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You left out an important factor here: Credibility.

The question posed toward President Bush was “does your record show that you fulfilled your Air National Guard duty?” President Bush was to then prove “yes, I did fulfill my Air National Guard Duty.

But these Swift Boat Veterans for Bush? Come, Timothy, don’t tell me you’d actually vouch for this group’s credibility given how blatantly hollow they’ve been exposed as. Through a Freedom of Information Act, the Washington Post obtained copies of the Swift Vets’ military records, which contradict what they’ve written in their book (and stated in their ads).

John Kerry’s official record, combined with the testimonies of his fellow crewmates (and affirmation from many opposing Swift Vets’ records, really), speak for themselves. Neither President Bush nor Bill O’Reilly dare agree with what these partisan-hack attack dogs are spewing.

The media has done the right thing. They should not grant undue attention every time a dissenting groups asks of a politician: “Prove that you’re not a crook.” I’m upset that the Swift Boat Vets have been given the ammount of attention they already have; they’ve already made statements about Senator Kerry, back in 1996, with all but John O’Neill himself affirming the Senator’s service record.

I’d bring up that Kerry was in Cambodia come January 1969, but I’ll stick with making one point at a time. That, and I don’t really care to argue the difference of one week to a soldier fighting behind enemy lines.

Our media aren’t judging the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth based on the quality of their facts.

Oh, yes they are. The “quality of their facts” is precisely why they’re now being dismissed; it lacks. They had their unquestioned time in the sun (following DNC), and now the media is finally taking the gloves off on them (as they should).

CNN and FoxNews were both quite nice to O’Neill’s group. Really, I don’t see your case here.

This is, after all, the same media who blindly ignored quite a few facts as Bush led his invasion of Iraq. If you call 2003’s covereage “always prosecuting Bush,” I’d question exactly how much news coverage you pay attention to.

Though if you truly see no contradiction in this Swift Boat Vets group, we’re going to have a hard time finding common ground. To fully endorse “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” would require an act I think we both find undesirable — ignoring the facts.

Posted by: Shem Daimwood at August 20, 2004 08:48 AM

Do note the concession there, by the way. When President Bush was asked about his record, I did not automatically condemn him as so many Democrats enjoyed doing. And when he provided his record (and statements about his record), I accepted it as truth — on his credibility.

President Bush has credibility; John O’Neill’s group does not. The difference (in my mind) between Bush and O’Neill is so wide that comparing the two — or in your point’s case, how the media treats the two — simply won’t work for making any significant case.

I can appreciate you call for media watchdogging, but have to disagree with your conclusions. Your comparison here is between treatment of President Bush and that of Thurlow and O’Neill — not that of Senator Kerry.

This is a matter of the media attacking O’Neill’s group, not defending Senator Kerry. Is the latter accomplished regardless? Of course. But that’s the fault of O’Neill & Company’s shoddy credibility, not some “liberal media” conspiracy.

Posted by: Shem Daimwood at August 20, 2004 09:02 AM

re: national guard - “Even after all the information was out there, the story lingered.”

Actually, all of the information about Bush’s service is *not* out there. There are records that could have been released that would have proven his service, but with the records that have been released nothing is proven. All we know for sure is that there is an unaccounted-for period of time during which it doesn’t appear that he fufilled his service. I think that’s a valid question for the press, but they didn’t pursue it as diligently as they might have. The story has the potential to come back to bite Bush, and this Swift Boat thing makes it all the more tempting.

“President Bush has credibility; John O’Neill’s group does not. The difference (in my mind) between Bush and O’Neill is so wide that comparing the two — or in your point’s case, how the media treats the two — simply won’t work for making any significant case.”

Not to mention that the nature of the charges against the two candidates are as different as night and day. With the questions about Bush’s service, there are actual material records that haven’t been released (placing the ball in Bush’s court). The attacks on Kerry, by contrast, suggest he is a coward, a liar, the bearer of false decorations, and a man who self-inflicted one of his wounds. Oh, by the way, the so-called self-inflicted wound was done with a GRENADE! What kind of madman would wound himself with a grenade? Furthermore, the stories have been contradicted by the accusers themselves in four seperate occassions now, and are based on no documentary evidence. The “well documented” nature of the charges they tout refer to the afadavits that they themselves have written - one of which has been disavowed already.

Posted by: Gaelen Burns at August 20, 2004 09:29 AM

Shem-

When Terry McAuliffe,accused Bush of being AWOL, was he more credible than the Swift Vets? After that accusation, the media jumped on Bush for proof, not Terry for proof. In Kerry’s case the media jumps on the Swift Vets for proof, instead of Kerry. That is the bias we’re talking about.

-D

Posted by: Delzario at August 20, 2004 09:34 AM

I don’t think what Kerry did or didn’t do in Vietnam should be a significant factor in the presidential election, but John Kerry evidently does. I have known many veterans, but rarely met one who seems so fixated on a couple of months more than thirty years ago. Who salutes civilians groups and talks about reporting for duty, sir, thirty years after leaving the service? It is natural for old men to exaggerate what they did as young men. Most of the time when we hear war stories, we suspend disbelief on the details. This case is different. For one thing, Vietnam service seems to be the main reason Kerry thinks he is qualified to be president. We hear almost nothing about his long record in the Senate or as lieutenant governor for Michael Dukakis. Beyond that, Kerry himself specifically rejected many of his veteran colleagues and called them war criminals. It is not surprising that some of those he insulted would feel he is unfit for command. Kerry was clearly “mistaken” about some of his exploits (Cambodia, for example.) and it looks like his detractors have similar memory problems. Let’s just agree that Kerry was less heroic than he says and more heroic than they say and move onto the parts of the Kerry record that determine if he is qualified to be president.

Posted by: John Matel at August 20, 2004 09:41 AM

Delzario -

The two cases are entirely different. In Bush’s case, legitimate questions were raised because (unlike previous presidents) Bush wouldn’t release his military records. He still wont. And then there’s the unseemly appearance of unreleased records being accidentally destroyed and then found again. No one in the mainstream media called Bush a deserter - they just pressed for answers that needed to be forthcoming from Bush.

You must be able to see how that is different than this situation with Kerry. Kerry has released all of his military records. Furthermore, this group has been so widely discredited that running mainstream stories proclaiming their side of the story would stink of tabloidism. Finally, there’s the fact that in repeating the swift boat vet’s claims straight, the news organization would effectively be calling Kerry a liar and coward who doesn’t deserve his medals, and who should have recieved worse wounds in Vietnam if he wanted to escape later excoriation for his wimpiness. If I were a veteran, I expect hearing those sorts of charges about another battle weary veteran, without so much as a shred of real proof, would… disappoint me.

Hell, though, military families are already staked out against Bush 54 percent to 41 percent (in PA), so maybe he’s writing off that voting bloc.

Posted by: Gaelen Burns at August 20, 2004 09:49 AM

It is interesting your take on this.

You want fairness in the media. You state the facts fairly well, then you go about blaming the media because the facts don’t land the way you seem to want them.

The Swiftboat Vets are clearly a Republic funded group that is being operated by Bush supporters here in Texas. They have been found to be “dissembling” to be kind to them. The so called details and footnotes that Brit Hume refered to either are irrelevent or simply ubtrue. John Oneil is a known political hack.

Bush stands back and grins as if disconnected from this and he clearly is not.

Bush was at most sitting in Alabama reading magazines. John Kerry was in the jungle being shot at, Those are the facts, as distasteful as you seem to find them. Perhaps Mr. Bush should call off his dogs and Mr, “deferment” Cheney.

