WASHINGTON: Why is a 60-year-old millionaire in shirt and slacks touring America, saluting plump matrons with banners and teenagers waving flags? Because he's John Kerry and, almost four decades after four or so months of very active military service , he's running for president. No, wait. Saluting for president. It's an incongruous and depressing spectacle.
There is, in a muted way, quite a lot to be said for Kerry. Watch him answering questions from black journalists in Washington last week and see how he handles the issues well: he's good at thoughtful policy discussion. His long years in the Senate haven't been wasted.
He understands defence and intelligence. Maybe he still looks curiously lumpen on the stump - half Woody from Toy Story, half Van Heflin in Shane - but his Boston convention speech was decently eloquent. And he gave his daughter's hamster the kiss of life.
In sum, Kerry and John Edwards make a balanced team - mixed gravitas and grin - which, nationally, is probably just ahead of Bush and Cheney - mixed gawp and grizzle - and doing rather better than that in a majority of the battleground states where November's election will be won and lost. So far, so promising. But somehow you feel that the real contest isn't joined yet - and meanwhile Kerry keeps on saluting, a nervous tic.
We know why he does it. Some bright spark, long ago on the primary campaign trail, decided that Kerry's brief, old moment of heroism in a war Americans in general (and Democrats in particular) like to forget, could be vamped point-counter point against George Bush's more mysterious record flying Texan National Guard jets in Alabama. But the point, not to mention the counterpoint, is pretty exhausted now.
It isn't just the predictable emergence of a bunch of well-funded Vietnam veterans who buy TV commercial time to defecate on his record. It is the way the whole nature of the debate is cramped and confined by its pseudo-military posturing.
In theory, Kerry's little commander-in-chief routine makes him a natural White House adversary of Osama, Saddam and menacing visitors from outer space. In practice, it makes him as one-dimensional as an empty parade ground.
His ramrod back and carving fingers say he should be barking orders. But, when his lips move, they mouth careful clauses and prudent caveats. He's uneasy playing simple in a complex world - and, properly orchestrated, that could be a real strength.
Some of the Bush charges are asinine. The president calls Kerry a slacker, for instance - probably in yet another ex-cathedra vacation statement from Midland, Texas.
Kerry is stuck now with a hollow, unhelpful role - mired in ancient controversy, doomed to renounce nuances or balances. Would he have gone to war in Iraq knowing that it (like the duff intelligence it was based on) clearly wasn't worth it.
An answer that both Bush and Blair might privately echo. But Kerry can't do hypotheticals or hindsight. He has to be straight and clear. So, yes, he would have moved to oust Saddam. He'd have done, alas, just what the president did.
And thus the me-too litany grows. Is America really embarked on a "war" against terror - as opposed to the pursuit of a particularly malign agglomeration of terrorists? It's a vital distinction, but Commander Kerry can't make it.
Don't we hear rather too much about service nobility and rather too little about Abu Ghraib? Kerry, the super vet, is hamstrung there, too. Come to think of it, where is Osama bin Laden - or even Mullah Omar? The commander can't go there either. He'd be talking military failure, not military triumph.
He could make hay with the Bush record day after day. Flip-flop? First flatten Najaf, then pick it up and dust it down. He could ridicule the Bush absurdity of bringing "democracy and freedom" to the Muslim world which doesn't appear to include Saudi Arabia. He could laugh out loud when Bush calls Afghanistan a "rising democracy" - as opposed to the rising star of global heroin production.
But, yet again, he's hobbled. He wants the troops home early. He's on their side against the White House and an indeterminate schedule which sees the boys sweating it out in Baghdad for ever.
To achieve his early exit, though, he needs more help from more allies - which means he can't be nasty to anyone. A democratic "coalition of the willing" which includes Turkmenistan is a joke beyond sickness.
A "new mood of cooperation" means finally proving less feeble, less flip-floppy than Bush has proved over Israel. It means telling General Sharon where he gets off and what to with his wall.
A statesman could begin to lay out that ground. An ordinary, articulate politician could begin to explain why change is necessary. Kerry direly needs such change. It is why he is necessary. But not while he's giving that damned salute, not while the Mekong still flows straight through the purple heart of his campaign. -Dawn/The Guardian News Service.