I’m listening. I’m trying very hard to be charitable to Kerry in this discussion. But no matter what convolutions of logic other posters might contrive, there is still the matter of one set of medals laying, thrown in contempt, on the ground, and another set shined up and ready for display, either physically in a Senate office or metaphorically on a website brag sheet.

I don’t know what’s going through Kerry’s head on this issue. The Washington Post article that was mentioned made things more confusing, not clearer.

I noticed nobody responded to what I said about how minority veterans might respond to a rich white officer throwing his medals away. Can’t anybody see that this has the potential to be a huge problem for Kerry?

The military has been a means of upward mobility for millions of working class young people for generations. I am one of those millions. When I joined the Navy, I was broke, deeply in debt, trapped in the mill towns of Pennsylvania and struggling to keep from slipping further down. The complete lack of funds meant that I had no social life.

Today I am reasonably prosperous. I bought my home on the GI Bill. My debts are pretty much limited to my mortgage and a car payment. I’m married with twins. While we don’t live in conspicuous luxury, we are comfortable.

What set me on my feet was five years in the Navy, and the jobs I was able to get with my Navy experience since. It is an experience shared by many.

I realize Vietnam was a different era. But even many Vietnam veterans have problems with how Kerry treated those medals. Post-Vietnam veterans, who volunteered for the job, could really have a problem with it.

Yes, veterans generally respect those medals. We know what they mean. And I have shown far more respect for John Kerry’s medals in this thread than he has at least once in his life.

127

An excellent example of exactly what I was saying.

An entire post with[LIST=a][li]Nothing positive to say about Kerry except that he isn’t Bush [] Nothing specific about the positions of either candidate []A focus almost entirely on Bush.[/LIST][/li]
You see my point? There is practically nothing of interest to say about Kerry. Which is why it is so difficult for Dopers to discuss him, or any issues concerning his campaign or his promises. You don’t really see anything to defend, since your sole reason to support him is that he isn’t Bush. Once having stated that reason, you have nothing further to add.

“Is Kerry a hypocrite for displaying the decorations he rejected?”

“He isn’t Bush.”

“Is Kerry a successful legislator?”

“He isn’t Bush.”

“Is Kerry a big-spending liberal with no real ideas?”

“He isn’t Bush.”

And so on.

As I said, an empty suit, onto which the disaffected liberals of the US can project their fantasies. Until the campaign truly starts, at which time their fantasies fade away to the realities of politics.

And Kerry deflates as Dean and Clark did. And Dukakis.

Regards,
Shodan

128

“Is Kerry a hypocrite for displaying the decorations he rejected?”

No. He has made abundantly clear, to anyone who went to the trouble to find out, that he rejected the circumstances that made his winning the medals necessary: a cruel and pointless war, forced upon the powerless by the clueless.

“Is Kerry a successful legislator?”

I’m not quite sure what you mean by this, perhaps you aren’t either. Apparently his constituents are content enough with him, seeing as they re-elect him.

“Is Kerry a big-spending liberal with no real ideas?”

Clearly an example of unintended hilarity. Big spending? Did you have a gander at that last budget proposal? One has to wonder if geeDubya has recieved campaign contributions from the red ink manufacturing sector. A budget that, for reasons better left uncontemplated, prefers to ignore the gazillion bucks we’ll spend on Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps he considers this Monopoly money, and it doesn’t count.

As for ideas? Well, true enough, Bush has any number of ideas. Just about invariably stupid ideas, but ideas, true enough. My cousin Henry, who we keep locked in an attic and feed fish heads, also has ideas. Perhaps you’d rather vote for him than GeeDubya. I wouldn’t, but its close.

“As I said, an empty suit, onto which the disaffected liberals of the US can project their fantasies…”

Not, at least, an empty flight suit, to make vague allussions to an entirely fanciful military valor.

“Until the campaign truly starts, at which time their fantasies fade away to the realities of politics.”

Oh, I see now! The plunging numbers on Bush’s competence and honesty are only because the campaign hasn’t started yet! The Bushiviks have simply scads of wonderful news, but are witholding it until the campaign actually starts! Of course!