Bush is trying to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. It is Mr. Bush who is trumpeting his own prowess at defense while attempting to shift focus from Messopotamia.

Perhaps you are unwilling to admit to yourself these facts, and that is the bias you see.

Frankly, I don’t think either candidate’s military record has much to do with presidential decision making. Perhaps it points to character flaws in younger men. Perhaps not.

I am disturbed by more current lies and distortions by both candidates. I am disturbed by the electorate’s focus on non issues. I think this media left and right quibble is simply a distaction from substance.

Posted by: Greg at August 20, 2004 09:50 AM

John Matel - “I don’t think what Kerry did or didn’t do in Vietnam should be a significant factor in the presidential election, but John Kerry evidently does.”

Obviously, at least if we go by the official Navy records, Kerry knows that his military service is exceptionally meritorious. The whole “volunteered to serve after attending Yale” pitch really has a nice ring to it. But 9/11 is the real reason Kerry focuses on his military record. People need to feel like the President will keep them safe, and so the warrior cred is much more important than it ever has been. Hence the focus.

Kerry’s Senate career was meritorious as well. I believe he got 57 bills passed, whereas Cheney only managed 2 (and one of those was a handout to a constituent). One of his first tasks was tackling the taboo no one wanted to work on - the POW issue. He later stuck his neck out, departing from his Democratic base to support the balanced budget amendment. Furthermore, as a prosecutor before his legislative career, he cleared a huge backlog of cases and went after people on both sides of the political aisle with equal determination.

In fact, a lot of Kerry’s achievements required the same characteristic - “an iron butt for grunt work.” Wont it be nice to have a President back in the White House who personally is involved with the issues and policy? Who doesn’t take vacations every few months? I’m looking forward to it.

Posted by: Gaelen Burns at August 20, 2004 10:03 AM

@Delzario,
With both the GWB AWOL affair and the Swiftboat Vet story, I have followed the typical “liberal” media outlets like NPR and CNN, and in each I have seen pretty equal representation from both the sides of the accusers and the accused.

Granted in the AWOL case, it was easier for the media to hound the president because they just show up for the daily briefing from the Secretary. It’s a little tougher to catch up w/ Kerry on the campaign trail, but his campaign supporters have been on the news as well as Switfboat vets. Just yesterday on NPR they were talking about the story (giving both sides) and they interviewed one of the Swiftboat vets rather than a Kerry campaigner. On CNN and Hardball they have been doing the 3-way interview thing with insiders on both sides of the story. How is that unfair? Esp. given the points in the previous posts about the current state of documents and hard evidence backing up the various claims.

The GWB AWOL story is less fresh in my memory, but I recall a similar scenario, the media layed out both sides of the issue and interviewed anyone and everyone willing to speak up about it.

I do think it was unnecessary for the Kerry campaign to request a statement from the Bush camp dismissing the SBV claim, when Kerry’s supporters are also running negative campaigns. Thats another story though and has little to do with media bias.

Posted by: peezee at August 20, 2004 10:18 AM

I’m so sick of all the right wing WHINING about media bias. It gets so tiresome.

It’s impossible for media not to have a bias. If you don’t like it, go watch Fox News so you can have your own bias catered to.

Just stop already, you conservatives are such a bunch of whiny b####es.

Posted by: Andrew L. at August 20, 2004 10:53 AM

Gaelen-

Correct me if I’m wrong, but after the Russert appearance didn’t GWB sign his Form 180? That allowed the press to go digging deaper into the records.

But I stand corrected if he didn’t. 6 months ago is really a long time these days!

Posted by: George at August 20, 2004 10:58 AM

Andrew,
I’ll make you a deal. If the Dems stop whining about the 2000 election, we will stop reminding you all of the obvious bias. Deal?
Tim

Posted by: Tim at August 20, 2004 11:25 AM

I’m not whining about the 2000 election, I got over it by December 2000. There’s only so long you can continue to make something an issue.

Nobody’s still crying about the 2000 election except for Michael Moore, but on this blog I hear you all crying about media bias EVERY SINGLE DAY. Just stop already, seriously. Talk about sour grapes…

Posted by: Andrew L. at August 20, 2004 11:41 AM

Andrew-

Deal, I’ll rebuke the other conservatives for blaming their problems on a biased media. You rebuke those on the other side of the isle every time they toss in some mention about Bush being dumb, being the ‘unelected’ president, and using the term neo-con to refer to anyone that supports what we’ve done (militarily) in the past 3 years. Ohh, and stop accusing us of questioning Kerry (or other’s) patriotism, we’ll all agree he’s a patriot. Not that we necessarily agree with how he expresses it.

-D

P.S. and try to shut Moore’s mouth, he makes us all look bad.

Posted by: Delzario at August 20, 2004 12:12 PM

“Journalists used to always be skeptical and try to expose lies when told.”

How naive you are.

Posted by: thetruthwillout1@hotmail.com at August 20, 2004 01:05 PM

This group screams conflict of interest and credibility problems. That’s why it’s not gotten favorable coverage.

For one thing, I’d like you to take a look at this map, and tell me what stands out.

Then Read this: Sealords Campaign

The allied push into Cambodia during the spring of 1970 brought the SEALORDS forces into a unique operational environment. At 0730 local time on 9 May, 10 days after ground troops crossed the border, a combined Vietnamese-American naval task force steamed up the Mekong River to wrest control of that key waterway from North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces. The flotilla, led by a Vietnamese naval officer, was composed of American PCFs, ASPBs, PBRs, HAL-3 and VAL-4 aircraft, Benewah, Askari, Hunterdon County, YRBM 16, YRBM 21 and 10 strike assault boats (STAB) of Strike Assault Boat Squadron 20, a fast-reaction unit created by Admiral Zumwalt in 1969. The Vietnamese contingent included riverine assault craft of many types, PCFs, PBRs, and marine battalions. Naval Advisory Group personnel sailed with each Vietnamese vessel. By the end of the first day, Vietnamese naval units reached the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, while to the south the combined force stormed enemy-held Neak Luong, a strategic ferry crossing point on the river. For political reasons, no U.S. personnel were allowed past Neak Luong, midway to Phnom Penh. Although the American component pulled out of Cambodia by 29 June, the Vietnamese continued to guard the Mekong and evacuate to South Vietnam over 82,000 ethnic Vietnamese jeopardized by the conflict.

Now given this is an official military site, they aren’t going to admit to the darker aspects of this, or crossings into Cambodia, but we are told our

Take this particular passage for example, about Chairman Rear Admiral Hoffman:

Captain Roy Hoffman was the commander of the Navy Coastal Surveillance Force, and it was Hoffman’s decision to send Navy Swift boats up the narrow rivers in the Mekong Delta of South Vietnam — almost always without support from helicopters or artillery — where they ran the risk of mines and were fired on almost at will by Viet Cong dug in along the river’s banks. A Swift boat mission up a Mekong Delta river was a fool’s errand, serving no greater purpose than showing the flag. At one point, Kerry and a fellow skipper named Don Droz protested to Hoffman’s immediate superior, Area Commander Adrian Lonsdale, an act of courage in itself. Kerry told the commander: “Sir, I don’t see how you can ask American troops to risk their lives when the priority in that area isn’t high enough to warrant their getting certain support. I just don’t think that’s right.” A career Navy officer, Lonsdale told Kerry and Droz he was doing what he was told and couldn’t fight it.

