The Cynical Sinking of John Kerry—The Attack on the 2020 Nominee will be Worse

How did the Republican Party sink a decorated Navy veteran and make a pair of war avoiders into heroes?  It was brilliant. And it will happen again. 

John Kerry was a veteran of one of the more dangerous duties in the Vietnam War. He patrolled the Cambodian border on the Mekong River in a Swift Boat, a small gunboat.  John Kerry was a Swift Boat captain.  So how did a guy who took and returned fire on a hostile border get trashed for his service? 

Jerome Corsi and other Republic hacks attacked Kerry for lying about his war record.  When I first heard this attack, I couldn’t believe it. Soldiers, sailors and everyone who ever served in the military has exaggerated a war story, or any story.  When I was in Basic training, pimply faced 18-year-old boys bragged of prowess in lovemaking that left a half dozen women breathless and begging for more. They competed about who had the worst stepmothers, fathers, sisters, whoever. In the muscle-car obsessed 70s they all bragged about the Corvette Sting Ray, or Road Runner, or Hemi ‘Cuda they had back home.  We made $283 per month.

Liars in the military are as rare as liars on fishing boats.  Or in barrooms. 

The political hacks knew that soldiers were held in the highest regard since the attack of America on September 11, 2001.  He also knew that the vast majority of Americans did not know a soldier personally.  So, Corsi could make Kerry’s exaggerated war stories into a real sin for the plurality of Americans who don’t know soldiers and sailors. 

Could it work with veterans? There were still a lot of veterans who heard lies in tents and troopships and drafty barracks. But Rove knew that most veterans, me included, hated Kerry for what he said after the war, calling all Vietnam War veterans war criminals.  And worse than that John Kerry went to a Paris conference attended by the North Vietnamese and Jane Fonda.  The vast majority of Vietnam War veterans hate Jane Fonda for going to North Vietnam and posing with Viet Cong soldiers. 

Corsi knew that old ladies across America love Jane Fonda, so if he attacked Kerry for his connection to Fonda, it would backfire. He also knew that veterans needed only the flimsiest excuse to hate Kerry. So, lying was enough, even for the veterans. And combat veteran Kerry became a liar while Bush and Cheney, who both avoided service in the same war, became the veterans choice.

In 2020, the attacks Republicans make on Democrats will take the worst of Corsi and amplify it with Trumpean hate. 

As a veteran and a communications guy, I will be interested to see how low the Republicans go in attacking Democrats.  I won’t be surprised however they attack.  And it will be sophisticated. The attack on Kerry was a brilliant piece of communications strategy, taking one misleading message and twisting it to give veterans an excuse to hate Kerry while convincing idiots that soldiers are heroes who would never lie about their war records.