Why the Swift Boats Won't Sink McCain

It is amazing how clumsy liberals can be in attempting adapt conservative campaign tactics. A new independent ad out has someone who knew McCain during the war saying that being a POW is no qualification to be president and that McCain's temper is a disqualification. Cue the sound of speeding Swift Boats coming in for a kill.

Here's what they don't understand: it wasn't what John Kerry did during the war that made him vulnerable to the Swift Boat ads. He was a decorated war veteran with citations for valor under fire. All to the good. It was what John Kerry did after the war -- undermining the war effort, protesting the war, lying about returning his medals -- that fatally undermined the appeal of his service to the country. What made the charges of his contemporaries from the 1960s so compelling is that they were consistent with the Kerry the country came to know in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Nothing that happened to Kerry justified in the public mind his actions that a lot of voters regarded as giving aid and comfort to the enemy. So John McCain was tortured and partially disabled by his captors and that made him...cranky? Rather than undermining the public's admiration of McCain, this actually might help reinforce it.