The operation proved so dangerous, writes Brinkley, that the Swift boat crews “began to rack up more and more medals — and death certificates.” Shortly after Kerry returned home, his friend Droz was killed when his boat was sent upriver with 800 pounds of high explosives and was raked with rockets and machine guns. Brinkley argues that it was the pointless death of Droz and the insanity of the Swift boat operations that would turn Kerry into such an ardent protester against the war and dedicated advocate for fellow veterans.

More on the foolishness of that campaign from The Washington Monthly

The aluminum-hulled Swift boats, by contrast, were designed and built in a hurry by a company that specialized in water taxis for offshore oil rigs. They were eventually used for combat purposes, for which—despite the addition of three .50-caliber machine guns—they had never been seriously intended.

The Swifts carried a skipper and a crew of five. Kerry commanded two such boats, PCF-44 and PCF-94 (PCF stood for “patrol craft, fast”). The Swifts were first deployed in Vietnam as coastal patrol boats—a not unreasonable function. Kerry saw some of this duty, but it bored him, and he soon volunteered for a more exciting (and hazardous) assignment: taking Swifts into the rivers and canals of the Viet Cong-controlled Mekong Delta.

In charge of the campaign, dubbed Operation Sealords, was a figure straight out of Catch-22, Capt. Roy Hoffman. According to Brinkley, Hoffman “sought to convince his Swift boat skippers to do whatever it took to notch splashy victories in the Mekong Delta and thereby get him promoted.” Up until Hoffman’s arrival, Swift boat crews had broken the monotony of routine offshore patrols by dashing up the Mekong Delta distributaries, in areas swarming with Viet Cong, with guns blazing, just for sport. To Hoffman, it was a lot more than that—seeing in such theatrical operations his path to success and glory, he made those hell-for-leather dashes the key part of the little boats’ mission.

Kerry came almost immediately to understand—as did almost everybody assigned to the Swift boats—that there was no point to these mad runs. The boats had no armor to protect them from enemy fire. They were accompanied by no infantry, save for occasional Navy SEALs hitching rides. Without infantry support, there was no chance of occupying Viet Cong territory or running down significant numbers of VC soldiers. The boats’ engines were so noisy that when the wind was right they could be heard coming from three miles away, and, perhaps for that reason, had enormous trouble running down junks and sampans infiltrating weapons to the enemy. “For anyone wanting to smuggle contraband, we actually made the task easier,” Kerry confided in his journal. “All they had to do was hide in a mangrove or in a small canal until we had passed by.” The fact is, Kerry confessed, in all the time he served in his two Swift boats in Vietnam, he and his men never tracked down any contraband—not so much as a single rifle cartridge.

Additionally:

At one point, six Swift boats, Kerry’s included, were ordered to move up to the Bo De River by way of lesser rivers and canals, whence, it was hoped, they could break away to safety. “Nothing I had ever heard of seemed so tactically stupid,” Kerry wrote. The boats were ambushed, took casualties, but still managed to complete the mission, doing nothing to discourage the enemy. It was all part of a pattern.

At one point, Kerry participated in an operational assessment in Saigon presided over by Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, and reports that he asked how, “if our job was ostensibly interdiction of supplies, they could justify offensive operations such as we had been sent on?” Kerry was told the purpose was to show the flag—the American flag. Wouldn’t it be better, he wondered, if we showed the flag of South Vietnam, seeing that was who we were fighting for? Indeed, the newly-elected President Richard Nixon had changed the war’s strategy to one of “Vietnamization.” But Kerry knew the answer. He had seen firsthand how risk-averse and unmotivated the South Vietnamese soldiers and sailors generally were. Vietnamization was nonsense.

From Steve Gilliard’s News Blog:

This is utterly ridiculous. If Spinsanity actually had research skills, they could have called the Navy Department and found out what the criteria for the award of the Silver Star is. Now, winning a Bronze Star is one thing, but a Silver Star is much harder to win, and no officer would recommend someone under his command for one lightly. The award has to be approved by higher command as well, and they take witness statements. It is hardly like Kerry put himself up for a Silver Star.

Especially interesting concerning Cambodia Naysayers is this account from a SwiftBoat site:

On October 14 1968, shortly after Admiral Zumwalt conceived of SEALORDS, Swift Boat OinC Mike Bernique was informed by local Vietnamese at Ha Tien that the VC had set up a tax collection site a few miles up the Giang Thanh River from Ha Tien.

Even though it was strictly forbidden by the Rules of Engagement for Swift Boats to operate that far up the rivers, Mike proceeded to follow up on this lead and investigated. He discovered the tax collection site and a fire fight ensued. This resulted in five enemy KIA’s and the collection of weapons, ammunition, supplies and documents left behind by the fleeing communists.
Mike was called to Saigon to explain his unauthorized conduct and to answer a diplomatic protest by Cambodian Prince Sihanouk that he had fired across the border into that supposed neutral country. Facing possible disiplinary actions, he answered Admiral Zumwalt’s questions with an emphatic “Tell Sihanouk he’s a lying SOB.”

The Admiral declared that Bernique was exactly the kind of aggressive skipper he was looking for and awarded him a Silver Star instead of a general court marshal.

From that point forward, the Giang Thanh became known as “Bernique’s Creek”
Eventually, patrols were augmented throughout the length of the Giang Thanh River and extended from its northeastern head along the Vinh Te Canal to the east all the way to the western bank of the Bassac river. Interdiction operations included not only Swift Boats, but also PBRs (Patrol Boat River) and units of the Navy’s Mobile Riverine Force.

All in all think most of the attacks lack credibility. Tim Oliphaunt pointed out in last night’s Newshour that one major hurdle for believeability is that these supposed lies came out now, not years ago when you had the Nixon Crew looking up and down Kerry’s chain of command and combing the records for evidence of just such deception. Not only did they not find anything, but the guy who was asked to do the investigation, A Navy official Named John Warner, now a Republican Senator himself, has basically echoed John McCain’s denouncing of the SwiftVets.

They claim to be non-political; perhaps they’re trying to make us laugh. It’s chairman, retired Rear Admiral Roy Hoffman was famed for pushing for bigger body counts, and more raids on villages. The massacre that tarnishes Bob Kerrey’s reputation now is directly linked to that. John O’Neill willingly took the Nixon Administration position on the Vietnam war in a debate against Kerry in 1971, and now willingly accepts hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from Republican donors with ties to Bush’s family, and GOP fundraising. His coauthor on the book Unfit for Command is a man on record as having made virulently Anti-Catholic and anti-Islamic comments, among other seriously bigoted remarks. The language he uses to describe liberals and Democrats is so insanely biased in its tone that I doubt even most red column folks here would be caught dead using it. If that isn’t enough, the webmaster for the SwiftVets site also is one of the people who run FreeRepublic- Freeper central.

I have no problem with political slant- I take one regularly. But I don’t want the dead parrot treatment on their politics. If they believe their politics gives them credibility problems, they can always compensate by being more factual. Trying to hide their politics just demonstrates that their agenda drives them more than their facts.

My advice to the Red Column folks here? Cut these fellows loose before they become your credibility problem.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at August 20, 2004 01:11 PM

A word on the formatting- the quote extends to Interdiction operations included not only Swift Boats, but also PBRs (Patrol Boat River) and units of the Navy’s Mobile Riverine Force.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at August 20, 2004 01:14 PM

Every treatment by the major news media I have seen with John Oneil, such as on Chris Matthews, completely sidestepped any discussions about any facts, whether they were true or false but degenerated into the Kerry defenders, including the host, calling names and repeating the same phrases over and over and not letting O’neil speak.

Here are virtually all of the veterans who served with Kerry on swiftboats in Vietnam who are saying that Kerry is not someone they want in the white house. That may be partisan but it is as it is.

