Greg Ransom
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UPDATE: Leftists / Democrats have a rather unhealthy stake in broadly cast fantasies and deceptions Captain Ed suggests:
"For some reason [George Bush's] opponents this year have attempted to smear him with various factually-deficient charges of desertion and draft-dodging, even though Bush flew a notoriously dangerous fighter jet in home-defense missions. They have built up a mythology of Bush the Deserter, Bush the Dodger, Bush the Evil, because mythology is how they lived their own lives. As we watch the Christmas in Cambodia mythology disintegrate before our very eyes, taking with it John Kerry's entire supposed motivation for his disenchantment with the war and the US government, Kerry has been exposed as an unprincipled phony, using bits and pieces of other people's lives to build his own resume. The subset of people supporting Kerry by using the Bush mythology may prove just as resistant to reality as John Kerry and Terry McAuliffe (and Michael Moore, et al), because they'd rather live in their fantasy world where everything wrong in the universe can be traced back to Evil W. Terrorism? George Bush provoked it, and even if he didn't, he's covering up for Saudi air-force pilots who really committed 9/11 in order to control world oil output. WMDs? George Bush made it all up, even though the same data led Congress to declare regime change the official American policy in 1998, and even the French and German intelligence agencies believed them to exist in large quantities. It's beyond irrational; it approaches schizophrenia."The lies and myth-making are not healthy for America, I say. This is why the "Christmas in Cambodia" story has umph -- the twisted deceptions of our national conversation have firm roots in the twisted souls of those torn apart by the Vietnam travesty and the race problems of the 60s. Those radicalized by Vietnam and Jim Crow have internalized a logic which demands victory by any means necessary. And that demand most usually includes grand dishonest myth and the silencing of alternative voices. We see it everyday and forests have fallen for the books written about it. On a personal level, the "any means necessary" logic led many on the left down the path of morally compromised behavior in the name of the "cause". Lying here served not only the "cause", but became necessary to cover for personal breaches of everyday moral norms sanctioned by an "ends justify the means" mentality, which often excused self-serving actions done in the name of "higher ends". Bill and Hillary Clinton, call your office. The Kerry "Christmas in Cambodia" story represents an opportunity to drive one small silver stake in a core stream of the master leftist deception about America over the last 35 -- the enforced mythology which has it that those who support America's military involvement in the world are either soaked in blood or knee-deep in blood-soaked dollars; while those who see American military involvement in the world as immoral ("war crimes") and corrupt ("Halliburton") are virtuous to the point of being beyond moral criticism. I.e. leftists and Democrats are have supreme moral standing, while Republicans and conservatives have not even the moral standing required of those who wish to be heard.
Well, the tables get turned with the relevations of the Swift Boat veterans ..
UPDATE II: Don't miss Lileks on all this. Quotable:
If Kerry’s story is a lie, it’s significant, but not because we have a gotcha moment – gee, a politician reworked the truth to his advantage, big surprise. This is much larger than that. This is like Bush insisting that he flew an intercept mission with the Texas Air National Guard to repel Soviet bombers based in Cuba, and later stating that this event was “seared in his memory – seared” because it taught him the necessity of standing up against evil governments, such as the ones we face today. In other words, it would not only be a lie, but one that eroded the political persona he was relying upon in the election. Kerry has made Vietnam central to his campaign. If he’s making crap up, it matters. But the story of the CIA agent he ferried into the Heart of Darkness gives the gotcha a curious twist; as lawyers say on TV courtroom dramas, it goes to state of mind. What sort of man bedecked with genuine decorations feels compelled to manufacture a story like this one?Posted by Greg Ransom
