ElectionAnalysis.com
Archive: 03/20/2004

A quick look at the dictionary reveals the following definition of character: "A distinguishing attribute of moral force or integrity." Another look at integrity reveals this definition: "Uprightness of character; honesty"- as in not lying, not changing the story to suit the moment, but saying what really happened, and that stays the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

This is what the left never seems to get. Americans want CHARACTER in their president! After suffering through all the fancy footwork of the Clinton Administration, the nation is fed-up with and tired of dealing with a Commander-in-Chief who dances the "Potomac Two-Step".

The Democrats have formed focus groups and study sessions and think tanks and pondered and wondered why is it that the American People keep supporting Bush? They just can't figure it out. They hate him so much that they would like to impeach him for being Bush. They are so blinded by their raw hatred that they cannot see that the American people trust the President's CHARACTER and believe that he will stand up for what he believes. And they find that very comforting.

John Kerry apparently does not understand that the President of the United States speaks for 300 millions Americans and most of the free world as well. The post 911 world cannot afford another US President that bounces the truth around like a Ping-Pong ball. He apparently doesn't understand that there are a lot of very smart people around with very good memories who remember what he said yesterday, even if he can't.

It is true that we are still six months away from the election, and much could happen between then and now, but one thing Americans can be fairly sure of- that John Kerry will not grow an "honesty gland" between now and the election. He has been a waffler yesterday, he is a waffler today, and he will be a waffler tomorrow as well.

Even if the Democratic party manages to get him some truth lessons, and he manages to get on a roll and doesn't change a story for a few weeks at a time, one can be quite sure that internally, he will be feeling the force of the Ping-Pong ball bouncing, bouncing, bouncing......

Better to die ten thousand deaths, than wound my honour.
Joseph Addison

Take, for example, the questionable action of throwing his war medals over a fence. Whether that action was justified is a deep question that we still seem unable to really answer. Then he misrepresents what he did. Eventually, when another version of his story is politically expedient, he says he didn’t throw his medals. Now he says that he threw his ribbons and that ribbons and medals were, at the time, considered to be the same thing. So to clear things up: Kerry throws something over a fence, lies about it, repudiates the lie, then says his repudiation was actually a partial lie because ribbons are the same things as medals. Still confused? So apparently is Kerry. Maybe he doesn't know what the meaning of is, is.

One thing that isn’t confusing is that unfortunately Kerry seems willing to lie when it’s politically expedient. Like a contortionist Kerry continues to persist in a series of fallacious distortions of various facts in his history. It seems like he’s changed his story so many times he isn’t even sure which story he’s currently trying to say. This is behavior more like a juvenile trying to get out of being caught in a lie, who continually hedges and changes his story. Americans don’t want a juvenile president. They want one willing to own up to his mistakes. Not an odd, double-speaking man, who changes his position every time the wind blows.

The saddest thing is that most people don’t really care whether he threw the medals, or ribbons, or others medals, or whatever it was that he threw. People only care about how he keeps changing his account of what happened. Kerry insists that this is just another in a continuous string of "phony controversies" initiated by the Republican Party. While it’s certain that some issues deserve the title of "phony controversy," one thing seems to be clear with most of these issues being discussed by the press and politicians: Kerry’s story is always changing.

Even if the story were "Kerry learned to walk at three years old," he would have at least four different accounts of it. It would start with "I walked, I can’t remember- six, seven, eight, nine steps." The next day he might say, "I just pretended to take my first steps, I was too proud to actually do it." Naturally he would include "I was going to start walking, but I didn’t have time to get the camera so I used the walker of a baby who couldn’t be there." He would end by saying something like "I stood up for a minute and wiggled my toes, which at the time was considered the same thing as walking." Imagine his speaking on a future terrorist attack in the same way.

The current story of John Kerry is reminiscent of the boy who cried wolf: he lied so many times that no sensible villager could believe anything he said. Perhaps Senator Kerry missed that particular story.

It would be nice to see some real competition against Bush. Too bad Kerry isn’t it. Senator Kerry, perhaps it is time take your weird lies and issue-flopping and make way for a real man or woman.

As common as any other form of protest, ribbon-throwing has been a favorite of truly sincere ex-soldiers in a show of protest against one cause or another. It is the military veteran’s equivalent to burning the flag. It is, needless to say, pretty heavy.

In 1973, Kerry said he threw his medals onto the White House lawn. Now some bored reporters have discovered that Kerry, in an interview that took place some 20 years after the original event, said he threw his ribbons along with some medals that were given to him by other veteran soldiers — who requested he throw theirs along with his — over the fence in protest.

His medals, his ribbons.... Why are we demonizing Kerry over this?

For those unaware of military decoration, medals are bestowed on military individuals who perform above and beyond the call of duty. They are small medallions affixed to a pin with a decorative fabric ribbon. They are, while not heavy, not the easiest to display on the uniform properly.

For ease of display, the ribbon (which matches the fabric design of the full medal) is small and displayed in a line on the breast of the uniform, stacked in specified order in rows at four deep by however many tall (depending on the number the soldier has been awarded).

The ribbon (small and easily displayed) is representative on the uniform for the medal (big and awkward to display). They are: one in the same. To clarify, not all ribbons are medals. Some are only bestowed in ribbon format. However, to make display regimented, medals are placed into ribbon format and placed amid all the rest of the ribbons a soldier displays.

Long story short, the ribbons Kerry pitched onto the White House lawn in protest so many years ago are also the medals Kerry pitched onto the White House lawn.

Had the media been members of the military at some point, and had they a lick of common sense, they’d have realized that the confusion over the question of medal/ribbon is due entirely to the multi-purpose use of the ribbon on the military uniform.

Now the media’s mishandling of the ribbon/medal problem has made the senator from Massachusetts look like a liar. It’s only in the inaccurate information the media has published that this is so. Kerry used the terms interchangeably because they’re interchangeable, not because he’s lying.

As a lesson for the next time, instead of assuming the media knows what it’s talking about, perhaps the American public will research the claims that seems too stupid to be true. The public may discover that the mainstream media will fail them as easily as any other public trust.