You can bet that if all of George Bush’s fellow national guard pilots had formed such a group, no matter how partisan they may or may not be, their credibility would not be questioned and maligned by the media itself as the SBVFT have been.

The chairman of the DNC, (can you get more partisan than that?), charged that Bush was awol and a deserter. This wasn’t greeted with scepticism because he was ‘partisan’, or questioned because of a conflict of interest. It was treated as if it were the truth and Bush had better prove that it was not true.

The major media have yet to deal with any of the SBVFT claims substantially, to prove or disprove.

So far the one thing we do know is that Kerry has lied about being in Cambodia on Christmas for the last thirty years. When he apparently wrote in his own journal that he was in Sa Dec!

True or not, if the media continues to ignore the SBVFT by digging into the details and proving or disproving them rather than just dismissing them out of hand as partisan and uncredible, their version of the truth will continue to percolate through alternate media until it becomes accepted as truth by all who would be receptive to it. The fact is that the media is hurting Kerry by appearing to protect him from these accusation. In the end it will lend credibility to the SBVFT to those inclined to believe it.

Posted by: Eric Simonson at August 20, 2004 01:41 PM

There new ad is out on the Swiftvet website.

Posted by: George at August 20, 2004 02:00 PM

It is amazing to me. We have wars, sluggish economic growth with leading economic indicators going down, the largest debt and deficits, under terrorist threat with no adequate or efficient means of defense, — and folks want to debate military records decades old….and act like that is what they will base their vote on… truly amazing!

Posted by: David R. Remer at August 20, 2004 02:07 PM

Delzario,

Continuing to bring up the 2000 election is whining. Continuing to harp on media bias is whining. In both cases, people are just making excuses for the chips not falling their way. I don’t like excuses.

The other things you mentioned are not what I’d call whining, just partisan propaganda tactics which both sides engage in, and unfortunately it’s always going to be a part of the political process.

On Michael Moore, while I’m not the biggest fan of him, it’s not him making America look bad — it’s Bush. Moore is just shining a spotlight on it. God forbid the administration ever take responsibility for their own actions… it’s really everyone else’s fault for portraying completely defensible actions in a negative light, right?

Posted by: Andrew L. at August 20, 2004 02:26 PM

A comment/rant about the “objective” TV media (not print- thats a different discussion.)
Why hasn’t “Unfit for Command,” which has been #1 on Amazon.com for weeks preceeding and following its release, gotten a full hour on 60 minutes or Larry King Live? I remember sitting through specials on Richard Clarke’s “Against All Enemies” and Woodward’s recent book “Plan of Attack” as if these books were somehow more newsworthy and important that anything else happening on Earth at that moment. How about the mighty Clinton memoir, of which we recieved regular notice on CNN and MSNBC weeks before it came out, and we recieved equally long and agonizing TV specials. Why no coverage, or nary a mention of the popularity, credibility, or facts documented and assembled in this book- by over 250 different people who did serve under, over and around Kerry in the disputed period? What are the major media moguls afraid of? Will a real analysis and discussion of the Swiftie’s charges make Kerry look bad?
You bet.
Will the “objective” media cover this ONE potentially damaging book full-court press style like they did to the anti-Bush books/movies/rock concerts/protests/plays/art/(fill in the blank).?
Sh@t no.
If Kerry’s version of these events are true, then Kerry could clear all of this up in a flash if he authorized the Dept. of Defense to relaese all of his personal medical records from his four month semester in Vietnam (which was eight months shorter that his crewmates average 12 month tour of duty). Hey- they demended Bush disclose his dental records (among others), for crying out loud. He won’t, though. And the media networks won’t ask why.
And to those who say that they are tired of hearing about Vietnam- I say tough cookies. The Dems nominated him. Kerry made it his issue both before, during and after the Democrat Convention. He told us to look to his service in Vietnam as proof of his credibility to be the next President. Now we are. Has Kerry actually dealt face to face with any of these Swifties since the Dick Cavet show? Will he answer the charges and clear the record? Don’t hold your breath. He already has (predictably) accused his detractors as right-wing haters who are a front group for the Bush Administration, but has not adressed the substance of the charges against him.
And it won’t happen, at least not in this election cycle. Because he will be exposed for the fraud that he is. Truth hurts.
there. I feel better. :-)

Posted by: E at August 20, 2004 02:29 PM

The notion that Bush’s character has been carefully scrutinized is as absurd as theories that the press has a liberal bias. The story of #41 is the story of a falling down drunk whose past has been largely covered up. Bush’s Court and Military records are expunged or missing. It was only in the second election cycle that serious questions have been asked. BushCo is skilled at controlling the content of interviews, debates and press conferences. If there is one thing BushCo is good at it’s attacking opponents vicously and keeping the spotlight off himself. That’s important, because if facts, issues and policies were scrutinized people would realize that the emperor has no clothes. TV soundbites and headlines form most US opinion. If Bush’s tenure depended on facts, results, speaking skills, work habits, criminal behaviors or love of freedom and Democracy he would never have been considered for the job. Reporters are predominantly liberal, but editors, publishers, and advertisement purchasers are virtually all conservatives. NPR, which used to be independent, has been pushed to the right with the introduction of ads and intimidation by our Republican Congress. The New York Times is liberal when compared to The Wall Street Journal, but not in any serious independent way. They jumped on the WMD and other lame White House bandwagons with NPR, FOX and other stupid followers. O’Neil and Lowrey lie for money and coordinate with Rove. Pigs at the trough.

Posted by: bayviking at August 20, 2004 02:56 PM

One, MoveOn, released an ad accusing Bush of using family connections to get into the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, and then failing to report for duty for part of his time. The Bush campaign says the president fulfilled his Guard obligations and was discharged honorably.

Kerry has denounced the MoveOn ad.

Isn’t it time the President return the favor?

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at August 20, 2004 04:03 PM

Are eyewitness accounts (swiftboat vets) in the same category as political opinion organizations (moveon.org, et al)?

Either way, wouldn’t asking either group to stop doing what it’s doing be an admission that a candidate actually has some control over it? Wouldn’t that in itself be a violation of federal law?

Posted by: NOTOTH at August 20, 2004 04:40 PM

Stephen:

Kerry has denounced ONE ad. What about all the comments made on Kerry’s behalf about Bush? What about Terry McAuliffe calling Bush AWO with no evidence, on behalf of the Democratic Party and Kerry?

What about Howard Dean suggesting that Bush knew about 911 in advance? What about the Bushbashing frenzy that was nicknamed the Democratic Primary?

It really is just a game that Kerry is playing. He is getting hurt and hurt badly by these ads. If he werent getting hurt, he would ignore them. But since he IS getting hurt, he now wants to try to get Bush to repudiate them, even though there is no connection to Bush. (Of course, we all know Bush is aware of the ads, and even possibly behind the ads, in an unprovable unofficial way, just like Kerry is behind MoveOn.org etc.)

Kerry wants the ability to bash Bush, but doesnt like it when he gets it back. Then…its an insult to Kerry’s patriotism. What it really is is just the entire political game, and I’;m sure you see that, if you have your eyes open.

Posted by: joebagodonuts at August 20, 2004 05:30 PM

Oh, by the way, here’s the link.

It’s interesting that in the ad that they remove the qualifying remarks that would indicate to the viewer that Kerry was speaking about soldiers recounting these war crimes to him. The only reason to do this is because they assume that if they leave in the qualifiers, people might actually find Kerry’s comments more persuasive than their propaganda.

