John Weisman is one of a select company of writers to have had books on both the New York Times fiction and nonfiction best-seller lists. His best-sellers include Rogue Warrior (written with Richard Marcinko) and Rogue Warrior's eight fictional sequels. A former journalist, Weisman has worked in more than three dozen countries. His latest work, the Black Ops novel SOAR, is now available through HarperCollins/William Morrow. He is currently completing the second Black Ops novel, Jack in the Box, for release in 2004. He can be emailed at: blackops@johnweisman.com
I'm puzzled and I'm troubled by your actions, both as a senator and as a candidate, and I think we, as voters, need some clarifications, explanations, and just plain talk from you now that you seem to have the support necessary to formally win the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. If you won't explain your actions clearly, you are not being honest with the voters. If you are not up-front, then you are displaying neither integrity nor character. And since President Bush's honesty, integrity, and character appear to be three of the main themes of your upcoming campaign, I think you should have to operate under the same rules of engagement as you want him to.
I'll deal with integrity and character in a moment. For now, the issue on which you need to make yourself most perfectly clear is - no pun intended - transparency.
For weeks now you have been pummeling the White House to be more transparent in its dealings with the 9/11 Commission; to hand over documents and memos and telephone logs and other materials that would clarify what the president knew, and when he knew it. You and your surrogates have similarly prodded other Executive departments, including OSD - the secretary of defense's office - to supply similar records.
You and your surrogates, especially Sen. Kennedy, have also demanded transparency from America's intelligence community (IC) about its pre-war analysis of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. You and Sen. Kennedy want to know what the president and vice president and secretary of defense knew, and when they knew it. You want to know what the IC told them, and when.
But when it comes to transparency on your part, you draw the line. The matter of your military medical records, for example. You were wounded three times and received three purple hearts. What about showing us voters the medical records? Your three purple hearts allowed you to take advantage of the Navy system, return to the USA, and accelerate your departure from active duty so that you could run for congress by accusing the very men you served with of committing atrocities. What do your medical records say about the gravity of your wounds? Don't you think you owe transparency to prospective voters?
The answer, unfortunately, is that you do not. It's a pattern with you.
Neither are you are transparent in discussing your wife's charities, which appear to support some of the very groups that are protesting the Iraq war, and complain shrilly about President Bush's use of 9/11 footage in his campaign ads. You say you are transparent on the issue of outsourcing American jobs overseas. But your wife's company, Heinz, has many of its factories overseas. Isn't that outsourcing, Senator? You say you are against special interest money. But you have taken huge amounts of special interest money for your campaigns in the past. Why not just come clean.
But you don't come clean. And I have come to believe that the reason you don't is because you are lacking in two of the most vital traits individuals in public service should possess: character, and integrity.
My late foster brother Anthony, who was a New York City Police Officer, used to say, "Little brother Johnny, a perp is a perp is a perp." What he meant was that bad guys usually lived a pattern. He was right. Most perps repeat: repeat their crimes; repeat their MO's; repeat their mistakes. It's the flaw, the Achilles heel, in their character that allows them to be found out and arrested.
And in that way, senator, you resemble a perp.
You deal with threats and critics by maligning them and engaging in character assassination. Not face to face, but stealthily. Using surrogates, and by going behind their backs.
That's what you did to an American patriot named Felix Rodriguez. You accused my friend Felix, who was instrumental in capturing the notorious terrorist and Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara back in 1967, of taking millions of dollars in drug money to support the anti-Sandinista forces fighting communism in Nicaragua.
Not to Felix's face, of course. Somehow, on June 30, 1987, a story leaked out of the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism and Narcotics, of which you were chairman, and made its way into Felix's hometown paper, the Miami Herald. Citing "congressional sources," the story accused Felix of soliciting a $10 million donation from the Colombian cocaine cartel.
And just by coincidence, you happened at the time, to be one of Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis's prime foreign-policy advisors. And Gov. Dukakis was running for the Democratic presidential nomination, and you knew Felix had participated in two photo sessions with then-Vice President (and presumptive Republican candidate) George H.W. Bush. Accusing Felix of taking $10 mil in drug money was a great way of tarring the vice president while appearing to be above the fray.
The only problem was that the story was false. It was a lie. And if Felix had been allowed to testify in open session before your committee, he would have told the world it was a lie. That way, his complete denials of your politically motivated charges would have found their way into print.
But you didn't let that happen. Felix wanted transparency. He wanted to testify in open session. You didn't want transparency. You insisted on having Felix testify behind closed doors. Issues of national security, your people said. And when Felix asked you in that closed session to release his testimony, you refused. You kept the rumors going for eleven months.
That particular episode, senator, demonstrated to me that you would always put the politics of personal gain - your personal gain - above issues of integrity.
Let's fast forward. Today, some of your critics decry your antiwar activities; they accuse you of giving aid and comfort to the Viet Cong, the North Vietnamese military, and the communists led by Ho Chi Minh. Others, former POWs, say that your words helped the very criminals who tortured them. Still other critics cite your conflicted Senate record. And still others criticize your votes to weaken our military and defense communities. Your instinctive reaction is to smear these people. Recently, wearing a microphone you probably forgot was on, you called those critics "crooks" and "liars." Of course you did. It's your pattern, senator, to act like that.
These days, your surrogates are busy leaking stories that President Bush lied about 9/11. They are busy spreading the word that he and his administration cooked the books about the Iraq war. There's no evidence presented, of course. Just the accusations. It's your pattern.
Oh, there's a definite pattern here, senator. A disturbing pattern. And sooner or later that pattern is going to become transparent to voters. It's going to become transparent when people examine your voting record in black and white. It's going to become transparent when the tapes of your congressional testimony are played on the network news-when people actually hear you accusing the very same people alongside whom you fought of unspeakable acts of atrocity. It's going to become transparent when patriots like Felix Rodriguez start speaking publicly about how shabbily they were treated at your hands.
And when that happens, the voters will come to understand the same simple truth about your character, or lack of it, that my foster brother Anthony knew so many years ago: "A perp is a perp is a perp."
