Kerry Hits Back at His Critics

Sen. John F. Kerry, responding to Republican adversaries who call him weak on defense, lashed out Friday at Vice President Dick Cheney and White House political advisor Karl Rove, accusing them of avoiding military service.

The Massachusetts senator made the remark during a raucous rally attended by an estimated 10,000 people at the University of Pittsburgh.

“I’m tired of these Republicans who spend so much time denigrating Democrats and other people’s commitment to the defense of our nation,” said Kerry, a Vietnam veteran, in what appeared to be an unplanned comment.

“I’m tired of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney and a bunch of people who went out of their way to avoid their chance to serve when they had the chance.”

“I went,” he added. “I’m not going to listen to them talk to me about patriotism and how asking questions about the direction of our country somehow challenges patriotism. Because asking questions about the direction of our country is patriotism.”

Kerry’s swing at two of the men closest to President Bush marked a shift to a bitingly personal tone in the debate over national defense, which has emerged as a central issue in this year’s presidential campaign.

Kerry’s charged comments on military service come at a particularly sensitive time for Bush, when his decision to invade Iraq is being questioned amid rising U.S. casualties there and comparisons to the Vietnam War.

And it illustrates Kerry’s willingness to use what he sees as his trump card against Republican attacks: his credentials as a decorated war veteran who volunteered to go to Vietnam.

The putative Democratic nominee has highlighted his naval record, which includes three purple hearts, a bronze star and a silver star, in appealing for votes. But until now, Kerry has not used it to counter his opponents so pointedly or so publicly.

Neither Cheney nor Rove served in the military during Vietnam, although they were old enough to have been drafted.

The Bush campaign immediately denounced Kerry’s comments as “an unfair attack.”

“John Kerry is lashing out because John Kerry is very uncomfortable defending his record voting against money for troops in Iraq,” said spokesman Steve Schmidt.

“Nobody has ever questioned John Kerry’s patriotism,” he added. “What has been questioned is John Kerry’s judgment.”

For weeks, Republicans have spotlighted his votes in Congress on military matters, and the fact that he voted in support of legislation authorizing Bush to invade Iraq but then later voted against an $87-billion package for economic reconstruction and equipment for U.S. troops there. Kerry says he supported a version of the reconstruction bill that would have offset the price tag by rolling back tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

The Republican National Committee and GOP surrogates also have noted Kerry’s votes to cut defense spending in the early 1990s. On Thursday, Bush-Cheney campaign chairman Marc Racicot faulted Kerry’s claim that Bush was making the war on terrorism the dominant theme of his campaign.

In a statement, Racicot said, “On a day when Osama bin Laden again threatened the United States and our allies, it is disturbing to realize that John Kerry neither recognizes nor understands the murderous ideology of our enemies and the threat they pose to our nation.”

As the debate over the war in Iraq has taken center stage in the election, heated exchanges between the campaigns about national security policy have quickly morphed into arguments about patriotism.

“It’s going to be one of those polarizing issues that I suspect is not going to go away in a very intense, charged election,” said University of Pennsylvania political science professor Marie Gottschalk. “The question of who sacrificed and what they sacrificed will be central to this election.”

Cheney had several student deferments and, after the birth of his first child, a marriage deferment. Rove drew a low draft number when he graduated from high school in 1969, and then received a student deferment when he entered the University of Utah, the Bush campaign said.

Rove lost his deferment when he transferred schools and was for a short period at the front of the line to be drafted, the campaign said. But he was never called up for service.

Kerry, pressed later Friday on why he believed Rove tried to avoid going to war, the candidate said merely, “He didn’t serve.”

“I’m just not going to be accused by any of these people of not being strong on defense, period,” he said on his campaign plane on a flight from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia.

Given his record, it’s not surprising Kerry is using it to connect with voters, said Jack Pitney, who teaches political science at Claremont McKenna College. “His service in Vietnam is something very clear that people can relate to.”

Kerry promised in February that he would not raise questions about Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard.

But a week later, after being heavily criticized about his defense record, he said Republicans had no business questioning his commitment to the country’s security.

“I don’t know what it is ... these Republicans who didn’t serve in any war have against those of us who are Democrats who did,” the senator told reporters in Atlanta on Feb. 21.

Asked if he was alluding to Bush’s National Guard service, Kerry said at the time he was referring to Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss, Cheney “and a whole bunch of people [who] are so busy challenging the patriotism of Democrats.”

At the rally in Pittsburgh on Friday, Kerry offered an invocation of his tour in Vietnam.

“You see that great Stars and Stripes back there?” he asked the audience, pointing to a massive American flag draped on a stage behind the crowd.

“I fought under that flag. I fought under that flag and I saw that flag draped over the coffin of friends.

”.... Well, I’ll tell you something: The political bombs may be bursting in air today around us as they try to distort the truth, but when I look up, that flag is still there,” he said. “And it belongs to all of Americans, not to them ... it belongs to us.”

Kerry completed his daylong swing through Pennsylvania with a fundraiser in Pittsburgh and two in Philadelphia, which raised $1.5 million for his campaign, bringing his total for the week to nearly $15 million.