Jerry Patterson's Letter to John Kerry

Well, Kerry's campaign has indulged in a bit of fun political theater: they sent Max Cleland and Jim Rassman to the president's ranch to deliver a letter from a number of Democratic vets in the Senate asking him to denounce the Kerry smears, in particular the Swift Boat ads. They were met by fellow vet Jerry Patterson who agreed to accept the letter in the president's behalf only if the group would accept a letter from him and other vets who support the president. Cleland decided to simply mail his letter.

Let's consider Mr. Patterson's letter for a moment, shall we? Here's one of its central criticisms of Sen. Kerry:

You can't build your convention and much of your campaign around your service in Vietnam, and then try to say that only those veterans who agree with you have a right to speak up. There is no double standard for our right to free speech.

Not much to argue with there, except the ad campaign Sen. Kerry has been asking GWB to denounce is full of untruths. It's not a question of agree or disagree. People make statements in the original Swift Boat Vets for Truth ad which are demonstrably false. As such, it seems fair to characterize it as a smear campaign, and ask that it be denounced. Since Sen. Kerry has denounced similar ads coming from MoveOn.org (and others), there would seem to be the exact opposite of a double-standard.

The letter also talks about what has been the foundation of these attacks on Sen. Kerry — his testimony before the Congress in 1971. Here's how the letter puts it:

we are ... concerned about the comments you made AFTER you came home from Vietnam. You accused your fellow veterans of terrible atrocities — and, to this day, you have never apologized.

This claim that Sen. Kerry accused people of terrible atrocities is not exactly accurate, either. Then private citizen and former soldier Kerry was reading summaries of testimonies from service men given in Detroit at the Winter Soldier Investigation, which had taken place several months earlier. Mr. Kerry did not accuse anyone of anything. He was merely reporting what service men had witnessed, or had confessed. A fuller report on Mr. Kerry's testimony may be read here. Mr. Kerry's actual testimony may be read here.

I suppose if My Lai and Lt. Calley are in today's history books, the claim would be that this was a singular occurrence, perpetrated by a few "bad eggs". What the Winter Soldier Investigation made clear is that My Lai was more common than any civilized human being would want to believe. No one need apologize for telling the truth.

The Swift Boat Vets, however, might want to consider apologizing for telling lies.

I dearly wish Sen. Kerry had not made his service in VietNam such a lynch pin of the Democratic Convention. Every single night of those four days, we heard about that friggin swift boat and how he pulled some poor sod out of the water while the boat was under fire. I understand why he did it, but one could be excused for believing it's the sum total of his campaign. It's no wonder the Rovian attack dogs are gnawing at it.

I do hope the next two and half months are not spent rehashing VietNam. Sen. Kerry, it's time for you to put Rove, GWB, et al, on the defensive by telling the truth about our crumbling economy, the failed Iraq policy, etc etc.