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The Thin ManThe mystery of John Kerry's missing courage.

By William SaletanPosted Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2003, at 4:55 PM ET

Little to seeIt's obvious what John Kerry is selling this morning. He announces his candidacy for president in front of an aircraft carrier, surrounded by a dozen big American flags. He's preceded to the podium by a succession of fellow veterans. Former Sen. Max Cleland, a triple amputee, introduces Kerry as "a profile in American courage." A military band plays "Anchors Aweigh" as Kerry rises. He recalls his service in Vietnam. He uses the word "courage" 10 times.

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The notion that Kerry is just now kicking off his campaign is a well-understood joke. He's been running for more than a year. I've heard and read about his war record many times. Yet I still stare incredulously every time he talks about it. I can't get a rude but persistent question out of my mind: Can you believe this guy fought in Vietnam?

He did, of course. He's the only candidate in this race who did. He earned the Silver Star and Bronze Star and was wounded three times. I didn't serve in that war (I was, among other things, too young), nor did most of my colleagues in the press. I respect what Kerry did and endured. Still, I look at him and wonder how such a brave warrior became such a cautious politician.

Lately, I've thought about Kerry's service when I watch Howard Dean, the candidate Kerry is trying to overtake. Now, there's a guy who looks like he fought in Vietnam. Dean's words always seem to be holding back an inferno of anger. John McCain was the same way. Kerry is the opposite: He claims to be angry, but you look at him and can't believe it. His body doesn't live up to his words. When Kerry disagrees with you, he makes you feel as though the disagreement is his problem. When Dean disagrees with you, he makes you feel as though it's your problem. I know Kerry fought and Dean didn't. But it's still hard to believe.

Take the test yourself. Call up a friend who hasn't been following the campaign and knows nothing about the candidates. Have your friend watch five minutes of Dean speaking and five minutes of Kerry speaking. Then ask your friend which guy fought in Vietnam. Unless Kerry mentions his war record, I'll bet your friend picks Dean.

At Kerry's announcement, the question takes a different form. Dean is out of the picture. Kerry sits onstage in a row of veterans, several of whom speak on his behalf. My eyes wander across the row and come to rest, with familiar incredulity, on the wooden guy in the white shirt. Of all the guys in this row, can you believe this is the one running for president?

The opening acts overshadow the main event. Alex Sanders, a 65-year-old bulldozer of a judge, flashes his wit and grit. Cleland lights up the crowd with zingers, plain talk, and more animation than Kerry can manage with four limbs. While Cleland works his magic, Kerry sits expressionless behind him, squinting and repeatedly touching various parts of his hair to make sure they're in place. They're fine, but Kerry seems terribly anxious that somewhere, somehow, a hair is out of place.

Cleland tells the audience about Kerry's service as captain of a swift boat on the Mekong River in Vietnam. He says that tour of duty showed Kerry's "leadership" and "courage." But then Cleland appears to wander off-script. One day, he recalls, Kerry's boat "came under fire by enemy attack from the shore. And instead of trying to outrun it or outgun it, he did a very unusual thing. He turned his boat into the attack, making himself a thinner target, making himself less of a target than he was. He attacked the attacker."

I've read about this episode many times. But I've never before heard it described this way. Always, the reporter—usually a non-veteran—emphasizes the bravery or recklessness of attacking the enemy. That isn't how Cleland sees it. He emphasizes the defensive genius of the maneuver: Kerry made himself a thinner target. I don't know whether Kerry thought about it that way at the time. But that's clearly the way he thinks about American soldiers in Iraq. In his speech today, Kerry repeats a line he's used at every campaign stop: It's time to "take the targets off American soldiers."

When you look at it that way, Kerry the warrior and Kerry the politician begin to come together. While trying to do the right thing, Kerry has always sought to make himself a thinner target. He was for affirmative action, just not this affirmative action. He was for a drug war, just not this drug war. He was for an Iraq war, just not this Iraq war. This is Kerry's nature, and he knows it. He sometimes argues, when pressed about his vote on the war resolution, that most votes in Congress are really "yes, but" or "no, but." In Kerry's case, it's sometimes "yes" and sometimes "no." But it's always "but."

Two days ago on Meet the Press, Tim Russert quoted a critique of Kerry by pollster John Zogby: "He can give you competing arguments on all the major issues and have you walk away and say, 'Yeah, but where does he stand?' " Kerry then illustrated the problem by telling Russert that he had voted for the Iraq war resolution because "I supported the notion that we must as a country hold Saddam Hussein accountable," but "we voted on the basis of information that was given to us, that has since then been proven to be incorrect."

