In a season of lies, a bold truth is like a chill wind. It seems to go right through you so that you feel it in your bones.

Austin Bay uttered such a truth yesterday

“I was in Vietnam in 1971,” my buddy continued. “I didn’t commit any war crimes and I didn’t see any. Kerry said we were committing war crimes everywhere all the time.”

Remember, readers, this is 1999. We’re in a creaky barrack, wearing t-shirts, BDU trousers, and boots. Earthquake aftershocks occasionally boom –and the booms sound and feel like heavy artillery. And he mentions John Kerry.

“I despise the man,” my friend said. “He lied and benefited politically from his lies….He lied about me.”

I simply listened — that’s what you do in a moment like this. I remember noticing I still had scotch in my cup. He had barely touched his drink. He took a long sip, put his cup down. Plop. Period. End of moment.

The man had served honorably in Vietnam. He had served nobly (another word those of the noblisse oblige set have trouble with). Twenty-eight years later this admirable American soldier was still pulling duty, this time on a humanitarian mission in another jungle. For some hard cases it may seem odd that in a midnight moment of reflection John Kerry’s ugly Winter Soldier spiel would intrude. But Kerry’s trash talk had tarnished the man’s honor — and that sense of deep insult and betrayal had lit a long, slow fuze of righteous anger.

In 2004 Big Media missed that story. In 2006 the troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan didn’t.

Bay is getting at something fundamental in the chasm between left and right in this country as well as the reason conservatives can be counted on to come out and vote in large numbers. Kerry in the brief moment where his shoe was going into mouth, simply exemplified an entire buffet of liberal, left-wing nasty vittles.

The contempt and the gloom.

I'm trying to think about the last time a Democrat official made me feel good about being an American--I just can't do it--and that's the problem.

Democrats are experiencing a long-term decline because they simply don't embody the values that Americans respect and honor.