Howzabout this bit of pre-campaign mendacity, brought to us courtesy of the sharp-eyed folks at the Annenberg Project, factcheck.org (Mark your favorites on this one, it bears watching)

http://www.factcheck.org/

"The Bush campaign sent an e-mail Feb. 12 to six million supporters with a link to an Internet video attacking Kerry for being “unprincipled.” The ad claims Kerry got “more special interest money than any other senator,” which is false.

While it is true that Kerry got $640,000 over the past 15 years from individual lobbyists, that’s only one type of special-interest money. And the Bush campaign itself has reported raising $960,000 from individual lobbyists in the past year alone."

[znip]

"The ad starts by misquoting a Washington Post newspaper story from Jan. 31.

An image of the Post’s website is shown as a soft female voice – supposedly reading aloud – says “John Kerry . . . More special interest money than any other senator.” But that’s not what the Post story said. What the newspaper really said was that Kerry “has raised more money from paid lobbyists than any other senator over the past 15 years.” There’s a big difference."

[znip]

“Looking only at individual lobbyists, Bush has reported getting four times more than Kerry in this presidential race.” (emphasis gleefully added)

And so on. The attack ad from the GeeDubya camp is the utterest Bushwah.

And this is before, according to you, the campaign actually begins.

Bring 'em on, Shodan. Bring 'em on.

129

Dear Mr. Moto,

Many thanks for your response. I now understand where you’re coming from.

See, initially your position didn’t make any sense to me. I mean I think its fair to say that most people really would wonder why a man would make a huge stink over a thirty-year-old symbolic protest gesture when there are seemingly so much bigger fish to fry. But having read your response I really do believe I’ve got the range.

Mr. Moto’s key phrase is this: “I really think we should have gone to war with Iraq a long time ago, and I am skeptical that the U.N. can ever do anything substantive to bring about collective security…”

And that, of course, explains everything. When George Bush went to war with Iraq, Mr. Moto didn’t need any convincing. When Bush attacked Iraq he wasn’t embarking upon a dangerous and scary military adventure on the basis of dubious and even fraudulent evidence. Not to Mr. Moto. What President Bush did was fulfill a long-held wish of his. In a very important sense, then, this is every bit as much Mr. Moto’s war as it is President Bush’s — even more in the sense that Mr. Moto was there way before he was.

Well no wonder then Mr. Moto doesn’t care that the intelligence used to justify the war was a total crock of shit as people who are having their wishes fulfilled have a noted history of not being particularly good critical thinkers. He simply isn’t going to care that President Bush lied to make the country think that Saddam Hussein was involved with the 9/11 attacks when he wasn’t. It doesn’t matter to him that we were lied to when we were told that there was a definite link between al Qaeda and Saddam. Nor is Mr. Moto going to care that President Bush told us that he absolutely knew for absolutely sure that there were just tons and tons of stockpiles of dangerous chemical and biological weapons or that Saddam was shopping for uranium in Africa, when the truth is he didn’t know for sure any fucking such thing. In short, because Mr. Moto really wanted this war to begin with, he simply dosn’t care that the vast majority of his countrymen were lied to, and therefore, scared and stampeded into attacking a country that not only wasn’t a threat to us, it wasn’t even a threat to it’s neighbors. And he’s certainly not going to be unduly troubled by the fact that he’s using U.N. incompetency in providing regional security as an excuse despite the fact that sanctions and inspections were an obvious success and that Saddam had been thoroughly defanged. He just isn’t going to care.

And what about the $200 billion and counting squandered? The 500 dead and counting lost? The 3,000 and counting wounded, many of them crippled for life? I’m getting to that.

You see, the thing is now Mr. Moto has a problem. Election season is upon us and naturally he wants to vote for his champion Mr. Bush. But, as is and shall remain the case until the Republicans can really get their way, Mr. Bush has to run against someone. And who is he running against? John Kerry, war hero. And things really aren’t going very well in Iraq, are they? I mean, people seem a little upset about all those missing WMDs, no? And, if Mr. Bush loses the election, it will be seen as an invalidation of Mr. Moto’s grand little war. And, well, if that happens, Mr. Moto isn’t going to feel very good about himself, is he?

And so Mr. Moto is in a position where he desperately needs something to hold against Mr. Kerry because it isn’t exactly as if he can point with pride towards Mr. Bush’s record.

