Don’t let Bush define Kerry by antiwar efforts

The Page 1 headlines have been coming, one after the other, a martial drumbeat that could become a dirge for a political funeral:

“Kerry Defends Vietnam Record” (USA Today)

“Stolen Files Recount John Kerry’s Antiwar Days” (San Francisco Chronicle)

“Kerry Went From Soldier to Antiwar Protester” (Baltimore Sun)

“Kerry Role in Antiwar Veterans Is Delicate Issue in His Campaign” (New York Times)

“Kerry’s War Record in Vietnam Is Providing Ammunition for Both Sides” (Dallas Morning News)

Excuse me, but the last time I checked, Kerry was a bona fide war hero, a decorated combat veteran who -- while injured -- ordered his patrol boat to head back toward heavy enemy fire on the Bay Hap River where he personally rescued a fellow sailor.

If anyone earned the right to subsequently criticize the war -- and to be immunized against the customary right wing charges that such criticism is unpatriotic -- I would think it would be Sen. John Kerry. Instead, we have the Bush administration and its apologists trying to turn Kerry into “Hanoi John,” as Rep. Sam Johnson of Texas recently called him.

In reporting these attacks, the media have inadvertently given credence to a major argument of the Bush reelection campaign -- that a President Kerry would be weak on defense. And this from a sitting president who got himself into the National Guard rather than risk going to Vietnam -- and a sitting vice president who said in 1989 that he didn’t go to Vietnam because “I had other priorities in the ‘60s than military service.”

Given these circumstances, I don’t think it should be getting the volume and prominence of attention that it’s getting -- Page 1 coverage in major newspapers and big play on the network and cable morning, evening and weekend shows.

E.J. Dionne Jr., a respected and evenhanded columnist for the Washington Post, called the Republican assault on Kerry “shameless” and likened it to Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s red-baiting investigations.

“When Bill Clinton was running against Republican war veterans in 1992 and 1996, the most important thing to GOP propagandists and politicians was that Clinton didn’t fight in Vietnam,” Dionne wrote last week. “Now that Republican candidates who didn’t fight in Vietnam face a Democrat who did -- and was awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts while he was there -- the Republican machine wants to change the subject.”

What they want to change the subject to, of course, is Kerry’s antiwar activities.

Are the media obligated to report the criticisms of these activities? Of course. They’re an important part of his personal and political biography. His participation in them -- especially his leadership of 1,000 other Vietnam veterans in a protest in Washington and his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971 -- made him an overnight celebrity before that phenomenon became commonplace in America and helped make possible his political career. Besides, he has not hesitated to use his military service to his political advantage in this campaign.

So even without any Republican criticism, Kerry’s antiwar activities would -- should -- be part of campaign coverage. And when reputable public officials criticize the patriotism -- and the suitability as commander in chief -- of the opposing party’s presumptive presidential nominee, it’s news. It should be recorded -- and examined.

But Kerry was, by all reliable accounts, a responsible critic of the war, not a wild-eyed radical.

Yes, he used harsh language, speaking of “atrocities” committed by U.S. troops and warning that the United States had “created a monster.” But he urged his fellow activists to work within the system to end the war, and he left Vietnam Veterans Against the War after 10 months, concerned that the organization was “becoming too radical,” as historian Douglas Brinkley wrote in “Tour of Duty,” his book on Kerry’s wartime service and antiwar activities.

Max Cleland, former Georgia senator and former 1st Air Cavalry captain, who lost both legs and his right arm when a grenade exploded near him in Vietnam, told the Baltimore Sun that Kerry was part of a “moderating force” within Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Kerry, Cleland said, “earned his spurs “ as a war critic.

Cleland was similarly attacked in his 2002 race, as was Sen. John McCain in the 2000 South Carolina Republican presidential primary. The tactic is not new. So you report the charges, you report the facts -- briefly, in context -- and you move on.

Hubbub over medals

I don’t care whether Kerry threw away his own combat medals and/or ribbons during an April 1971 antiwar rally, as he seemed to say at the time, or if he was throwing away his ribbons and the medals of two veterans unable to attend the event -- not his own medals -- as he has said more recently. Whatever he did was a symbolic gesture designed both to demonstrate his disillusionment with the war and to attract support for his cause.

But the media have treated his apparently conflicting accounts of that day as a smoking gun.

“EXCLUSIVE: Did Kerry lie about Vietnam War medals?” headlined the ABC News website on Tuesday.

The conservatives’ long-standing complaint about a dominant liberal news media in this country notwithstanding, Kerry certainly hasn’t fared well on this issue. In fact, according to a survey by the Washington Post, he hasn’t fared well in general of late, at least not on the cable news networks.

“In the daily battle for airtime, Bush has drawn more than three times as much live cable coverage as his Democratic challenger ...,” the Post reported, based on a study of cable news networks from March 3 through April 16.

What concerns me about this -- and about coverage of Kerry’s antiwar activities in particular -- is that in their admirable effort to be fair and balanced, to avoid being characterized as liberal and biased, the media could give Bush, who already has the advantage of incumbency, a further, unfair advantage in setting the campaign agenda.

To some extent, a presidential campaign is about the fitness and qualifications of the challenger. But it’s also -- ultimately -- a referendum on the incumbent.

The strategy for Bush and his surrogates is clear. Rather than defend their policies in Iraq and on the economy, they want to make Kerry the issue, to define him as a waffler, as soft on defense, as a “typical tax-and-spend liberal” and as an elitist with a wealthy, French-speaking wife and no connection with or feel for the common man.

The latter charge -- coming from supporters of George W. Bush, who was born into wealth and privilege, with a silver spur in his mouth -- is almost as hypocritical as the Bush campaign’s attack on Kerry’s valor and patriotism.

Both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are multimillionaires, and tax policies that favor the rich -- including efforts to repeal the inheritance tax -- have been the major thrust of their administration’s domestic program.

I hope the media, in their determination to be both nonpartisan and respectful of the office of the presidency, won’t let Republicans get away with tarring Kerry’s patriotism or somehow turning Bush versus Kerry into the common man from Texas vs. the rich elitist from Massachusetts.

That would be like letting Bill Clinton get away with accusations of philandering against Billy Graham.

David Shaw can be reached at david.shaw@latimes.com. To read his previous “Media Matters” columns, please go to latimes.com/shaw-media.