The RAMBO coalition!

[Gimpy]

August 24, 2004

OP-ED COLUMNIST

The Rambo Coalition

By PAUL KRUGMAN


Almost a year ago, on the second anniversary of 9/11, I predicted "an ugly, bitter campaign - probably the nastiest of modern American history." The reasons I gave then still apply. President Bush has no positive achievements to run on. Yet his inner circle cannot afford to see him lose: if he does, the shroud of secrecy will be lifted, and the public will learn the truth about cooked intelligence, profiteering, politicization of homeland security and more.

But recent attacks on John Kerry have surpassed even my expectations. There's no mystery why. Mr. Kerry isn't just a Democrat who might win: his life story challenges Mr. Bush's attempts to confuse tough-guy poses with heroism, and bombast with patriotism.

One of the wonders of recent American politics has been the ability of Mr. Bush and his supporters to wrap their partisanship in the flag. Through innuendo and direct attacks by surrogates, men who assiduously avoided service in Vietnam, like Dick Cheney (five deferments ), John Ashcroft (seven deferments ) and George Bush (a comfy spot in the National Guard, and a mysterious gap in his records ), have questioned the patriotism of men who risked their lives and suffered for their country: John McCain, Max Cleland and now John Kerry.


How have they been able to get away with it? The answer is that we have been living in what Roger Ebert calls "an age of Rambo patriotism." As the carnage and ambiguities of Vietnam faded from memory, many started to believe in the comforting clich?s of action movies, in which the tough-talking hero is always virtuous and the hand-wringing types who see complexities and urge the hero to think before acting are always wrong, if not villains.


After 9/11, Mr. Bush had a choice: he could deal with real threats, or he could play Rambo. He chose Rambo. Not for him the difficult, frustrating task of tracking down elusive terrorists, or the unglamorous work of protecting ports and chemical plants from possible attack: he wanted a dramatic shootout with the bad guy. And if you asked why we were going after this particular bad guy, who hadn't attacked America and wasn't building nuclear weapons - or if you warned that real wars involve costs you never see in the movies - you were being unpatriotic.

As a domestic political strategy, Mr. Bush's posturing worked brilliantly. As a strategy against terrorism, it has played right into Al Qaeda's hands. Thirty years after Vietnam, American soldiers are again dying in a war that was sold on false pretenses and creates more enemies than it kills.


It should come as no surprise, then, that Mr. Bush - who must defend the indefensible - has turned to those who still refuse to face the truth about Vietnam.

All the credible evidence, from military records to the testimony of those who served with Mr. Kerry, confirms his wartime heroism. Why, then, are some veterans willing to join the smear campaign? Because they are angry about his later statements against the war. Yet making those statements was itself a heroic act -.

The young John Kerry spoke of leaders who sent others to their deaths because they wanted to seem tough, then "left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude."

Fifteen months after George Bush strutted around in his flight suit, more and more Americans are echoing Gen. Anthony Zinni, who received a standing ovation from an audience of Marine and Navy officers when he talked about the debacle in Iraq and said of those who served in Vietnam: "We heard the garbage and the lies, and we saw the sacrifice. I ask you, is it happening again?"

Let's hope that this latest campaign of garbage and lies - initially financed by a Texas Republican close to Karl Rove, and running an ad featuring an "independent" veteran who turns out to have served on a Bush campaign committee - leads to a backlash against Mr. Bush. If it doesn't, here's the message we'll be sending to Americans who serve their country: If you tell the truth, your courage and sacrifice count for nothing.

####END####

AMEN!

That guy's a total idiot.
We shouldn't attack one Vietnam vet for telling the truth(?!?!),but it's but it's OK to attack thousands of them for the same thing?Right.

Gimpy,even if Pres.Bush really did lie about everything you seem to think he did(and all of these "lies" are unproven)he couldn't hold a candle to Kerry in the lying department.He lied about you,he lied about me,he lied about himself.Many,many of his lies have been proven beyond any reasonable doubt.He has done untold harm to ALL Vietnam veterans and his country during time of war.Rather than being elected to anything he should have long since been tried as a traitor and shot.Payback is-and should be-a Mutha!