Eric-
What do you define as sidestepping the facts?

Do you think Jim Rassmann was imagining the small arms fire, when Kerry came back and saved him? Can you square his story and the story of Kerry’s fellow crewman with the SwiftVets?

Do you think it is somewhat questionable when a major signatory of your affadavits waffles on what was written?

Don’t you think it’s odd that an administration known for digging up dirt on their opponents is unable to discover such allegations thirty years ago, when they were intent on discrediting him?

Don’t you think it’s odd that one of the Swiftvets got his commendation for the same award with the same gunfire described, and that it’s signed by one of the SwiftVets? Whether or not Kerry wrote it up, it certainly is telling that this virtuous SwiftVet didn’t refuse the putatively innacurate commendation when he had the chance.

One thing for sure, there are many details about the group itself that undermine its credibility. First, it’s funding. Though it claims to be non-partisan, it’s funding is almost exclusively Republican. Second, the Swiftvets are not a disinterested group. Kerry implicated them. If what Kerry says is true, then they stand to benefit from discrediting Kerry. It’s choice of personnel is odd for a non-partisan group. Its website is run by a webmaster from a notoriously right-wing site, its book written by a bigoted commentator from that site, and a man who took the opposing side of a debate from Kerry thirty years before.

In news, there is a rule: consider the source. nobody likes to get burned by a source, to have another network catch them with their pants down. They look at the SwiftVets, with their inconsistent stories, conflicts of interest, and personnel, and they draw a valid conclusion- this source is not reliable. What evidence is there to back their reliability?

Here’s more wood for the fire:

Birth of the SwiftVets

Pay special attention to what a certain Patrick Runyon had to say:

Patrick Runyon, who served on a mission with Mr. Kerry, said he initially thought the caller was from a pro-Kerry group, and happily gave a statement about the night Mr. Kerry won his first Purple Heart. The investigator said he would send it to him by e-mail for his signature. Mr. Runyon said the edited version was stripped of all references to enemy combat, making it look like just another night in the Mekong Delta.

“It made it sound like I didn’t believe we got any returned fire,” he said. “He made it sound like it was a normal operation. It was the scariest night of my life.”

Patrick Runyon is the other guy in the Boston Whaler. As for the other accounts? Grant Hibbard is an old registered Republican in a nursing home who doesn’t even remember the correct location of the shrapnel wound. As for the Rear Admiral?

The group also offers the account of William L. Schachte Jr., a retired rear admiral who says in the book that he had been on the small skimmer on which Mr. Kerry was injured that night in December 1968. He contends that Mr. Kerry wounded himself while firing a grenade.

But the two other men who acknowledged that they had been with Mr. Kerry, Bill Zaladonis and Mr. Runyon, say they cannot recall a third crew member. “Me and Bill aren’t the smartest, but we can count to three,” Mr. Runyon said in an interview. And even Dr. Letson said he had not recalled Mr. Schachte until he had a conversation with another veteran earlier this year and received a subsequent phone call from Mr. Schachte himself.

Mr. Schachte did not return a telephone call, and a spokesman for the group said he would not comment.

Wait, it gets better!

But the group says that there was no enemy fire, and that while Mr. Kerry did rescue Mr. Rassmann, the action was what anyone would have expected of a sailor, and hardly heroic. Asked why Mr. Rassmann recalled that he was dodging enemy bullets, a member of the group, Jack Chenoweth, said, “He’s lying.”

“If that’s what we have to say,” Mr. Chenoweth added, “that’s how it was.”

Several veterans insist that Mr. Kerry wrote his own reports, pointing to the initials K. J. W. on one of the reports and saying they are Mr. Kerry’s. “What’s the W for, I cannot answer,” said Larry Thurlow, who said his boat was 50 to 60 yards from Mr. Kerry’s. Mr. Kerry’s middle initial is F, and a Navy official said the initials refer to the person who had received the report at headquarters, not the author.

A damage report to Mr. Thurlow’s boat shows that it received three bullet holes, suggesting enemy fire, and later intelligence reports indicate that one Vietcong was killed in action and five others wounded, reaffirming the presence of an enemy. Mr. Thurlow said the boat was hit the day before. He also received a Bronze Star for the day, a fact left out of “Unfit for Command.”

(clip)The actual citation, Mr. Thurlow said, was with an ex-wife with whom he no longer has contact, and he declined to authorize the Navy to release a copy. But a copy obtained by The New York Times indicates “enemy small arms,” “automatic weapons fire” and “enemy bullets flying about him.” The citation was first reported by The Washington Post on Thursday.

Just who are we supposed to believe? The people who can back themselves up, or who keep on having to back themselves off and call other people liars to make their case?

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at August 20, 2004 05:48 PM

When you’re further right on this issue than Bill O’Reilly, I’m afraid you’ve lost it.

Posted by: entertainment news at August 20, 2004 07:15 PM

“E” asks, “Has Kerry actually dealt face to face with any of these Swifties since the Dick Cavet show?”

I can think of one time, as recounted in many places, the latest of which in the New York Times article quoted by Stephen:

George Elliott, one of the Vietnam veterans in the group, flew from his home in Delaware to Boston in 1996 to stand up for Mr. Kerry during a tough re-election fight, declaring at a news conference that the action that won Mr. Kerry a Silver Star was “an act of courage.” At that same event, Adrian L. Lonsdale, another Vietnam veteran now speaking out against Mr. Kerry, supported him with a statement about the “bravado and courage of the young officers that ran the Swift boats.”

“Senator Kerry was no exception,” Mr. Lonsdale told the reporters and cameras assembled at the Charlestown Navy Yard. “He was among the finest of those Swift boat drivers.”

Does that count?

Posted by: Jerome Guerra at August 20, 2004 10:43 PM

I think there is more than just questions of credibility or inherent biases at work here. The accusations that Bush did not show up for duty could easily be answered by routine military paperwork. On the other hand, the accusations that Kerry lied implicitly goes against the official record of the Navy, and all the paperwork involved. In the former situation, Bush could easily prove he was present the whole time by releasing the records in question. In the latter, releasing records doesn’t do a thing, since the group is saying that the record itself is based on falsehoods. What we are left with is a situation where it is more reasonable to ask Bush for the routinely-recorded proof that he served his full term of duty than to ask others for proof that he was not, and also a situation where it is more reasonable to ask the Swiftvets for proof that the official Navy records are based on falsehoods than it is to ask Kerry to prove they are true so many years after the fact.

Posted by: Jarin at August 21, 2004 12:24 AM

Thanks for bringing this up Timothy. Why hasn’t Bush released the records that show he’s not a deserter? Why are these ‘swiftboat shills for Bush’ trying to distract us from the real story.

Where are those records Mr. Bush? I’m sure the statute of limitation has expired. Didn’t Carter give all you deserters an amnesty?

Posted by: American Pundit at August 21, 2004 01:04 AM

Stephen,

I don’t get the NYTimes and I don’t read it because most of what they print is actually fiction. More so than most liberal papers since several journalists have been caught making stuff up. I guess I’ll have to buy O’Neil’s book and read it.

Do you think it is somewhat questionable when a major signatory of your affadavits waffles on what was written?

See, here you are not telling the whole story. He didn’t recant his affidavit. That reporter actually edited what he said to make it sound as though he was saying something else. That’s why he executed another affidavit the next day affirming the original one. Alot of the attacks on the veracity of the SBVFT have been exactly like this.

First the Kerry campaign said none of these men ever served on the same boat as Kerry. Well, it turns out they left out the inconvenient fact that these boats act in concert with other boats. Like tanks they don’t head off all by themselves usually, they act as a team.

