Yo, Adrian . . . By Which I Mean -- Thank God It's Over!

There were lots and lots and lots more speeches today. I was very happy to have flipped on the tv when I came home for a late lunch in time to see John Lewis speak. John Lewis is one of my favorite public figures, largely because of his role in the Civil Rights Movement – not surprisingly he plays a starring role in my book on the Freedom Rides – but also because he is a man of unsurpassed integrity. He is not the sort of speaker who will ever get a prime time role, but he is a very good man, and each time I have met him he has been gracious and supportive. In 1996, I believe, The New Republic had a cover story feature on him with the title “The Last Integrationist” that is very much worth tracking down. His speech today was nothing spectacular, but it made me smile to see and hear him on stage. John Lewis is one of my heroes. If you know anything about the Freedom Rides or the Selma to Montgomery March, he ought to be one of yours as well.

Meanwhile, if I promise not to say any more mean things to folks on the comment boards, and if I promise not to eat more than five hot dogs in one sitting again (in the next week) can we cross ideological lines and find a way to ban two things: Awful, bombastic cover bands doing songs whose popularity was inexplicable even back in the day; And convention delegates dancing arhythmically to those songs? I am as much of a civil libertarian as the next jaded bastard writing a blog, but at some point, in the name of all things sacred, this has got to stop. Because, there are no red states and blue states, there are just people, Americans who never want to see middle-aged men dancing to a rendition of “Celebration” ever, ever again. I thank you for your support.

And while I am being cantankerous: Does it make me a bad person if I wonder why on earth being related to a candidate for the Presidency makes one qualified to speak in a prime-time slot at the convention? This, and children anywhere near the stage, have quickly become two of the things that make me want to pull an Oedipus (not the unseemly mother-father business, just the eye plucking part). More parenthetical asides while wondering just how far to push this line of inquiry: (To be clear, I positively love families, children, and my eyes. I’m just sayin’ is all . . .). (The second daughter gave a better speech, though no families actually speak to one another in the way that she described; but she looks less like her father than the first daughter. For a young woman, that is a good thing.)

I thought the Kerry video was remarkably effective, maybe because Morgan Freeman was the narrator, and so I kept thinking of Red in the Shawshank Redemption, who both helped fuel (he was, after all, a man who could get things) and who drew from Andy Dufresne’s hard-learned lessons that hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. But also because of this dirty little secret that we all forget about in our haste to bury or praise our presidential candidates: I think that John Kerry is a good, noble, heroic, patriotic man. I admire him in a way that I have not admired a major party nominee since, well, probably since George H. W. Bush, but I was too much of a dimly ideological undergraduate to realize that I admired him. As a consequence, contemporaneously, I admire Kerry more. He is a good man. And I know I’ve said this a lot, even in the last couple of days. But are we are so cynical about our politicians that we sometimes forget about their humanity? I profoundly disagree with so much of what George Bush says. But I have no doubt that he a good man who cares about and loves America. Al Gore? Bob Dole? Michael Dukakis? Walter Mondale? These are good men. They are men who served and loved this country. I think we too easily forget this in our zeal to support our side, our team. And I admire John Kerry.

Which brings us to the whole military service question, so easy to mock among those who need something to mock (and for the sake of full disclosure, I made a bit of a crack on that last night): I find it interesting that suddenly it is all the rave among conservatives and Republicans to proclaim, with no irony attendant, that Kerry’s war service is now irrelevant. Funny, that was not the case in 1996, when we heard details about Bob Dole’s service in World War II and his subsequent heroic recovery. And of course to my mind it was legitimate then. Bob Dole was, is, a hero. But by those same standards, so is John Kerry, and maybe a more heroic one at that. Despite all of the rationalizations from the left and from the right about how biography ought not to matter, I might shock and awe folks by saying that yes, who a man is may well be relevant to who they are. It strikes me as odd that Bob Dole’s war record was germane then, but that John Kerry’s, in a time of war, is not germane now. Especially when the current administration has been more than willing to try to play the patriotism card.

