Going Upriver: See it now!

I like a good documentary. I have always been lukewarm about Michael Moore. He takes on topics I generally agree with, and his films are entertaining, but his arguments are often over the top and a little too conspiratorial for my taste. Thus it is refreshing to have another documentary to talk about prior to Election Day. “Going Upriver” chronicles John Kerry’s Vietnam experience and then, primarily, his contribution to the anti-war movement after he got home. It is not a simple campaign bio film; indeed, Kerry’s campaign has largely tried to steer clear of his Vietnam Veterans Against the War days, which is the main emphasis of the film.

That said, the film is the most attractive portrait of John Kerry that I’ve seen, including the portrayal of Kerry at the Democratic convention. Here is a guy who grew up in relative affluence, though not absolute affluence, going to Yale at a time when the responsibility of leadership that to this day seems to be embedded in places like that still included military leadership. Kerry was told so by none other than William Bundy, who was a senior Kennedy-Johnson administration foreign policy advisor.

Here is a young lieutenant who clearly served admirably in extremely dangerous combat situations, being forced to take his swift boat upriver in order to draw hostile fire. Watching it, I was further disgusted by the Swift Boat Vets’ attacks on Kerry. How could people who shared the morass of Vietnam launch such a scurrilous and false attack on fellow veterans? (Answer: Karl Rove, whose signature tactic has been to attack an opponent where he seems the most impregnable. Read this article and tell me that Rove didn’t play a role in the Swift Boat Vet attacks.)

But the film is really about the role played by Kerry in Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a group that Kerry ended up more or less leading. Calmer and more articulate than many of his fellow vets, Kerry helped manage the group’s week-long Washington protest and became something of a media star in the process, appearing on network news programs as a spokesperson for the group, then culminating in an appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Here was a thoughtful, articulate young man expressing to the country what thousands of Vietnam vets were trying to say. It was extremely impressive. If the 60 year-old Kerry is even a shadow of the 27 year-old Kerry, I’m still impressed.

One footnote: the Nixon administration was so impressed and threatened by Kerry that it went out and recruited someone to try to go toe-to-toe with him in the court of public opinion. The guy they came up with was the uptight and clearly not ready for prime time John O’Neill, who spoke on behalf of no one in particular then, just as he doesn’t today as the leader of the Swift Boat Vets group.