Today, Kerry gets his chance to explain his position exactly the way he wants to. Here it is: "I voted to threaten the use of force to make Saddam Hussein comply with the resolutions of the United Nations. I believe that was right. But it was wrong to rush to war without building a true international coalition, and with no plan to win the peace."

Yeah, but where does he stand?

Much of Kerry's problem is superficial. He's as stiff as a GI Joe. He's infatuated with the 1960s. He keeps talking about "our generation" to an electorate that is no longer of his generation. He speaks the language of the Kennedys, which now sounds flowery and phony. He adorns his prose with words like "lavish" and "astonishing." He calls the audience "my fellow Americans." He tells them he's "honored to join you in this endeavor." For the thousandth time, he begins a sentence with the pointless preface, "And I say to you today …" At another point, he proclaims, "Let me put it plainly: If Americans aren't working, America's not working." This is what audiences always have to wade through to get at whatever it is Kerry is trying to say: Nuggets of nothing, wrapped in pretentious rhetoric, compounded by the pretense of plain speaking.

But the thin-target mentality is more than superficial. It suffuses Kerry's candidacy. It may have saved him in Vietnam, but it's killing him in New Hampshire. Today he tries to turn the tables on Dean. "Courage means standing up for gun safety, not retreating from the issue out of political fear or trying to have it both ways," says Kerry.

I'm not sure how Dean will respond to this new line of attack. But somehow, I don't think he's afraid.

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William Saletan is Slate's national correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War. Follow him on Twitter here.

Photograph of John Kerry by Mike Segar/Reuters.

COMMENTS

Remarks from the Fray:

Watching Kerry's "announcement" of his candidacy, I was struck by his increasing physical resemblance to Ed Muskie, a candidate from another era--gaunt, bloodless, unattractive. But I also remember that Muskie projected himself as an intelligent man, consistent in his moral positions, and possessed of sufficient political courage to be true to those positions even when it was uncomfortable (and perhaps unprofitable) for him to do so.

I doubt that, three decades hence, anyone will remember Kerry in this fashion. I doubt that, three decades hence, anyone will remember Kerry.

--1-2-Oscar

(To reply, click here)

John Kerry's appearance, and the substance of what he had to say on Meet the Press, would only be "disturbing" to someone who's preconceived notions of Kerry are, well, wrong.

Kerry focused on the Bush record, and how he would approach the problems of policy differently, and declined to attack Bush personally, though invited to do so three times by Tim Russert.

Kerry pretty much said what is the truth: as a result of Bush's policies, we are more endangered by terrorism, not less; we have seen massive job destruction with no action taken by the government to combat it; we have seen the deficit soar with no stimulative effect; we have seen vital and life protecting environmental regulations go by the boards, and a clear attempt by the Republicans to pack the federal judiciary with ideologues who will threaten basic liberties if they are seated.

Kerry said there were very few among Bush's policies that he would not change, if elected.

--Jack_Baltimore

(To reply, click here)

I'm not a supporter of Kerry …. I have never been in the military, but it seems fair to say that discipline and cool thinking in hot situations are a lot more valuable to someone in combat than raw anger. It would not surprise me if many of the soldiers governed mainly by their passions were also the ones who took unnecessary and often fatal risks, exposing themselves and others to dangers that could have otherwise either avoided, defeated or otherwise overcome. By a similar token, it would also not surprise me if some soldiers exposed themselves to risks by being analytical to the point of paralysis. Neither extreme is desirable when your life, and the lives that have been entrusted to you, are on the line.

Personally, I would rather have a president who recognizes the fact that governing is a complicated task, especially in a large and complex democracy, and who thought and spoke in a way that reflected that complexity. If people respond to that by simply saying "Huh?", maybe that's their problem. I would rather have that kind of president than one who governs impulsively, as Bush seems to do. His entire approach to governing--more troops, and tax cuts to make sure we don't pay for them--is the philosophy of a man who thinks purely about the next fifteen minutes, which is a sign of impulsive behavior. Fairly or not, it makes his background as an alcoholic more relevant. For that matter, it makes Clinton's sexual conduct more relevant in appraising his presidency.

Maybe, now more than ever, we need someone who can balance passion with reason. If Kerry gets elected, and he can strike that balance in the White House as well as he did in Vietnam, I won't care about how he sounds on the stump, or about how much money his wife has, or about whether or not he makes Tim Russert … happy, or about any of the other nine million trivial issues that seem to have distracted most of us from the process and responsibilities of self-government.

--Srrurhino

(To reply, click here)

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