And that’s why Mr. Moto can obsess over a 30-year-old symbolic gesture to protest a war in which over 50,000 Americans were killed for no good reason. This explains why Mr. Moto is so good at getting himself all worked up because Kerry “split the difference” between ribbons and medals that were a “gift” of the American people which demonstrates some hypocrisy that, near as I can tell, exists only in his own head and those of a bunch of wingnuts. And it also explains why he expresses such deep and emotive concern about the hurt feelings and the all the pain and confusion that those poor minority soldiers are going experience because of what Mr. Kerry did while treating the fact that the President of the United States betrayed his office by untruthfully scaring the Amecian people into war as a matter so trivial it barely merits attention and the needless deaths of 500 American soldiers and the 3000 needlessly injured and the feelings of them and their families as just so much applesauce.

Mr. Moto seemed mighty put out at being called a fanatic. Yet, treating symbolic gestures as inherently more important than the value of human life is the very heart and soul of fanaticism.

Yes, Mr. Moto, I understand you perfectly now. It couldn’t make more sense. Thank you so much for clearing things up.

Oh, and Shodan, you’re a meeskite.

130

<<puts on historian costume and emerges from nearby phone booth>> Actually, Reeder, Lincoln served in the militia in the Blackhawk war. He was elected captain, which in later life he claimed made him as happy as any honor before or since. <<slides back into phone booth.>>

131

And what exactly is a “meeskite”?

Regards,
Shodan

132

I don’t really think that’s important, do you?

133

Because out of 131 posts, 30 of them are yours.

134

Well, that would depend.

If it is an insult, apologize and withdraw it. This is Great Debates.

If you just posted it to get a reaction, and didn’t mean it, that is trolling. Get lost, and good riddance to you.

If you were actually trying to make a point, then explain it. No one can agree or disagree with you if no one knows what the hell you are talking about.

As regards, elucidator’s post, I thank him for (again) demonstrating pretty much exactly what I said earlier. Another whole post that only mentions Kerry in passing, in favor of more Bush-bashing.

Not a word in defense of Kerry’s policies. Not a word in praise of Kerry’s vision for the country. Not a syllable to explain how the changes Kerry espouses will address the problems of the USA. Nada. Zilch.

Kerry is essentially irrelevant to this whole campaign. No one (at least on the SDMB) really gives a damn about Kerry, and (apparently) neither knows nor cares what he stands for. Kerry is irrelevant. As I said, he is an empty suit. Liberals are falling obediently into line behind him, not noticing or caring what he says he will accomplish. The Democrats could run practically anyone for President, and the Left would obediently regurgitate their anti-Bush glurge in his favor and offer no more in his defence. Because nobody cares about Kerry. He is the anti-Bush, pure and simple.

Which tells us two things.
[ul][li]Kerry is not going to be able to get anyone to vote for him. The only people who will vote Democrat this time around are those who would anyway, and those who have come to hate Bush over the last four years. I mean really hate, not simply fail to be supporters. Whether or not this will amount to more than 50% of the electorate is problematic. I suspect not, especially since I think the electorate is going to start asking what Kerry represents and supports. Since he has very little in the way of real legislative achievement to show for his two decades in the Senate, and no reason to suppose he has anything to suggest to address the problems of the country, I suspect his campaign may deflate as Dean’s did. Not on the SDMB, of course - many of you will continue to “support” him for no other reason than he is not Bush. But actual support, based on belief in a candidate to achieve things you want done - tepid is probably an overstatement.[/li][li]This is going to be an almost entirely negative campaign, especially by the liberals on the SDMB. Since none of you can really offer much by way of reasons to support Kerry (as opposed to hate Bush - God knows the hamsters labor under the weight of the daily and hourly rants about anything and everything Bush has ever done, not done, thought about doing, or never really did but can’t prove he didn’t), most or all of the political threads about the election are going to be liberals preaching to the choir. BushisbadBushisbadBushisbadBushisbadBushisbadBushisbadBushisbad…[/li][/ul] It is practically a mantra with you people. Whether it is a mantra that resonates with anyone but True Believers remains to be seen.

But Kerry had better not hit any bumps in the road - gaffes that can’t be hushed up, scandals that he would prefer not to address, policy positions that make no sense - because he has no core of support to draw on. Nobody really likes Kerry (expect perhaps his wife).

The Democrats are running a Rorschach blot for President. Voters are expected to read into him whatever they think they want.

I suppose it could work. It worked for Harding and Grant. Grant even got re-elected. What he actually achieved is another question.

