BLATHER REVIEW

Two Lies... and counting...

I'm becoming more and more convinced that the problem with John Kerry is that he, either; a) doesn't have any core beliefs, or; b) is afraid to tell us what they really are.

I've never been a Kerry-basher. I have, actually, always kind of liked the guy. I saw him smack down Paul Begala once, on MSNBC, for being such a hackneyed ad hominem spewer on the old Begala/North show. But, over the past few months I've really begun to see who John Kerry really is: a well-meaning but fluid personality.

He seems to me like the kind of person whose stance on a given issue is immediate, not timeless. His mood of the moment -- and the thoughts that are shaped by it -- are what identify him at that moment. He may be 60% ideologue and only 10% beaurocrat, but there's that annoying 30% that wants to be free to change his mind. This may make him appear to be an Opportunist. But, I think there may be something else at work. His true struggle may be that he, being a politician, has to be concerned with "consistency"; a requirement that's anathema to a fluid, open-minded personality.

The problem with being so willing to change your mind in the context of furthering an ambitious political career is that you can find yourself saying things that aren't true and fooling yourself into believing that no one will ever bother to either remember or fact-check what you've said.

What the hell am I blathering about?! Oh yeah...

Drudge has a post:

1971 VIDEO: KERRY ADMITS THROWING OWN MEDALS; CONTRADICTS CURRENT CLAIMS

In an interview published Friday in the LOS ANGELES TIMES, Dem presidential hopeful John Kerry claimed he "never ever implied" that he threw his own medals during a Hill protest in 1971 to appear as an antiwar hero.

But a new shock video shows John Kerry -- in his own voice -- saying he did!

ABC's GOOD MORNING AMERICA is set to rock the political world Monday morning with an airing of Kerry's specific 1971 boast, sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

The video was made by a local news station in 1971.

It directly contradicts Kerry's own website headline: "RIGHTWING FICTION: John Kerry threw away his medals during a Vietnam war protest."

Now, here's my beef:

The "rightwing", as far as I've noticed, haven't been on Kerry for throwing his own medals into the Potomac River, but for throwing other peoples medals and not having the guts to toss his own. No one believed that Kerry had thrown his own medals away and that was exactly the knock on him. So, Kerry's website misrepresents the hullabaloo right off.

But, now, ABC is about to show a video clip of Kerry himself claiming falsely that he had indeed thrown his own medals away.

Sometimes the truth is momentarily in the way of ambition -- or a good speech. In that case we ask ourselves if we are willing to save our right to a fluidity of opinion, or slouch and settle for a fluidity with the truth.
Presidents ought to opt for the former. Opportunists will try to get away with the latter.
Kerry seems to me, now, to be the kind of guy who got into public life because what he wanted to show us was not a philosophy or a policy but. perhaps, only himself.

UPDATE: The word(s) "ad hominem" show a link to some online dictionary or something. I did not put it there and it doesn't show as html in my entry body. What the fark is up wit dat?!!!

Posted by Tuning Spork at April 25, 2004 09:44 PM