A quick, informed glance at Sen. John Kerry should persuade the vast majority of Americans he is not presidential timber.
While portraying himself as a man of the people, someone looking out for the little guy, the fact of the matter is he's a dilettante – a guy who expects special privileges for himself and gets them.
While portraying himself as a war hero, he's actually a guy who came home and immediately dishonored his uniform and jeopardized the lives of men still fighting in Vietnam with reckless and baseless accusations that aided and abetted the enemy.
While portraying himself as a consistent voice on the war on terror, he's been anything but. His votes on the Iraq war, the Afghan conflict and supplemental legislation designed to support our fighting forces have been all over the map – sometimes for, sometimes against.
This is John Kerry. Consistently inconsistent.
But this waffling has a purpose. It's meant to deceive you about who he really is.
For instance, in 1992, explaining why questions about Bill Clinton's draft-dodging during the Vietnam era were not legitimate topics during the presidential campaign, he said: "I am saddened by the fact that Vietnam has yet again been inserted into the campaign and that it has been inserted in what I feel to be the worst possible way. ... The race for the White House should be about leadership. Leadership requires that one help heal the wounds of Vietnam, not reopen them; that one help identify the positive things that we learned about ourselves and about our nation, not play to the divisions and differences of that crucible of our generation.
"We do not need now to divide American over who served and how. ... Are we now to descend, like latter-day Spiro Agnews, and play, as he did, to the worst instincts of divisiveness and instincts of reaction that still haunt America?"
That was John Kerry then. Now, it's a different story, of course. Now President Bush's war-time record – clearly far more honorable than Bill Clinton's, that is being subjected to scrutiny. Now John Kerry is the "war hero," and the incumbent president's service that is a subject of "legitimate" concern.
Here's John Kerry singing a different tune last May: "I don't have to sit in the Situation Room and be taught everything, though I could learn a lot there. ... I learned a lot on the front lines. I think being tempered by war, as President Kennedy said, is a valuable experience as you lead a country as commander in chief and as the chief diplomat."
Once again, at this point, it is important for me to point out that I do not support Bush. I am not excusing anything he did or didn't do in military service. I am discussing his opponent – John Kerry. He's a hypocrite, and the American people need to know.
More than any other man in America, John Kerry is responsible for the cover-up of what became of our Vietnam POWs and MIAs. That's a wound from Vietnam that will never heal in this nation because of his actions.
John Kerry came home from that war and threw medals in trash cans. He paraded around with Jane Fonda and those carrying Viet Cong flags and accused our troops of atrocities. Then he went to the U.S. Senate and led hearings on the POW-MIA issue.
One Vietnam vet who could legitimately be characterized as a war hero and who was a POW offered to provide information on the location of POWS in Vietnam.
"He made some surprising statements during that exchange," said Mark A. Smith. "He stated emphatically that I should provide him with any information I had on missing Americans. This he stated he would take to Hanoi to discuss with the communists. He didn't seem to understand the communists knew where the POWs were and needed no help from him to 'find them.' ... He then stated that no matter what I had there would be no military operation to rescue them. In other words, Sen. Kerry felt that Americans were worth talking about, but not worth fighting for."
The American people need to know who John Kerry really is. There are lots of reasons to vote against George W. Bush, but there are few reasons, indeed, to support his likely opponent.