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Which
Is It, One America or Two?
EDITORIAL
Frank Salvato
July 30, 2004 |
John Kerry took the stage to accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for
the office of President of the United States and in doing so opened with the
words, "John Kerry reporting for duty.” If the worst-case scenario should
come to pass and that should be the case let’s hope he does it for more than
the 120 days, the amount of time that he spent in country in Vietnam (you
know he was in Vietnam, right?)
As I watched Kerry pontificate on his exploits in Vietnam and heard him talk
about all of the friends he made over there, his band of brothers, how many
of his friends he saw die over there or come home disabled, only one thing
came to mind. John Kerry had to have been the most popular, the most heroic
and the busiest soldier in the whole of the Vietnam War. How else could he
have gathered so many friends, seen so many friends die and become disabled
and how else could he have amassed all those honors for heroics, all at the
same time, over the course of only 120 days? The answer is that he didn’t.
As so many Vietnam Veterans have pointed out, and in no uncertain terms,
Kerry’s medals of honor are questionable to say the least. His three Purple
Hearts were received for "injuries” that other soldiers who served in
Vietnam would be embarrassed to accept honors for. His awards for "valor”
are in question because he put his crew’s safety at risk by beaching his
boat and executing an already injured North Vietnamese soldier in direct
violation of the Geneva Conventions. Over one hundred former swift boat
veterans attested to these accounts yet the mainstream media has ignored
their pleas for the truth to be told. While a few took the stage with Kerry
to extol his heroics many more screamed in silence, silence provided by a
liberal media agenda, silence that censored the truth from the voting
public. John Kerry is a hero, the media has decided.
As Kerry spoke, his brow, nose and chin gleaming with perspiration –
bluebloods don’t sweat you know – he talked about how he negotiated a
lasting peace with the North Vietnamese. Again I was forced to ponder a
question. How hard is it to negotiate peace with a former adversary when it
was your country that came out the loser? I would have to guess not very.
Add to the mix that his anti-war activity after his very abbreviated tour of
duty aided and abetted the enemy, leading to the enemy’s victory – General
Gaip of the North Vietnamese Army has stated that without the help of Kerry
and his ilk they never would have been able to win the war – and you have a
better resume for a treason charge than for the highest office in the land.
It’s no wonder the Communist Vietnamese have a picture of Kerry in their war
victory museum in Hanoi.
Kerry
continued on to say that he fought for fiscal responsibility in the 1990’s
by spearheading the fight for a balanced budget. Now I could be mistaken but
I don’t remember John Kerry, the most liberal member of the US Senate
standing with then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich when the Contract with
America was unveiled. Maybe I missed him in the pictures but with Kerry
being so tall one would have to believe missing him in a crowd would be an
impossibility. Of course he could have spearheaded that effort like he
spearheaded the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Act by entering the
room at the end of the press conference introducing the measure in an effort
to voice his coat-tailed support.
He went on and on taking credit for things he never did and assailing things
about the Bush Administration that never took place even though just moments
before he had issued a statement directed at President Bush himself asking
the president to join him in moving on from divisive and negative
campaigning.
He said he would never outsource jobs and blamed the Bush Administration for
advocating the practice when it was Bill Clinton that signed NAFTA into law
encouraging a global economy over an American economy.
He underhandedly accused Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld of not listening to
his generals with regard to troop strength when I can remember a few hundred
press conferences when Rumsfeld specifically said, "If the generals want
more troops or equipment they will get it. It is up to the generals and they
say they have all that they want and need.”
He accused Attorney General John Ashcroft of violating the US Constitution
alluding to the Patriot act when not one lawsuit has been filed against the
US Government citing a violation of anyone’s civil rights with regard to the
Patriot Act.
Perhaps a more confusing moment came when he completely rebuked John Edwards
"Two Americas” speech by saying unequivocally that we were not a nation of
blue states and red states but "one United States of America.” So which is
it Senator Kerry, one America or two?
But perhaps the most infuriating moment of the evening came when he took
another underhanded swipe at President Bush by saying, "The United States
doesn’t go to war because we want to, we go to war because we have to.”
If John Kerry wants to play the panderer to those too fickle to understand
the issues of the day that I can chalk up to politics. But how dare he
insinuate that 3000 plus dead in the streets of New York, in the halls of
the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field isn’t cause enough to go to war.
Anyone with a functioning brain knows that the war on terror didn’t end with
the toppling of the Taliban or at the borders of Afghanistan. Iraq, long a
harbor for terrorism, a country that three exhaustive reports validate as a
partner in terrorism, was right to be in the crosshairs of the US military.
Kerry is disingenuous to suggest anything else.
While he etymologically begged for applause by weaving images of
firefighters rushing up the staircases of the fatally crippled World Trade
Center and passengers besieging the cockpit door of Flight 93 the only
question I had left was, "Has this man no shame?”
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