452 What Kerry Could Do

Paul Cella writes at Tech Central that Kerry has two choices to get out of his VietNam dilemma:

(1) He could boldly stand by his position of some thirty years ago, when he went before Congress as an eloquent antiwar voice; he could reassert the view he propounded then, which was the view of the antiwar movement in general: namely, that the United States military, during the war it conducted in Vietnam, became in essence a criminal organization, from top to bottom countenancing and even encouraging cruelty, plunder, atrocity and mayhem. Now I want to say, in all sincerity, that if it is true what the John Kerry and antiwar movement alleged; if it is true that the whole institution of the military was implicated in the most awful of crimes, that events such as the My Lai massacre were not evil anomalies, but quotidian features of the war effort -- policy, even, promulgated implicitly or surreptitiously by its commanders; if the war was waged not by mostly honorable officers, mostly honorable soldiers, and a few cowards, madmen and psychopaths, but rather by a throng of fiends; if, in short, the American military conducted itself in Vietnam not as the armed force of a civilized nation, but as the savage and sanguinary instrument of a barbarian tribe, then Senator Kerry should stand by his condemnation. Indeed, he should thunder it from the rooftops. Patriotism that gives succor to such wickedness is no virtue; it is vicious madness.

Alternatively, (2) Kerry could repudiate his previous statements root and branch as reckless, inflammatory, malicious imprudence; attribute it to a terrible fever that overtook him and parts of the country; and beg forgiveness from his fellow veterans and the American people whom he slandered so venomously. I, for one, would forgive him.

Cella doesn't expect he'll make such a choice because either way he would loose a critical part of his constituency.

Kerry's Impossible Choice