[Gimpy]

Only ones doing "untold harm" to ALL military Vietnam Veterans are the "Swift-Boat-Bunch" with their total fabrications of the charges they've levelled at Kerry which casts a cloud of unspeakable injustice towards him and his crewmates who have gone ON RECORD to REFUTE their bull$hit!

Not to mention the "official" U.S. Navy records and even some of the VERY SAME MEN in the "Swiftees" who changed their "stories" from 1996 and earlier!

Seems to me that an awful lot more folks in a position to know believed he well and truly sucked as a sailor and an officer than believe otherwise.Has ANYBODY backed up his "Christmas eve in Cambodia" war story?

Be that as it may,it wasn't the swift boat vets that stood up and lied their ass off on the congressional record thereby defameing ALL Vietnam vets.How can anybody believe the man has any credabilitly after such an action?

[colmurph]

Gimpy....Kerry called you a "War Criminal" are you comfortable with that appellation? If so, you are dumber than I thought.

[Boats]

COL - your are straight forward sharp shooter - well said.

[SuperScout]

Doncha just love these conspiratorial tinfoil helmet wearers? It is amazing how 254 Swift boat veterans could all get together and conspire to write lies about John Kerry. And to make it all the more mysterious, a bunch of them are career Democrats, hardly fodder for the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

What? No positive accomplishments to run on? Lessee, at least down here in my part of the country, we haven't experienced any more terrorists attacks, and at last check, neither has any other part of America. But for a tinfoil helmet type, I guess that's not much of an positive accomplishment.

A little known fact about the Wascally Wepublican who helped pay for the Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth ads: he's also supported Democrats, one in my local area that we're trying to defeat.

And finally, anyone who would quote Paul Krugman as any type of authority on any subject just shows their ultra leftists and socialists viewpoints; he's a classic peddler of the the Marxist practices of telling a lie, telling it often, and telling it loudly. Come to think of it, isn't that what Kerry's also doing? "That mission into Cambodia was seraed - seared - into my mind." Blah, Blah, Blah. Maybe Kerry was the role model for the movie character Rambo, another phony.

[Gimpy]

Looks like Kerry wasn't the Only "swift-boat" officer in Cambodia, HUH?

CNN aired the "transcript" of a conversation between Nixon and John O'neil where "O'Neill" said, "I WAS IN CAMBODIA SIR".........

Look like O'Neill's "credibilty" just took another nose dive into the toliet!

PS---------Murph, he wasn't talkin bout me. And, even if he was.........he would NOT have been calling me any WORSE than YOU have in the past! It must be a "right-wing" character "flaw" or something, ya reckon??

Hell, I was also in Cambodia,Sir.And I didn't see kerry or any other Navy folks around anywhere.Haveing been in Cambodia doesn't mean you support kerry's Night Before Christmas fairy tale.

[Gimpy]

calling Doc! Again, Earth to Doc!

Methinks you've allowed your bias and hatered of Kerry overwhlem your ability to comprehend the irony of John O'Neills' "statement" to President Nixon in 1971.

Let me "clarify" it for you since you seem to be unable to do it for yourself, ok?

O'Neill and his co-horts in comedy (the so-called "swiftees") have been saying in recent days that there was ABSOLUTELY NO WAY that Kerry was IN "Cambodia" when he said he was........because NONE OF THE "Swift-Boats" and their crews WERE EVER THERE in 1968 or 1969.

WHOOPS??? Throw THAT statement into the "shitcan" along with ALL the other false charges O'Neill and his partners in crime have been guilty of!

O'Neill HIMSELF even "claimed" HE was there to Nixon in about the same time period Kerry was...........NOW DO YOU
"GET IT "! :cd: :cd: :cd: :cd:

Please let me know if I can be of further assistance in "explaining" things to you.