Why the shocking accusations against Kerry are not impossible

Having read Unfit for Command, Tony Blankley concludes that there is no middle ground between the Kerry defenders and the Kerry accusers, no room for mistaken impressions or honest disagreement. As hard as it is to believe, Blankley writes, the truth is either that Kerry’s accusers are stone-cold total liars, or that Kerry and his defenders are stone-cold total liars. Blankley clearly leans toward the latter alternative.

The idea that Kerry is such a massive liar does not seem impossible to me. For one thing, I had decided by early 2004 that Kerry was the biggest phony and the biggest liar I had ever seen. (Clinton’s lies were fast and swirling; Kerry’s are huge bombs.) While I don’t know yet if the charges against Kerry are true, they would seem to fit the pattern we’re already familiar with.

What do we know about Kerry? That he has a godlike sense of entitlement, that he stands for nothing except the orthodox left-liberalism that confirms his godlike entitlement, and that, with a complete lack of embarrassment, he says whatever he feels he has to say to advance or glorify himself in any given situation because his only standard is his own self-importance.

We also know from his Vietnam letters, published in The Atlantic last year, that he was anti-war even before he went to Vietnam, or, at least, that he became anti-war very soon after he arrived. By anti-war I mean not just critical of the war, but despising everything it stood for and disdaining America too.

Therefore, based on all the above, it made sense for Kerry to extract himself out of Vietnam as quickly as possible, while extracting from Vietnam that which would help advance his agenda of entitlement, namely a political career leading to a second “JFK” presidency. Since he really despised both America and the war, he had no qualms about lying to acquire medals that would advance his career and simultaneously help him escape from Vietnam faster.

The behavior of which Kerry is accused, though admittedly shocking and disturbing, makes logical and psychological sense based on we know about him.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 11, 2004 02:01 AM | Send