The Last Cut Is the Unkindest

As the Left tries to understand how they lost middle America, the answer is very simple, it was indeed about moral values, and one many hold as the highest; Honor. Kerry's failure to grasp the depth of loathing he engendered among his peers, his decision to use Vietnam and his whack salute at the convention, was a cultural blunder from which he couldn't recover.

The Swifties( and Vets generally) were determined to deny Kerry the White House, they put their own reputations on the line and took incredible abuse, but they never waivered. They were on their last mission. No matter how you slice and dice the election results, in the final analysis it was Kerry's Band of Brothers, and his own words and deeds against them, that defeated him.

Blackfive posts what I consider the last word on John Forbes Kerry, written by MilBlog Poet Laureate (and paratrooper), Russ Vaughn:

Their Veterans’ Day

Some said let you apologize
But that wouldn’t do it in our eyes.
A man astride of each position
Could we believe your true contrition?
And on deaf ears your words would fall
To those whose names are on that Wall
The vindication they now accept
In settling up this long-held debt,
Is that for them we gave our best
And denied you, John, your lifelong quest.
We fought for them, fought for our own,
To make you reap what you had sown.
Listen carefully John to what we say,
November 2d was their Veterans’ Day.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66