Captain Ed has a post about the NYT coverage of the Kerry Medal Flap that says something rather profound about the state of American politics. Anyway, one expects a certain amount of exaggeration in politics because, well... it's not science. And I say that even though I'm a "Political Scientist." Let's just say that the scientific aspect of the dispiline is what attempts to measure or account for the "magnitude and direction of the exaggerations," and what they mean.
After reading the accounts in Ed's post it seems to me that there's a good deal of confusion about the distinction between "ribbons" and "medals". In fact, I'm not very clear about the distinction, myself, although I think ribbons tend to be awarded with medals while the reverse may not be true. That is, there are some lesser military awards that are "ribbon only." Clearly Kerry exploited that ambiguity during the incident in 1971 when he, essentially, dramatized a demonstration that deliberately blurred the line between his own "ribbons" and the "medals" of some colleagues, but that sort of dramaturge really seems well within the range of acceptable political behavior. (I'm not condoning it, mind you. I'm just saying it's the sort of thing that characterizes dissent. Whether or not we want to elect someone with this past, as President, is another matter. It may even be the realissue.) And just as clearly, it's an exaggeration to blame the current flap about tossing his ribbons/medals over the fence on a "right wing cabal." But, to be fair, from a perspective as far left as Kerry's anyone to the right of Arlan Specter belongs to a "right wing cabal." It's not a "lie" so much as a distortion, and I don't know which is more frightening: that it's unwitting or deliberate.
More thoughts, later.
Posted by Demosophist at April 26, 2004 11:11 AM | TrackBack