| I can appreciate why people are turned off by dirty politics, by which I mean the unsubstantiated mudslinging against candidates designed to mislead and smear rather than inform. But I lament the level of cynicism to which we've descended that makes us turn a deaf ear to negativity that may well be true and relevant.
I'm referring primarily to the public uproar surrounding the new book "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John F. Kerry," in which a group of swift boat officers who served alongside John Kerry in Vietnam tell a devastating story that, if true, annihilates Kerry's image as a war hero.
Part of me -- the cautious and pragmatic part -- wishes that this would just go away. After all, this could easily backfire and make Republicans look desperate and petty.
One thing we learned from the Clinton era is that ironically, public officials can benefit -- to a point -- from the outrageousness and sheer volume of their library of scandals. The more outrageous the rumors that circulated about Clinton were, the less believable even the routine scandals became -- though I personally believe that even some of the outrageous ones were probably true (Juanita Broaddrick).
After a while, the public completely numbed to the scandals. Clinton could have been captured on videotape impersonating a police officer and beating Rodney King with a nightstick and James Carville and Hillary Clinton would have deflected it as "old news" fabricated by the vast right-wing conspiracy.
Some of the adverse reaction to these claims against Kerry arises from our culture's justifiable elevation of war heroes and the sacrosanct nature of one's honorable military -- especially wartime -- service. You just can't go there.
But think about it. What if the allegations are true? What if Kerry truly did self-inflict, lie about, or embellish his wounds and other aspects of his reputed heroism? What if he did videotape himself reenacting combat scenes, all with an eye toward his future in politics? What if he did actually participate in atrocities as he said he did? (He?s gotten a complete pass on this.) Would these things matter? Should they matter?
Sure, I would prefer that all elections be decided on the issues, after a thorough debate and adequate public deliberation. But have we become so jaded that a presidential candidate's character is no longer an issue -- even when it may directly bear on how he would perform in office?
Indignant Democrats can pretend otherwise, but they have been making President Bush's character an unceasing issue for the past four years. Indeed, his allegedly poor character is the main hook the Democrats are hanging their hats on in this campaign.
Despite the hype, the Democrats really don't have much else to go on this year, which is why they don't dare dissociate themselves from Michael Moore, the principal purveyor of the abominable "Bush lied" lie. So the Democrats don't have much standing to complain about "negative" campaigning. Continued... |