I thought that the use of the veterans who served with Kerry was profoundly effective. Not only was it legitimate, but it was politically brilliant. Veterans will support Kerry in a way that they did not support Gore (odd, since Gore actually served in Vietnam too). I would suspect that similar things will happen among active troops. Will military folks suddenly vote Democrat? Probably not. But the differences between the last election and this one will be marked. The fact that those who served with Kerry lined up for him tonight will be more powerful than many think.

Of course Max Cleland was a trump card. His speech, in many ways pedestrian, was still remarkably effective. His connections to Kerry are both personal and political. And the way that the GOP treated him in 2000 (apparently winning really is, or at least was, everything) was among the most loathsome things I have seen in American politics. The Republican candidate, with the backing of the national GOP, impugned this man’s patriotism. And they did so in explicit terms. But tonight he was about as effective a presenter of Kerry as can be imagined in the context. The Republicans have lots on which they will stand. I would guess that even subtle intimations about the patriotism of the Democrats should fall on deaf ears. And this is why everyone is talking about the playing up of the Kerry biography. Because it is a damned powerful biography.

Kerry is not Clinton. For the Democrats this is a demonstrably good thing. There is no easy personal target area against Kerry. And Bush is not Dole. Nor is he his daddy. Did the President serve? Yes. And he served well. But there is the question of how George Bush jumped to the front of the line for the particular duty he served – the National Guard is noble and important. But it is not active duty. And tens of thousands of young men wanted to be in the National Guard. Why George Bush when john Kerry was volunteering for actual service? Further, there is a $10,000 offer out there for anyone who can simply document that George W. Bush served when he was apparently not exactly serving. I’ve yet to see $10,000 go unclaimed in America. John Kerry did not have that problem. Upon graduating from college, John Kerry enlisted, and then he took a duty that most people avoided. So does Kerry’s service mean everything? No, no more than George McGovern’s (compare his war record with Nixon’s) or Jimmy Carter’s (compare his war record with Reagan’s). But it sure as hell means something if patriotism is the question on the table. One cannot have it both ways. If we want to compare their records when Kerry opposed the war (a war in which he had served, been wounded – thrice – and won major medals – twice) in the 1970s, then let’s compare their lives and accomplishments year-by-year. A chronological comparison surely favors one candidate. I’ll let you decide which.

But in the end, these questions aside, what about Kerry’s speech? I was a bit disappointed. I still thought it was good. And maybe it was his profuse and distracting chin-sweat that helped turn me off (By now shouldn’t a guy with an enormous, Leno-esque, chin realize that sweat gathers in the fold of that chin in the same way that water gathers in Appalachian Valleys?). I still thought that he displayed a level of comfort that I had rarely seen him display. He is obviously an overwhelmingly a better speaker than George W. Bush or Al Gore. But he played to the base a bit much. Last night, John Edwards ought to have made the obvious attacks against the administration, and Kerry ought to have come forward with the positive message tonight. Kerry ought to have been more clear on destroying terrorists, which is a policy he clearly supports. But if the question comes down to articulating a message, I am more than happy with the side I am on. 9/11 changed a great deal. Among the things that it changed is the foolish idea that the Republicans are tougher on national security than the Democrats. John Kerry did nothing to disprove that he can deal with the most important foreign policy matters of our time. At the same time, he also articulated a conception of a domestic front that Democrats, and we believe many others, believe in as well.

All of that said, “Help is On The Way” is pretty tepid as a campaign slogan (and since both Edwards and Kerry used it to rally the crowd in the last two nights, I have to assume that it is a campaign slogan). “Help is on the way may” be a true statement, but that does not mean it is going to win a national election any more than the true statement “Derek is going to remove his undies,” is the way for the Democrats to win Texas. That said, for $15 a plate . . .