I’ve watched John O’Neil on two different cable shows hit some of these issues head on, and I’ve got to say he is pretty credible to me. He has not changed his story one iota as far as I can see so far. But we do know that Kerry has changed his story on several issues.

Kerry’s Christmas in Cambodia story is completely false. Even he now admits every aspect of it was incorrect including the time, place, and manner of it. Now it has changed to secret mission running guns and CIA operatives into Cambodia later on. Seeing as how Kerry only has four months to fit all of these events into might he not run out of secrets?

Kerry did accuse veterans of war crimes and atrocities, and in addition he admitted to war crimes and atrocities himself on the Dick Cavett Show in a debate with John O’Neil in 1971. In his Senate testimony he is retelling the accusations of supposed veterans in his anti war group the VVAW. Many of which may not have even been soldiers or been to Vietnam. A group whose members talked about assasinating senators at a meeting Kerry denied ever being at. Then said he couldn’t remember if he was at. Then when confronted with direct evidence said that he couldn’t rule out that he might have been there.

Don’t you think it’s odd that an administration known for digging up dirt on their opponents is unable to discover such allegations thirty years ago, when they were intent on discrediting him?

Stephen, this administration is no different from any other administration in digging up dirt ontheir opponents. This has no bearing on the veracity of John O’Neil’s book.

Don’t you think it’s odd that Kerry had Terry MacAuliff trot out these charges that Bush was a deserter to try and discredit him?

First, it’s funding. Though it claims to be non-partisan, it’s funding is almost exclusively Republican. Second, the Swiftvets are not a disinterested group. Kerry implicated them. If what Kerry says is true, then they stand to benefit from discrediting Kerry. It’s choice of personnel is odd for a non-partisan group. Its website is run by a webmaster from a notoriously right-wing site, its book written by a bigoted commentator from that site, and a man who took the opposing side of a debate from Kerry thirty years before.

In news, there is a rule: consider the source. nobody likes to get burned by a source, to have another network catch them with their pants down. They look at the SwiftVets, with their inconsistent stories, conflicts of interest, and personnel, and they draw a valid conclusion- this source is not reliable. What evidence is there to back their reliability?

MoveOn.org’s funding is completely and exclusively Democratic. Everything they say must be a lie. Again that is not an argument to the veracity of their claims.

Kerry implicated them? But now Kerry says that was just youthful exuberance. He didn’t really mean it. Vietnam is water under the bridge and those were heady times and we all got carried away by the moment. If these men were looking to bury their past they sure are going about it in the wrong way. No, these men are pissed that Kerry implicated all veterans in war crimes and atrocities. Pissed.

Consider the source…? that’s right, when you can’t answer with facts, impeach the source. Muddy the waters. Cast doubt. Anything but answer the charges directly.

I think Kerry is certainly going about this in a funny manner. First ignore it, then come out guns blazing, but don’t answer the charges, or refute the facts directly, threaten to sue the stations running the ad, file complaints with the FCC, threaten the publisher of the book, try to intimidate book sellers to pull the book from the shelves, send out people with limited talking points to be belligerent on TV shows and radio, never answering the facts, but always casting aspersions and attacking the person rather than the argument.

Posted by: Eric Simonson at August 21, 2004 04:12 AM

Am I back in the 1970’s Haven’t these questions been answered before? The Republican Party is playing with a live nucular problem. Does the republican party really want to re-debate the policies of the Nixon Administration toward Veitnam? Is President Bush willing to unclassify those operations in Cambodia, Laos, and Veitnam? The media is also slow to learn from their mistakes of believing the president and the republican spin. However, the fallout of that era is scaryly the same as now. We have a President that was found out not being Commander and Chief, policies going aray, and the general public ready to pounce. The republicans need to do their home work, between 72-76 how much power did they lose in Congress listening to the same guy? Do they really think Americans are that stupid. Ask them about their policy toward demostrators in 1971. Remimber Kent State? If the Democrats want to play lowball, trust me, they could without a problem.

What President Bush’s crew don’t want his supports to do is get a critic on his record from the media. If our fine reporters would throughly investegate this Administration as they have all others heaven only nows what they would fine. Like President Nixon, President Bush has kept a very tight ship, yet the reports and books that have come out has lead to alot of questions. Even enough to get Congress involved and thats saying something. Let the Swift boats speak, the truth is in history, where was Bush’s stand on the issues at that time? Face it this vets have brought shame to all vets, let soldiers be soldiers, no one should have to face those nightmares again for just a cheap trill.

Posted by: Henry Schlatman at August 21, 2004 05:01 AM

Eric:

Please answer one question for me: Do you believe John O’Neill voted for Al Gore in 2000, as he stated on Hardball?

This man, who donated thousands to Republican candidates and causes, and who surrounded himself with important Republicans in his professional life, claims to have voted for Al Gore in 2000 and Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996. He also claims that many of the GOP donations that are documented to have come from him— including even his middle initial— were actually from someone with a name kind of like his. Do you believe that too?

I find it amusing how the supporters of these veterans— who clearly have an axe to grind against John Kerry— are so quick to give them a pass when revelations appear such as the inconsistency between Thurlow’s statements and his long-ago Bronze Star commendation. And how they won’t even address the dubiousness of Elliott’s claims given his glowing reviews of Kerry, his appearance supporting Kerry during a Senate campaign in 1996, and his comments reported in the Boston Globe.

No, in your eyes, it’s those who believe Kerry— oh, and the official U.S. Navy records from 35 years ago that no one has questioned until now— who are naively buying into lies and exaggerations.

These Swiftboat Veterans are a committed bunch. It’s clear they’ll stop at nothing to derail Kerry’s presidential hopes. They’ve built a compelling case, if only because most of their charges are impossible to prove or disprove beyond any doubt.

I, for one, congratulate them on a remarkably organized, effective campaign. It’s amazing that a loosely affilliated bunch of a veterans who hadn’t seen each other in years has been able to pull off such an effort. High-quality video ads, well coordinated media campaign, best-selling book rushed to market.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think they had help.

Posted by: Jerome Guerra at August 21, 2004 09:36 AM

Another question for you, Eric: How would you have Kerry “answer with facts” the charges against him?

In terms of facts, Kerry has page after page of official U.S. Navy records that support his version of the story. He also has the testimony of the men on his boat and the man whose life he saved.

What other facts would you like to see from Senator Kerry? What other facts could he possibly produce beyond what’s already been revealed?

And finally, what “facts” have his opponents produced to support their version of the night Kerry and Thurlow won the Bronze Star? Or the accusations about Kerry’s Purple Hearts?

As far as I can tell, Kerry’s version is the only one supported by “facts.” All the other side has are foggy recollections from 35 years ago and an intense dislike of Senator Kerry’s politics and post-war activities.

Posted by: Jerome Guerra at August 21, 2004 09:44 AM

Eric, read the article. Don’t make this easier for my by looking like you’re afraid of my source. You can make opinionated claims about what the NYTimes is like, but in the end it is the paper of record in this country, and the falsehoods of a few articles written by a handful of dishonest reporters does not logically transfer to all the people involved in the paper. By such a standard, I couldn’t have even read the chapter of the SwiftVets Book that I did.

I do know that Kranish pulled a dubious trick one quote, but on the next quote given, he is openly saying he rushed into signing the affadavit, and when he actually read it was horrified by its contents. That quote is still out in the open, unrefuted. Even then, he did recant on the first Affadavit.

