Now it is back to the Democratic big four, John Kerry, John Edwards, Dr. Howard Dean and the accident-prone Gen. Wesley Clark. What strikes you as most amazing about these weird fellows aside from the fact that they have to keep apologizing to each other and clarifying the record and explaining what they really meant after each rhetorical excess? Well, for me there are many amazing things, but one that surely has to be remarked on is that they have reconfigured the Democratic Party into the party of war heroes.
For over three decades, these Democrats have inhabited the party that sided with the doves. It is the party that cut back our military and our intelligence agencies in fits of bogus moral indignation similar to the bogus moral indignation they display today about the war in Iraq.
Rather than being the party that cut back the military and ended human intelligence gathering in the 1970s, today's Democratic Party is ... what is the term Sen. John Pierre Kerry employs? Is it his "band of brothers"? Why not "brothers and sisters"? Does Kerry have a bias against women in combat? Put the question to him, Sen. Edwards. Doubtless he will apologize and issue a clarification.
There the surviving Democratic candidates stand, calling the present commander in chief names, the most poisonous being "moral coward" and "deserter." The first epithet came from former Vice President Al Gore, the Vietnam veteran whose military service in Vietnam covered three desks and at least one R and R. The second charge originated with the Democrats' modern-day Leni Riefenstahl -- to wit, Michael Moore, holder of two Congressional Medals of Honor, the Legion of Honor, the Ben & Jerry's Peace Prize and the Nobel Prize for Cinematography. It was endorsed by General Clark, the Hero of Kosovo and the only four-star general I can think of who was removed from his post for what his superior called "integrity and character issues."
It was also endorsed by Kerry, the highly-decorated Vietnam War hero who returned from Vietnam to march with the protesters summoned by Jane Fonda against our soldiers in the field. General George S. Patton III, a Vietnam combat general, accused him of actions that had "given aid and comfort to the enemy."
At this point in the campaign, we have not yet heard of the military heroics of Dr. Howard Dean, but I would not be surprised to hear that he is a Pearl Harbor survivor and veteran of the charge up San Juan Hill. And what august military honors has Edwards? Possibly he was an Eagle Scout. I also await hearing of DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe's achievements. He now says that 40 years ago the president was "AWOL." Where was McAuliffe? Possibly he was incarcerated just down the hall in the Hanoi Hilton with sen. John McCain.
These Democrats can say almost anything, until the Lexis-Nexis search is done. Then come the apologies. The other day, radio host Sean Hannity dredged up transcripts of Kerry insisting back in 1992 that Vietnam service was ancient history. Of course, he was defending Bill Clinton, who was a draft dodger. Through all the years of his presidency, it did not matter. Now I expect McAuliffe to discover that Clinton served at First Bull Run -- the term somehow fits.