What Will Brinkley Write?

JustOneMinute makes the “bold prediction” that Douglas Brinkley’s rumored New Yorker piece on Lieutenant Kerry’s incursions into Cambodia will appear on the Greek Calends. My prediction (made earlier) is to the contrary. I think that Professor Brinkley will write the article, but –

• It will not be published until after the election. The announcement beforehand, without details of its content, is intended merely to reassure Kerry voters that their man is not a liar.

• It will document two or more occasions on which Lt. Kerry’s swift boat entered Cambodian waters, though it will concede that the “Christmas in Cambodia” story is bunk.

• It will assert that these events were omitted from Tour of Duty because John Kerry avoided giving the author the information that he needed to discuss them. We may well be told that Professor Brinkley learned about them only after the book was completed.

• It will reveal details about the incursions that are, in some respect that I can’t venture to predict, discreditable to John Kerry.

The preceding hypothesis is, I think, the most economical explanation of all of the known facts. The next best alternative, by Ockhamite criteria, is that Professor Brinkley, in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, deliberately made a false claim that “Kerry went into Cambodian waters three or four times in January and February 1969 on clandestine missions.” That would be suicidal conduct for a professional historian. No doubt Brinkley wants Kerry to win, but I strongly doubt that he will sacrifice his reputation for the cause. For that reason, I believe that the Cambodian incursions were real events.

If real events, why are they omitted from a laudatory account of John Kerry’s months in Vietnam? Not, it goes without saying, because they were “secret” and “illegal”. Those are secrets that the United States government lost interest in keeping decades ago. The only plausible reason is that Senator Kerry does not want them examined, and it is hard to imagine a motive for concealment that does not reflect badly on his conduct or character.

Since my forecast is based on the logic of the situation rather than inside dope, it may, of course, be wrong, but I’m willing to challenge JustOneMinute to a small wager on the question.

Comments

[jim]

A compelling argument. I am increasingly suspicious, thanks to analysis like yours, that Kerry's war record is not merely inflated, but fraudulent. The seeming lies that are now being used to embellish a heroic war record, were used formerly to advance his antiwar activities. Is this guy a bona fide war hero? I'm beginning to have serious doubts.