John Kerry has a self-serving article in the Boston Globe commemorating the 35th anniversary of his testimony against the Vietnam war before the United States Senate. Kerry writes, "Thirty-five years later, in another war gone off course, I see history repeating itself." I do too, but just not the history repeat that has occured to John F. Kerry.

John Kerry joined the Navy in 1966, when the Vietnam war was by no means unfashionable. A few years later, public opinion changed and John Kerry's opinion, as it is wont to do, changed too. More than three years ago, when public opinion favored a war on Iraq by 3 to 1 margins, John Kerry voted for the war (before he voted against it!). John Kerry masquerades as a high-minded statesman guided by principle. His principles, strangely, generally seem to mirror the latest public opinion poll. To some degree, this is the sin of just about every politician. But John Kerry seems even more of a politician than the other politicians.

John Kerry could have stood against President Bush's war of choice in Iraq. But that would have imperiled his presidential bid. Today, he could stick by his unpopular vote to authorize sending Americans to fight in Iraq. But that doesn't fly in Massachusetts, doesn't fly in the Democratic presidential primaries, and increasingly, doesn't fly in the country at large. So, he does, in the most amorphous manner possible, the popular thing. But what's popular yesterday isn't necessarily what's popular today, and what's popular today isn't necessarily what's popular tomorrow. Chasing polls isn't always good politics. It's never good leadership.

There's no virtue in sticking with a failed policy. But John Kerry will never be accused of this flaw, so thoroughly exemplified by his 2004 vanquisher. John Kerry the politician is, in C.S. Lewis words, one of the "men without chests." But he pretends otherwise on the campaign trail. He has all the gestures down pat--saluting upon accepting the Democratic nomination, delivering speeches as though every word were Churchillian, and speaking in that Ivy-League/Boston Brahmin accent. But his actions are those of a politician, not those of a statesman. John Kerry voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, yet claims to be opposed to same-sex marriage. He voted for the war in Iraq, but poses as an opponent. He voted for the Patriot Act, but campaigned against it. He stands for nothing. He stands for everything. It's no wonder that the hackneyed "flip-flop" chants at the Republican National Convention hit home.

On Iraq, Kerry could have stood against the war when it really mattered. He didn't. Now that America is three years into Iraq, and the American people have reversed their collective stance on the war, Kerry has, seemingly at least, reversed his stance too. Kerry could have thrown a touchdown pass in standing against the war in 2002 and in 2003. Instead, he punted. Now he wants to play Monday Morning Quarterback.

There's no risk in that, and that--risk--is what this boring politician avoids most of all. And without risk, there is usually no reward. Perhaps this is a lesson lost on rich kids who spent their summers in France, falls and springs at Swiss boarding-schools, young adult years at Yale, and adulthood in the U.S. Senate. Rewards didn't come from risks then, so why start taking chances now? John Kerry never led public opinion on Iraq. He followed it. By taking the safe route, he helped push so many young men and women down the unsafe route.

Kerry writes in today's op-ed: "It was clear that thousands of Americans were losing their lives in Vietnam while politicians in Washington schemed to save their political reputations." History does indeed repeat itself.

As I've said many times on this board: we kicked the NVA's collective asses all over that damn country. The US won, decisively, every single major engagement with the NVA (including Tet), and yet the political tide still turned against the war. It's bungholes like this that actually cause MORE deaths in the warzones we're engaged in. By providing a front that is prone to change at any time, by refusing to stick to principle, encourage any enemy that wars can be won by attrition.

This guy gets people killed, pure and simple. I understand the arguments that point back to the administration, and I concede the point. But this man, and those who look very much like him, do the US military no favors.

People like Kerry are the new traitors. Slick, rich Ivy educated business men pretending to be serving their country while taking advantage of if for their own ego and gain. All while waving the flag they dishonor.

Dan, you said it all and as usual so well put.

Good post, Dan. Nice to see someone who looks beyond the passion of the moment and places actions in some historical perspective.

Kerry is Still Unfit for Command.

As you capture here, Kerry is just a major poseur. He is very trendy, but he always acts as though he embodies reason and considers himself some magesterial leader of reasonable people everywhere. It's bad breeding. Or rather, it's a bad effect of 'good breeding.'

(Bush shows different bad effects of 'good breeding,' but they annoy me a little less. Let's get a normal middle class kid in there.)

"Let's get a normal middle class kid in there."

I'm available.

Strangely, I agree with Kerry about Vietnam and not about Iraq.

Vietnam was a jungle pit with no wealth, geographic importance, or power to speak of. What they did was of not consequence to US policy at large, and every dollar spent, and every American that died in the Vietnam War was a horrific waste.

Iraq on the other hand, is extremely important to the Middle East. Bordering on six other nations, some of them major regional power players, centrally located, with a large amount of oil wealth, and a history of regional military dominance, Iraq is vital to US policy and the Middle East, and staying there is worth every penny, and every drop of blood, tragic though each one is.

I think that both wars fall into the same category. But, the point has been made that we need to maintain some strategic presence in that part of the World. Although, as I've said, let's take solve two problems and build bases around their oil fields and secure the product.

However, if this is about protecting Israel, I disagree with using our troops and money to be protective parents to a regional orphan.

But with both wars, Kerry was for them before he was against them.

Ben T-- I find it odd that any conservative would say that the Iraq war is more justified than Vietnam (whether your standard is just war, or merely strategic self-interest). I don't think getting into Vietnam was a wise thing, but at least (1) we didn't start the fight and (2) the spread of communism was actually a threat to us (even if Vietnamese communism, per se, wasn't). We were dealing there with a country that was in the process of being taken over by a bunch of murderous (on the scale of millions) tyrants as part of a powerful, state-sponsored international movement to take over the rest of the world by murderous tyrants.

In contrast: first, radical islamisicism is not the threat that communism was; second, it wasn't taking over Iraq.

Good assessment.