Trouble is, many of these vets spent significant amount of time campaigning for Kerry before this election. That includes Thurlow and Elliot. Thurlow is on record as getting a bronze star for courage under fire in the same incident as Kerry. Both were nominated for the awards by Elliot, who I think also nominated him for the Silver Star. A big to-do has been made over initials on the reports, initials your people claim are Kerry’s but which in fact are from the Officer who recieved those files. Then you have the other officer on the Boston Whaler saying that the SwiftVets took a statement from him from which they edited out the references to return fire, which apparently Runyon believes. They instead take the word of a old man in a nursing home who can’t even remember where Kerry was wounded.

Additionally, their contentions that there couldn’t have been secret missions into cambodia is refuted by the anecdote related in my previous comment, from a Swiftboat veteran’s site. You say there weren’t any, and this guy’s story says that Elmo Zumwalt himself praised a Swiftboat Captain for doing an open run and raid into Cambodia, which got the ruling sovereign of the country incensed. Instead of court martialling the guy, who calls Cambodia’s head of state a liar, Admiral Zumwalt hands him a metal, and the incurstions become regular enought that the river gets named after him by the other Swifties.

These are the attacks on the veracity of the Swiftvets: facts, Eric. History. Military procedure. The truth is not a writing style, a format, or even a political leaning. It is the relationship between facts, and how close they come to reality. The Christmas in Cambodia story may be false, but it may just be a confusion of dates. You’ve probably had occasion when one memory interferes with another. You may want to treat it as deserving of federal investigation, but it’s small change compared to the charges concerning the medals.

The fact is, being on the same boat with Kerry has a strong effect on one’s point of view. They will understand the tactics, the actions, and the intentions of their commanding officer much better than others who do not regularly associate with them. The equation that seems to be drawn by the SwiftVets is that being a SwiftBoat Captain at the same time as Kerry equals having a full and detailed understanding of his character. That equation doesn’t necessarily add up. Neither do all the commanding officers who gave him high marks, medal commendations, and even campaign support in the past, but who now have turned against him as a candidate for president.

The atrocities he admitted to were true across the board: free-fire zones, where anybody killed, civilian or soldier could be counted as a Vietcong kill. The Chairman of your group is notorious for his insistence on high bodycounts. The war crimes Kerry related were related to him by the vets at VVAW meeting- I wonder what you’ve found out that is supposed to be so crippling to their credibility. Get back to me on that and we’ll discuss that point. It’s matter of historical fact that Kerry broke with his group over discussions of assassinations- seems a reasonable thing to do.

As for what he remembers, I’d like you to perfectly recall something that happened to you over thirty years ago- or maybe ten or twenty. How about five. Memory is never perfect. We aren’t computers.

As for the administration in question, I was hoping you’d get the hint that I was talking about the Nixon Administration, which did in fact go to great lengths to discredit opponents. With events so fresh in people’s minds, One wonders why such details didn’t come up while they were digging up mud to throw by means of John O’Neil. The fact that he did take the Nixon side, by the way speaks to a political sensibility, he does not seem willing to admit.

It’s that unwillingness to admit the source of their funding, their political leaning that bothers me, not the fact that they have such a slant. You don’t hide your ideology without reason. Either they don’t want to look like a smear group, or they don’t want to appear connected to the other group.

As for the FEC charges, I think they’ve got a case. I happened to look at DailyKos, and apparently, the deal is that the GOP and the Swiftvets had a nice little get-together with the Vietnam Vets Against Kerry, and Kos has a magnificent scan of the flyer to prove it.

As for the directness of it, I don’t know how high your standards of directness are, but if you are filing charges with the FEC, that’s pretty direct. The evidence, if I’m not mistaken, is pretty direct, too. There’s an actual meeting here, instead of just vague fundraising links.

Oh, well. One thing that struck me in that New York Times article- That Swiftvet calling Rassmann a liar. The temerity of that had me cursing out loud. No, they didn’t say he was mistaken, or even decieved, they call this decorated veteran, lifelong Republican, and former Deputy Sherrif a liar. Nothing I’ve seen about the SwiftVets makes me terribly confident in their veracity. They don’t get the military regulations right, they don’t get their stories straight. They edit testimony from witness to fit their agenda. They accept funding and support from the far right, but are not honest about it. Hell, in their last commercial they implied the Kerry himself implicated the veterans, editing out qualifying language that indicated that they had confessed to Kerry, and that he was merely passing it on. That’s a pretty major distinction, even if it’s a small nuance. It’s the difference between Kerry being a Stoolpidgeon who ratted out his comrades, and an advocate passing on his fellow veteran’s confessions.

You know things are bad when Krauthammer and Novak are both saying the Swiftvets are a sorry mess. Krauthammer is saying that the Swiftvets are actually helping Kerry, by keeping America’s focus on Kerry’s superior war record.

Facts, Eric. Facts.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at August 21, 2004 09:53 AM

Well we know where one member of the media will fall. We know because he was there, as an officer on a SwiftBoat.

Chicago Tribune editor breaks silence.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at August 21, 2004 02:55 PM

> Look at how quickly the Post got to work on
> discrediting former veteran Larry Thurlow
> who launched his own criticism of Kerry. It
> took less than a few days for them to find
> evidence against this critic.

Quickly? It took them several weeks since the ad came out, and it’s been months since their press conference. Unlike most TV news, the print media often checks out stories before running with them, particularly when the stories are controversial and particularly when the accusations are so bizarre that they fly in the face of mountains of official documentation and physical evidence. In the case of the SBVT, the print media seems to have recently finished checking out the stories, and unfortunately for Bush, the results don’t support the SBVT allegations.

Why hasn’t 60 Minutes run with this story? Maybe they saw how bad it smelled, they suspected the stories could be a pack of lies, and they wanted to wait to see if the stories checked out before airing them. Turns out they were right to wait. It seems that almost hourly these SBVT guys get caught in another lie.

Those of you who pounced on this story early on and who are still standing by it now must be feeling a little left out in the cold in recent days. Unlike Newsweek, Time, U.S. News…. and unlike O’Reilly, Novak, Krauthammer… you guys chose your side way too early and only now do you realize that you are on a sinking ship. Maybe you need to cut these SBVT guys loose before more of their lies and scandals drag you down with them.

> Here are virtually all of the veterans who served
> with Kerry on swiftboats in Vietnam who are saying
> that Kerry is not someone they want in the white
> house. That may be partisan but it is as it is.

That’s not the message that they want us to believe. You’re rewriting recent history (you’re actually backing off your own recent posts, too) if you think that that’s all they (and you) want America to think about John Kerry.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and their GOP backers want us to think that John Kerry deliberately wounded himself in battle, that he repeatedly lied to his superior officers about his service, that he personally faked his official reports, and that, in combat, not only could he not be counted on, but that in fact he was a self-serving coward that was mistrusted and even hated by everyone he ever served with.

Now that all of these allegations have been proven to be bald-faced lies, you are resorting to pedantic arguments over whether Kerry was in Cambodia on Christmas day or sometime shortly thereafter. Pathetic.

-Cf

Posted by: Christopher Fahey at August 21, 2004 05:36 PM

Whether or not John Kerry was in Cambodia is important because John Kerry claimed that the experience was seared into his memory and it was the epiphany that made him oppose the war in Vietnam. It was this life-changing event that validated his subsequent behavior as an anti war activist and ostensibly explained the next thirty years of his life. It is more than a little thing. If it never happened, the Kerry story is very different. It is as if St. Paul admitted that made up the story about his vision on the road to Damascus in order to make himself more interesting. I have written before that I am convinced that John Kerry was a hero in Vietnam. That he was not in Cambodia does not change that opinion, but it does make we wonder about his general credibility.

