Morris on Why Kerry Lost
Via Jerome Doolittle at Bad Attitudes comes this interesting op-ed piece by filmmaker Errol Morris: Where’s the rest of him?
John Kerry lost because he concealed something that was completely honorable, even heroic: his opposition to Vietnam. George W. Bush told the truth about something that, to my mind, was not honorable: he supported that war but found a way to stay home. Mr. Kerry was forthright about almost everything except himself – and in this election that was not enough.
January 20th, 2005 at 5:28 am
You guys will just never figure it out, will you?
People don’t WANT to spit on the graves of the brave soldiers who died in vietnam. Or watch anyone else doing the political equivilent.
People want VICTORY not SURRENDER.
January 20th, 2005 at 9:27 pm
And you apparently will never figure out that opposing a war is not the same as (and in fact could be considered the opposite of) expressing disapproval for the troops fighting it.
January 21st, 2005 at 5:32 am
Need I find specific comments by Mr. Kerry that express disapproval for the troops fighting it?
In 1971, Kerry testified before congress. “A few months ago in Detroit,” he said, “we had an investigation in which over one hundred and fifty honorably discharged – many, highly decorated – veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. Not isolated incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.
“It’s impossible to describe to you exactly what happened in Detroit, the emotions of the moment, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam, but they did. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do. They told the stories of times that they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Kahn, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam, in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.”
January 25th, 2005 at 5:13 am
I maintain that that was a direct LIE, that most of the soldiers who fought in vietnam and didn’t become protesters afterwards were heroes who deserved no such treatment from cowardly liars like Mr. Kerry, who was only in vietnam for four months and threw who-cares-which medals over the wall.
January 26th, 2005 at 5:17 am
So, logic tells us that the REASON Kerry wasn’t using his record of protesting vietnam is that the Republicrats already were!