Ouch

Last night Senator John Edwards delivered his Convention (I'll post more about that later, because it really was awful).

Though he did not mention a single fact about Senator John Kerry's career in the US Senate, he discussed at length Kerry's time in the Navy.  This service is supposed to paint Kerry as a war hero eminently qualified to tackle the War on Terror, thus countering an issue where the Republicans have an edge.

However, there have been rumblings for some time now that those who actually served with Kerry in Vietnam consider him unfit to be President.  Drudge has a write-up of the story here, and links to this web-site run by men who served on Navy Swift Boats with Kerry.  The website is called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and really does speak for itself. 

I don't see how Kerry can get around this issue.  Though of course President Bush should not mention this personally at the RNC later this month (since he didn't actually serve in Vietnam at all), perhaps the Republicans can get some of these men to speak.  Imagine the sight: a dozen Navy veterans on stage at the RNC denouncing Kerry for exploiting their images and war stories for his own political gain.  Perhaps they can also discuss alegations that Kerry re-enacted combat scenes in preperation of a future run for office.

There is a way to get to the bottom of this: since Kerry was in the Yale Political Union (and since I'm sure they debated the war at some point during his undergraduate career), someone should track down records from old debates.  If he did denounce the war (as I believe he did during the address he gave during commencement; I'm sure that's already a matter of public record), then it does seem reasonable to think that Kerry enlisted for crass and self-serving reasons.