And really, what could possibly be worse?

It’s curious really. I know the liberals want to attack the personal lives of the SwiftVets, but really how can they? In almost ever instance there’s a Democrat who’s done just as bad that hasn’t been attacked for that misbehavior.

1. If one is an adulterer, there’s Bill Clinton.

2. If one is a liar, there Bill Clinton and Kerry.

3. If one has exaggerated, then there’s Al “Tawana Brawley” Sharpton and Kerry.

4. If one is gay, then there’s McGreevy of New Jersey. Not to mention that attacking someone for being gay would be a tough sell for liberals.

5. If one has embezzled, there’s Jesse Jackson.

6. If one has mistresses, there’s Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton and McGreevy.

7. If one gets involved with a prostitute, there’s a recent story about a Democrat Congressman who got caught with one in his car.

I’m sure there’s more, but I really don’t see how the SwiftVets could be attacked. The only thing they could get attacked for, which is going on right now, is for being backed by Republicans.

The problem is that allegation is pretty childish. The instant rejoiner is “What? Are Democrats going to fund them?”. Which has been said several times already.

I think the only hope for Kerry is to factually refute the allegations. Which he probably cannot, if his reluctance to fully open his records is any indication.

1930ís Kansas. Census taker comes to a farm. Asks the father his political affiliation:

“I’m a Democrat. My daddy was a Democrat, and all my boys, too. ‘Cept the youngest. He took to readin’….”

I understand that speeding away from ambush zone at high speed was the approved tactic if you were taking a lot of fire from shore. I would point out that, after a spasm of return fire from the boats in the seconds after the mine went off, the other boats remained to aid PCF 3. Kerry’s boat accelerated so fast that he threw one person overboard. I’ve seen a graphic that times out how far downstream Kerry would have been before he turned back. The estimate was up to a mile. Unfortunately, I can’t find the link.

There are some questions that I would have for the crews that a good reporter might ask. For example, were the other boats laying down a continuous pattern of defensive, suppressive fire while Thurlow as working on PCF 3? I’d be interested to know if anyone got on the radio and called Kerry back. The fact that he did come back after running away suggest that there was no fire coming from the shore.

This specific incident is not the only one that suggests Kerry was gun shy. I can certainly understand and sympathize for the FNG in the Boston Whaler cracking off a grenade to make a big boom so the shadows would disappear. Scooting when the rest of the patrol stayed behind suggests a motivation to get his pretty pink ass out of there and to hell with any one behind him. He was supposedly in command. It was his job to find out what the tactical situation was, not just run as far and as fast as he could.

That said, I think his current response to the SBVT ads reinforces the perception of cowardice. He could resolve all this by releasing his records. It looks like he doesn’t have the guts to let the American public make a fair and honest judgment of his qualifications. He is keeping his military and medical records, and THK’s tax info, underwraps. If and when he does release them, I would reommend going over them very carefully. The SBVT has me convinced that he is not above falsifying records.

The confederate named John Wilson was killed in the last battle of the war at Appomatax. He left behind 8 children. Years later as his son lay dying from blood poisoning he told my grand mother [his grand daughter] that he could still see his father walking away under the poplar trees in his butternut uniform after he had told him he was to take care of the family. He was 14 when his father was killed. I had another relative who deserted from the Confederate army and went north where he spent the remainder of the war in drag living with his mistress and passing himself off as her sister. the family, needless to say, disowned him.

The yankee, a German, survived the war and became a mule skinner and later was in the 89′er run in Oklahoma.

I also have a distant relative that was a Cherokee from the Carolinas and with her white husband and 13 children was a part of the Trail of Tears. Like a lot of the Indians she went back east after the march. a disgrace.

My sister Queene is named after my Cherokee grandmother. (Grandfather was Choctaw.) Belle Starr was her aunt-by-marriage.

One brother’s middle name is “Walker” because we’re descended from General Walker of the Confederate side; the other’s is “McKinley” from the president.

My great grandfather’s name was “Jefferson Davis Martin”. Born in Georgia in 1861. I guess we know which side they were on.

But my sixth-great grandfather was Major Jacob Martin, who commanded the Georgia Militia unit that performed the Removal.

You can’t make this stuff up.

I was startled to learn quite recently that my great grandfather, William Young Irons (1841-1917), my grandfather’s dad (whom I don’t recall him ever mentioning to me, and I last spoke with my grandfather when I was a medical student) was a Civil War veteran on the Confederate side! I had always thought we were all pure Yankees! My great grandfather fought for four years of the war under Jubal Early, and somehow survived, returned to his farm and became a dentist (!) and lived a long life.

So maybe that’s why I am Jacksonian. But then why are all my siblings pure Wilsonians?

Jamie Irons

Here’s the reference for the article I just mentioned (not available online):

“The 2004 Presidential Campaign in Historical Perspective” by William E. Leuchtenburg OAH Magazine of History July 2004, page 58

It’s fabulous (apart from the fact that Leuchtenberg uncritically repeats the charge that Republicans “questioned Max Clelland’s patriotism” as fact).

Here’s a line:

Ever since the Civil War, Republicans have claimed to be the only party to be trusted with national security.

I love it!

This is an o-l-d argument.

I’ve been thinking about the “hive mind” ever since DARPA came up with its terror market.

Now you’ve got me thinking about the hive memory. I would not have said that I personally am re-fighting the Civil War in my private life.

OTOH, my father’s middle name is the name of his grandfather’s (great grandfather’s?) captain in the Civil War, and one of my sons has the same middle name. Here I am, living in 2004, and the family name I’m proudest of and most attached to comes straight from the Civil War.

Bush has a Southern accent and he is not viewed as a “tame” southerner like Jimmy Carter because he is an unrepentant

conservative. After all these years, we’re still not really willing as a nation to grant full humanity to Southerners.

That’s interesting, because you still hear a lot about the Republicans and the “Southern strategy.” (I do, anyway.)

I’ll read VDH.

Notice that I said “diction.” (Perhaps I should have said “tone” or “speech pattern,” or something else.)

I was referring not to the accent, which I agree is “pure Boston Brahmin,” as you say; I was trying to get at the attitude conveyed, which seemed to me much like that of the TV sitcom character “Frasier,” but without the latter’s self-irony.

That’s what I find irritating.

Jamie Irons