Regards,
Shodan

135

What a steaming load, Shodan.

You listed what you are pleased to imagine are flaws in Kerry’s character and/or candidacy, which I answered. Then you claim that its all “Bush-bashing” to compare Kerry’s relative integrity to Bush’s! Well, that’s too damn bad for your guy, isn’t it? If it turns out that voters lean towards anybody who isn’t Bush?

“…Not a syllable to explain how the changes Kerry espouses will address the problems of the USA. Nada. Zilch…”

Well, it will solve the number one problem, other than the curse of Cognitive Dissonance. I’ll give you a minute, you’ll probably figure out what I mean.

136

Points in favor of Kerry:

  • He is a combat veteran of Vietnam. This means he understands the meaning and cost of war in a way that the current occupant of the WH does not.

  • He showed true character both by serving in a war he disagreed with and by working to end it when he came back. Contrast that with a guy who avoided going to a war he supported and who did nothing to end it when it became obvious to all that it was a colassal mistake.

-Kerry is pro-choice. That matters. He will not impede stem-cell research as Bush has, he will not sign disastrous “patrtial-birth abortion” bills into law and he will appoint SC Justices who respect women’s rights

-He supports civil unions for gay people and will not support any attempt to deface the US Constitution with a bigoted amendment.

-He will not support irresponsible tax cuts for the rich and out of control spending for unnecessary wars.

That’s just off the top of my head. I have to go to work now. more on this later.

137

Minor point of fact, Dio. My reading of his excerpted biography indicates that when he left for Viet Nam, he thought he was headed off to a noble struggle based on humanitarian concerns. Though he had some doubts, he didn’t become entirely disgusted with the Viet Nam war until he witnessed how the struggle was being fought.

As did, of course, many, many others.

138

:dubious:

See elucidator’s post why this is not correct. Kerry supported the war in Viet Nam, then repudiated it and his service there, and now wants to take back the credit for his decorations.

Rather in the way that he opposed the first Gulf War, but supported the resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq. So apparently he didn’t understand either “the meaning or the cost”, or both, in either instance.

George Bush Sr., a decorated hero of WWII, disagreed with Kerry about the first Gulf War. So did practically everyone else. One wonders what would make the “meaning or the cost” of war clearer to Mr. Kerry.

Here you are entirely correct. Kerry will certainly apply the litmus test of abortion to any Justices he recommends. Although the idea that any “partial birth abortion” law is disastrous in any meaningful sense is rather difficult to support.

Kerry supports civil unions, but not gay marriage.

Actually, Kerry recommends actions that would tend to increase the cost of the occupation of Iraq. In his website, he asks for more training, pay increases, and more “support” for the Iraqi military and the police forces there. He recommends, of all people, the Italians as good role models for the Iraqi police.

And I don’t think he advocates a unilateral withdrawal of troops from Iraq. That is a Kucinich proposal. So I doubt spending on Iraq is going to go down under a Kerry administration. Naturally enough, Kerry is light on figures on all this.

As to tax cuts, his websites advocates more tax cuts. He is also going to give more money to states so as to stop them from cutting their budgets, spend way, way more on colleges and health care, somehow or other make it illegal for corporations to move money overseas, and has a corporate policy that raises taxes on corporations unless they manufacture something, in which case they get subsidies, as well as “give tax incentives to help industries upgrade”. Or something like that.

He also tells this whopper -

Oddly enough, I read thru his website, and could not find a single reference to any spending at all that he would cut - not a dime anywhere.

But he does promise to create 3 million jobs in his first 100 days, and cut the deficit in half at least in four years.

So his economic plan seems to be, a) increase taxes on those making more than $200,00 per year, and b) spend like hell.

This will fix everything. :dubious:

139

You’re right! GeeDubya’s plan is much simpler, it consists entirely of (b).

As well you correct friend Dio’s misunderstanding. Whereas he says Kerry supports civil unions for gays, you point out that Kerry supports civil unions for gays. Boy, you sure tore him up good with that one! He’s gonna have a hard time denying that!

140

My own observations have led me to believe this…

John Kerry’s medal tossing act was not simple duplicity.
It was a cold and calculated show for effect without
a vestige of wrongheaded youthful conviction.

Back then John Kerry was a war hero and a phoney and a womanizer.
Today he is a politician.