Bush and Kerry may have overplayed war hands

[igloo]

Bush and Kerry may have overplayed war hands

By Michael Tackett Tribune senior correspondent

It is not surprising that this presidential campaign is consumed by a raging debate over the war. It is stunning that the war in question ended in Vietnam some 30 years ago.

With real-time firefights every day in Iraq (news - web sites), with nearly 1,000 American soldiers killed in the conflict, the campaigns of Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) and President Bush (news - web sites), or their surrogates, are focused on the did-he-or-didn't-he details of Kerry's record as a swift boat commander when he was in his 20s.

In a campaign that already has had its share of novel twists, this carries risks and opportunities for both candidates. And it is possible that both have overplayed their hands.

Those sympathetic to the president are trying to undercut what Kerry has promoted as the fundamental strength of his candidacy--that as a battle-tested Navy lieutenant in Vietnam he possesses exemplary, even preferable, credentials to be commander in chief.

There are early signs that the Bush supporters' strategy has worked, fanned by the widespread media coverage of the accusations made by a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that claims Kerry has lied about his war record.

Kerry's campaign has responded, somewhat belatedly, with forceful counterattacks, but it is still spending time defending his four months in Vietnam instead of challenging the president over his prosecution of the war in Iraq.

To be sure, Kerry invited strong scrutiny of his record because he made it the mantra for his White House run. In Iowa, his flagging effort surged after Jim Rassmann, a Republican whose life Kerry saved in Vietnam, appeared at a Kerry campaign rally to endorse him.

Kerry has followed a very traditional candidate-as-war-hero model, one as old as the republic. But he has hardly been subtle about it.

Smear campaign alleged

Kerry's supporters are now accusing the president of a smear campaign, and there is precedent for the Bush family enjoying the negative fruits of shadow groups to make a frontal attack that the candidate himself wouldn't dare make.

In 1988, an independent group ran an ad skewering Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis for supporting a prison furlough program. The ad depicted a menacing-looking inmate named Willie Horton, who committed rape and murder while on a furlough.

The first President George Bush (news - web sites) disavowed any connection to the effort. The second President Bush watched as a shadow group savaged Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) during the 2000 South Carolina primary.

The president has chosen to respond to questions about the campaign against Kerry by deflecting the subject, saying that he would like to see all independently funded ads withdrawn. At the same time, Bush declined to specifically denounce attacks on Kerry.

"Until now it was sort of accepted that his [Kerry's] performance in the service was valorous," said Ross Baker, a presidential scholar at Rutgers University. "The fact that some percentage of voters are reappraising this, I think, represents a victory for the Bush-Cheney campaign.

"I always felt that this was a man who was surrounded by a fence of medals," Baker said. "It's like the story of the man with the crucifix and the vampire. Here, clearly the vampire is more resourceful than we gave him credit for."

For the past several weeks, Kerry has been drawn into a fight with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth over his military service. There is fury over the nature of the fight, mostly running in Kerry's favor, but little evidence that he has benefited in any significant way. And for Republican partisans, the issue stokes anti-Kerry energy.

Unclear is whether or not it might provoke a backlash.

That was made plain when former Sen. Bob Dole, whose World War II wounds left him permanently disabled, went on CNN Sunday to challenge the authenticity of Kerry's three Purple Hearts, implying that Kerry used those medals as a device to leave his Vietnam service early.

Undecided voters watching

But the effort also could be making inroads among a small percentage of critical undecided voters.

"Some of the polls show preliminarily that this is beginning to have some influence on independent voters," said Terry Madonna (news - web sites), director of the non-partisan Keystone Poll in Pennsylvania. "The second thing is that the vociferousness of Democratic response indicates that it is having some success."

Madonna said that given the dramatically small number of undecided voters so far, any movement to one candidate or the other could be important.

For his part, Kerry has benefited from many attacks on Bush conducted by Democratic-funded independent committees such as MoveOn.Org. Millions of dollars have been spent to muddy the president, even to the point of offering up a plan to impeach him. Those efforts also have been effective.

For now, though, the president's backers have dominated the conversation, and it might not matter who is ultimately correct, even if the facts as are known today seem to heavily favor Kerry's version of events.

The president's backers have driven the conversation during what was otherwise thought to be a typically news-free August. Now Bush can go to his nominating convention in New York and talk about his priorities for the next four years.

It is impossible to know if the battle over Kerry's war record will have a lasting impact on the campaign. But it has consumed at least a couple of weeks, and on terms far more favorable to the president.

[mursa]

..Bush went to war ? ( i mean fought in one , not send others)