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Charles Kopp - Contributor

Charles Kopp is a graduate of the New School for Social Research. He is a composer and musician, and an ardent lover of poetry. He has been a teacher and a systems analyst. In Lafayette, California, he now designs websites and works on creative projects. He can be contacted at charleskopp@earthlink.net [go to Kopp index]

Slander as Politics
The Democrats' Poisonous New Approach...
[Charles Kopp] 3/25/04

Democratic critics of our President are daily making slanderous charges without an iota of proof. They seem to have no other campaign strategy at this point. One could spend the time to name them, but the list has grown so long as to be unwieldy. Certainly Senators Kennedy, Daschle, and Boxer are on the list. Ex-President Clinton. Saddest is the case of President Carter, who -- though an ineffective President -- could at least hitherto have claimed to be an honest and decent man.

The game, it seems, is to make any unsupported accusation that might serve to influence some voters. They have said Bush was AWOL during his Air Guard service. They have said that in Texas Bush dreamed up the idea having an unnecessary war, either to promote his election effort or to obtain oil (both goals which could have been more easily without a war). No proof is offered. It is apparently enough that Mr. Kennedy believes it, or says he believes it in a loud voice. Kennedy will never be famous for courage or good judgment, but it still remained within his power to be a true elder statesman, had he behaved responsibly for a few consecutive years. Unfortunately, the challenge must have been too great.

Public figures cannot sue for libel, because this might harm open discussion among a free people. But it is a new thing, arising during my lifetime, to accuse a candidate of felonious and treasonous actions without even one memo, one witness, one scrap of evidence, purely in hope of driving polling negatives upward for one’s opponent. It is especially new, that senior politicians who ought to be aware of the harm this does to our nation should proceed with behavior so reckless and irresponsible.

It is an easy game to play. I could play it. I could say: Senator Kerry did not deserve his medals, having hardly been injured and perhaps not by enemy fire, and far from being a hero took a clever and quick way out of Vietnam. It might be true; his medical records are sealed. I can’t prove it, but I can shout it if I want to do that.

Other similar ideas come to mind. How did his first wife die, again? Where is the proof? What about all those IRS tax returns he keeps hiding? Was he really in the room, when assassination of American officials was discussed by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War? Isn’t such a conversation itself a violation of the law? Whose military medals did he throw over that fence?

This game is causing daily harm to my country. If any of these senior Democratic figures have any patriotism whatsoever, they must stop this poisonous and irresponsible behavior. They can say it was wrong to attack Iraq, and they can say what they would have done about the danger of terrorism. But they cannot be decent American citizens and say Bush started a war and got hundreds of soldiers killed to improve his electability, not without offering evidence. Such a thing would be a serious crime, and we have grand juries and prosecutors to handle evidence of such things.

I can remember the Kennedy-Nixon debates; a different time and a different Kennedy. They disagreed. They accused one another of being mistaken. They each claimed the country would be better off with their own particular policies. Neither said the other was guilty of criminal acts of treason and deception.

Democrats today love to evoke the memory of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. I wish I felt some hope that today’s Democrats were capable of honor, of honesty. Failing these moral heights, could they manage to live day to day without making slanderous accusations without even a single shred of actual evidence?

I doubt it. But I’d love to be proven wrong. I really would. CRO

copyright 2004 Charles Kopp

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