Kerry hasn’t changed stripes

John Kerry has been accused of flip-flopping.

There’s little question that he dances around issues, takes politically convenient positions, tells people what they want to hear, panders to special-interest groups, changes his mind frequently and performs political gymnastics on the great issues of the day.

But there’s one thing consistent in Kerry’s political character – ever since he came to the attention of the American public in 1971.

He is wrong.

He is wrong about our enemies.

And he’s wrong about America.

John Kerry is consistently wrong.

In fact, even when he’s right, he’s wrong. Because, on those rare occasions when he seems to be making some sense, you know it’s just a matter of time before he changes his mind and falls into line with his consistent track record of being wrong – dead wrong.

This thought occurred to me after reading an analysis of Kerry’s latest speech denouncing U.S. policy in Iraq.

It was Jerome Corsi, co-author of the No. 1 best-selling book, “Unfit for Command,” who made the observation that Kerry was singing the same infamous song he sang back in 1971.

Back then, April 22, 1971, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the young Lt. Kerry could see nothing right about U.S. involvement in Vietnam. It was a genocidal war, he claimed. U.S. troops were committing atrocities, he said. It was long past time to cut and run, he said. Turn it over to the United Nations, he said. It was a civil war, he said. We don’t have an exit strategy, he said. The people don’t support us, he said.

Sound familiar?

It should. It’s the same speech he gave this week – only this time he was talking about Iraq.

Let me blunt. Kerry was wrong about Vietnam. Oh, that’s not to say the politicians didn’t mess up the war and lose their sense of priorities. That’s not to say that we did everything right in Vietnam.

But it wasn’t all wrong, either.

U.S. troops fought a noble war in Vietnam against a ruthless and cunning enemy. And they won every significant engagement in that long war. They fought for a good cause – stopping communist totalitarianism from spreading throughout Southeast Asia.

It was far from being a genocidal war. It was the kind of war in which American troops, as usual, tried their utmost to avoid collateral damage – even putting their own lives at risk to protect innocent civilians.

Atrocities are committed in every war, but I know dozens and dozens of Vietnam veterans – including many of Kerry’s Swift Boat comrades – and none of them ever witnessed any war crimes committed by American troops.

Kerry told those senators that there would be no killing fields if the United States just packed up and left. Millions died when we did.

The precipitous evacuation of America troops from Vietnam not only cost the Vietnamese and Cambodians dearly, it also hurt America’s stature in the world and emboldened our enemies. The Cold War might have ended 10 years earlier had we seen the conflict through.

It wasn’t a civil war. It was a war of international communist aggression. Our enemy was supported by the Soviet Union and Red China.

And he was wrong about the people not supporting the United States. Just watch the reception Kerry gets when he visits the Vietnamese refugee communities in the United States. They will never forget his treachery any more than most Vietnam vets will ever forget his betrayal.

He was wrong then. And he’s wrong now.

That’s the awful, ugly, grotesque consistency of John Kerry.

He’s making the same mistakes over and over again. And he never learns from them. The reason he has never learned from them is because he has been rewarded by voters and the elite in this country for his wrong-headedness.

Bill Clinton’s mentor, Sen. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, ate it up in 1971. The news media ate it up. And the people of Massachusetts rewarded him with a long, successful political career.

But this special brand of Kerry arrogance and anti-Americanism could never have played to a popular national audience in 1971 any more than it can today.

John Kerry is about five weeks away from finding that out.