August 11, 2004
Christmas In Cambodia
The warmest summer of my life was the winter I spent in Cambodia...
Some of John Kerry's more colorful statements about his time in Viet Nam are getting some increased scrutiny, and his claim of Christmas In Cambodia is not sampanning out.
This is an excellent example of "rhetorical creep", where what a person knows or did is conflated with other elements that are plausible but not in context in order to make a more flourished, impactful statement. It is almost never necessary, and when exposed, actually diminishes the true elements. Christmas in Viet Nam in 1968 is plenty compelling - but adding an air of covertness and danger, and integrating a policy critique, Kerry states that he was actually in Cambodia, a pawn in a geopolitical game of intrigue and hijinx, and a statement that appears to be outright false.
The potential negative impact for Kerry is high. His Viet Nam service is an absolute plus, but not if we begin to find embellishments and overstatements. People rarely compartmentalize when making judgements about trustworthiness, and when it comes to politicians, even less so. If you give someone cause to dismiss part of your story, you give them cause to dismiss all of it.
Second, you never mess with a winning hand. Playing in the big game is impressive - but saying you were the game-winning MVP only to discover you were just a member of the team takes a winning hand and overplays it. When you have a strong hand, you underplay it, and let others paint the larger than life picture for you. Let someone else overstate your case for you.
If someone else makes you out to be be bigger than you are, it's just adulation and hero-worship. If you make yourself out to be bigger than you are, it's hubris and narcissism.
Posted by MEC2 at August 11, 2004 05:11 PM