[us_politics] Civil Discourse, R.I.P.

This is of course something that many people have noted, but somehow I've been insulated from this for a long time, at least any direct effect.

There's a new fellow at work, and this new cow-orker is a bit of a piece of work. Not a bad fellow, but a bit twisted actually. He's a 'Nam vet, has a wooden leg, smart and friendly but just a bit...wrong somehow. But overall someone we all should be able to work with. The industry I'm working in has no shortage of characters, and this fellow (I'll call him W [no reference to the President intended]) will certainly qualify as one of them.

During the waning hours of my shift, someone wondered if anyone'd watched the debates. We all chimed in, saying what we thought. It was quite friendly and casual actually.

W suddenly chimed in about his opinion on Kerry. Hated him. Said that his Purple Hearts were a "slap in the face", in as much as W himself had earned two of them himself. There was evil in his voice, and hatred which had no intention of listening to anyone else. I knew at once that taking up with him why he felt that way was pointless from the get-go.

Thus I did the cowardly thing: I let it go by. I just wasn't up to applying the light of sweet reason to the situation.

I realized at that point that this was the poison. W was bent out of shape, primarily it seemed, because Kerry was in country only four months and got what he felt were trifling injuries. This, my people, means the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have won. Thier mission is accomplished.

Look at it this way. I am typically loath to criticise the viewpoints of a member of the Forces that saw actual combat, injury, and death. I tend to give them a pass because, hell, they were there. They did the dirty work that allows us to have a country that allows me to have liberal, lefty views without having to worry about some Gestapo tapping me on the shoulder to tell me what to think or do.

But here is this fellow who lost a limb, for chrissakes (sorry), and he's repeating talking points from the Repulbicans and the SWVT as though they were actually discussionworthy facts. That Kerry was in country for four months was one of the canards the Swifties spread. Also that his wounds we're serious enough or that-egad-he even self-inflicted them (thanks for your assistance on that one, Bob Dole [now you know it, I know it, and the American People know it]).

Now it's fashionable to criticize John Kerry for not being as heroic as others, not being injured or maimed as deeply as others, despite the fact that a military establishment that should be beyond reproach gave Kerry honorable medals according to reviewed procedures that were, at the time anyway, utterly trustworthy.

It's not Kerry who tarnished the medals, it's the Republicans and the Swifties. In my view, either the process for granting medals in the military is unimpeachable or hoplessly corrupt. In order for me to accept that Kerry somehow didn't deserve his medals, I also have to accept that for some unfathomable reason the Army personnel reviewing his recommendations suffered a catastrophic breakdown in judgement and process.

If they did it for Kerry, who else did they do it for? This is the logical destination. Stopping at the assumption that this only happened to John F Kerry is drinking the Kool-Aid. It's just that simple.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth cannot call Kerrys medals into question without calling thier own (some of which were achieved at more or less the same time) as well. They beg thier own question, upon themselves.

Now I'm not sure that I feel comfortable about talking military medals at all. That's not the way it should be.

The poison is out there.