Why the AWOL issue is dinging Bush

Sidney Blumenthal makes a telling connection between the current rightwing campaign to attack John Kerry's patriotism and one of the all-time masters of slime-slinging: Kerry will win the patriotism game Guardian (UK) 02/12/04. That would be Richard Nixon, the "founding father of the Republican patriot game". Nixon was confronted during his Presidency with a charismatic young antiwar leader, a Vietnam veteran named John Kerry.

According to Nixon's secret White House tapes, a number of fretful meetings were held about how to discredit Kerry. Nixon, the ultimate opportunist, wanted to characterise Kerry as one, too. "Well, he is sort of a phoney, isn't he?" Nixon was recorded as saying. "A racket, sure." "He came back a hawk and became a dove when he saw the political opportunities," Charles Colson, his hatchet man, noted. At which Nixon said: "Well, anyway, keep the faith." Colson then sent Nixon a memo: "Destroy the young demagogue ..."

The day after Kerry's testimony [to Congress], Nixon held another meeting. His chief of staff, HR Haldeman, said: "He did a superb job on it at foreign relations committee yesterday. A Kennedy-type guy, he looks like a Kennedy, and he talks exactly like a Kennedy."

That sort of comparison could only incite Nixon's dread and envy. ...

In another meeting, Haldeman and John Ehrlichman suggested to Nixon that if Kerry led protesters who cut their hair and wore ties and allied with "the hard hats", they would win a majority to their side. "That's right," said Nixon.

And the revival of the ghosts of Vietnam in recent events has heightened the dilemma of Bush's fuzzy National Guard record:

Kerry's appeal to veterans isn't simply because he's a veteran. For the Vietnam vets, he has come to stand for the male, blue-collar worker of their generation, the ultimate swing voter. In the light of comparison, they are coming to see Bush as the privileged evader of service, who now is standing with his wealthy friends against them. Kerry is the aristocrat, as a member of the band of brothers. Nixon's fear is being realised.