Tuesday May 04, 2004

THE WEATHER STARTED GETTING ROUGH, THE TINY SHIP WAS TOSSED. John O'Neill, who served with Kerry in Vietnam, announces in OpinionJournal, "I was on Mr. Kerry's boat in Vietnam. He doesn't deserve to be commander in chief."

So of course I immediately read the thing, hoping for bombshell revelations, and was disappointed to view yet again that already-tired litany of Kerry cracks: Kerry was in a book with the American flag upside down on the cover, Kerry testified to military abuses which O'Neill did not witness, Kerry is an evil traitor whose "misrepresentations played a significant role in creating the negative and false image of Vietnam vets that has persisted for over three decades," etc.

And I thought, what a terrible, missed opportunity! Has O'Neill never read a tell-all biography, even in the supermarket check-out line? If he was on the boat with Kerry, why didn't he give us some juicy scenes of two swabbies named John, nose to nose in the hot Southeastern sun?

I mean, they don't even have to be verifiable: as the patented anonymous letter technology availed by many top bloggers has shown, when you're preaching to the choir, no one's going to check your Bible quotations. Besides, having commenced his public career as Nixon's anti-Kerry operative, I can't imagine O'Neill would mind getting his hands a little dirty.

Perhaps O'Neill's dialogue writing is even worse than his polemics, and he is embarrassed by it. Allow me, then, to offer some script doctoring:

Evening on the Mekong. The swift boat PCF-94 drifts silently. On the forward deck, EN3 Washington plays "Purple Haze" on his harmonica. Lt. O'Neill approaches Lt. Kerry on the main deck.

O'NEILL: Skip, what the blazes are we doing adrift at sundown? That jungle is overrun with murdering gooks who'll pick us off for sure!

KERRY: (lighting a joint) Mellow out, O'Neill. I'm just restoring the karmic balance a little. We shoot at them, they shoot at us. Who's to say what's right or wrong, n'cest pas?

O'NEILL: Permission to use my body as a human shield to defend the crew!

KERRY: Do your own thing, man.

O'NEILL races back and forth, the length of the boat, waving his arms.

O'NEILL: When I'm running this ship, things will be different!

KERRY: Damn straight -- I'll be eating foie gras with Bill Paley!

I got a million of 'em, hot cha cha cha cha! Just make the check out to "cash"; plausible deniability is everything in this business.
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