Posted by: Jack at August 21, 2004 08:51 PM

Jack: Kerry might, for example, have been in Cambodia a week after Christmas, which after 20 years or so one might easily confuse with Christmas itself. It’s the same time of year, and, in fact, Vietnamese Christians (if there were any) would probably celebrate Christmas on January 6th, when the French (their former colonial occupiers) celebrate it.

Did he go to Cambodia at all? Well, lots of American soldiers went on covert missions to Cambodia. That’s a fact. It seems plausible to me that Kerry might have been one of them.

While his story seems to have some holes in it, they are completely inconsequential, immaterial, and utterly excusable. I give the guy a break on this one.

-Cf

Posted by: Christopher Fahey at August 21, 2004 09:55 PM

Jerome, Stephen,

I think we can’t jump to conclusions about this issue just yet. Why don’t we wait until we can get all the facts. The way to do that is a full airing of both sides. It may well be that some of this is a difference of perception and recollection. But we know that Kerry’s recollections are not fully reliable considering that he has had to admit that the Christmas in Cambodia memory seared into him was entirely fabricated. Not just hazy, but a memory of an event that changed his life never happened. It’s one thing not to remember what happened thirty years ago, it’s quite another to invent what happened thirty years ago.

In terms of facts, Kerry has page after page of official U.S. Navy records that support his version of the story. He also has the testimony of the men on his boat and the man whose life he saved.

What other facts would you like to see from Senator Kerry? What other facts could he possibly produce beyond what’s already been revealed?

For one Kerry could authorize the Department of Navy to release all of his records, as Bush has, not just the selected ones he has released so far and claimed he has released everything.

Although Kerry campaign officials insist that they have published Kerry’s full military records on their Web site (with the exception of medical records shown briefly to reporters earlier this year), they have not permitted independent access to his original Navy records. A Freedom of Information Act request by The Post for Kerry’s records produced six pages of information. A spokesman for the Navy Personnel Command, Mike McClellan, said he was not authorized to release the full file, which consists of at least a hundred pages. washington post quote via instapundit

Stephen,

Regarding the NY Times article, I am assuming from your wholehearted acceptance of it as pure fact that the article has a point of view that the Swift Boat Vets are lying. We should consider the source, right? I haven’t been able to read much lately because I’ve been busy but I do mean to read the Times article.

Facts are facts Stephen, whether they come from a partisan or not. And I expect that some of the Swift Boat Vets charges cannot be proven after thirty years. But on the one hand you indict them for being wholly partisan and then on the other hand say that they are discredited because they once defended Kerry in a senate campaign. Part of what they are saying is that they were not aware of some of Kerry’s version of events until recently and Kerry’s versions didn’t match theirs.

Let’s say you were someone who was so partisan and so dastardly that you would make up all of this slander against Kerry to keep him out of office. Why would you have defended him in a campaign?

Chris,

Maybe you need to cut these SBVT guys loose before more of their lies and scandals drag you down with them.

I am continually astounded by the lack of objectivity of the left. Was Bush awol? Did you think that the source of the charge was partisan? DNC Chairman Terry MacAuliff seems pretty partisan to me. Was there a pause before reporting this ‘fact’? Far from cutting Michael Moore loose the Democratic party had him sitting in a place of honor. The slander and spurious charges of the left are immediately taken for fact because they fit neatly into the ‘Republican’s are fascists’ template.

I’m sure that if even one small aspect of the Swift Boat Vets accusations are proven wrong it will be used as proof that all of their charges are wrong. That same standard will not be applied to Kerry. Kerry has already been caught in a lie. Several in fact.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and their GOP backers want us to think that John Kerry deliberately wounded himself in battle,

If we are going to write about these things let’s know what we’re talking about first. Here’s an instance where I am sure you are probably just regurgitating the talking points. It’s my (limited) understanding that they are not charging that Kerry deliberately wounded himself. Remember straw man? They said he wounded himself accidentally, not on purpose.

…that he repeatedly lied to his superior officers about his service, that he personally faked his official reports, and that, in combat, not only could he not be counted on, but that in fact he was a self-serving coward that was mistrusted and even hated by everyone he ever served with.

Now that all of these allegations have been proven to be bald-faced lies, you are resorting to pedantic arguments over whether Kerry was in Cambodia on Christmas day or sometime shortly thereafter. Pathetic.

All? Proven lies? Hardly. One allegation is that what Kerry said about spending Christmas in Cambodia was not true. Turns out the Swift Vets were right. Kerry could not support that claim and knew he had been caught in a lie, so his story has been edited by his ‘official biographer’.

Kerry has based his campaign on his 4 months of military service in Vietnam to prove he is a better candidate for commander in chief.

Posted by: Eric Simonson at August 21, 2004 10:21 PM

Eric:

You mean the Washington Post article from tomorrow’s paper entitled:

Swift Boat Accounts Incomplete
Critics Fail to Disprove Kerry’s Version of Vietnam War Episode

And that has this excerpt:

Until now, eyewitness evidence supporting Kerry’s version had come only from his own crewmen. But yesterday, The Post independently contacted a participant who has not spoken out so far in favor of either camp who remembers coming under enemy fire. “There was a lot of firing going on, and it came from both sides of the river,” said Wayne D. Langhofer, who manned a machine gun aboard PCF-43, the boat that was directly behind Kerry’s.

Langhofer said he distinctly remembered the “clack, clack, clack” of enemy AK-47s, as well as muzzle flashes from the riverbanks. Langhofer, who now works at a Kansas gunpowder plant, said he was approached several months ago by leaders of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth but declined their requests to speak out against Kerry.

The Swifties’ stories are unraveling fast, Eric. If they hate Kerry for his protests, they should have said so. It was a mistake to go after his service and it’s going to come back and bite them.

As for authorizing full access to his records (assuming that’s something he can do), I think I’d be hesitant as well. The records he has released offer nothing but superlatives, and yet he’s been defending his service in Vietnam for six months. Imagine if there’s anything in those other documents that gives Kerry’s opponents even the slightest opportunity to further distort his record.

Posted by: Jerome Guerra at August 21, 2004 11:03 PM

When is the right going to learn that there may of been a reason for Kerry to say “Bring It On”. Could it be that the Bush campaign have tried constistently to destroy its military opponnets through ads that later proven wrong? Knowing this plan is one he would have to face first, I think that Kerry’s honor will rule the dayy. It did 30 some years ago when the Nixon gang tried it. By the way, wasn’t Chaney and Rumsfield part of that gang? My only question for the right is what our they going to do if Bush has ties? Remimber the liberal media does report the news and has been dogged by this administration for the last four years.

Posted by: Henry Schlatman at August 22, 2004 04:57 AM

Looks like the Bush campaign is feeding Ken Cordier to the sharks. He’s the Bush campaign coordinator for the ‘swift boat liars for Bush’. Illegal? You bet. A disgusting display of smear campaigning and fraudulent personal attacks by the Bush campaign? Natch. It’s their M.O.

Posted by: American Pundit at August 22, 2004 08:16 AM

The most important question to me is why doesn’t the press demand that John F…… Kerry the liar free up his records so that we can all see who wrote the after action reports?

Posted by: Bernie at August 22, 2004 10:58 AM

Bernie, how about you ask your guy to sign his form 180 or whatever it is first, okay? If you are really so desperate to see Kerry’s x-rays and stuff, then Bush will have to show us his medical reports first. Deal?

-Cf

Posted by: Christopher Fahey at August 22, 2004 11:58 AM

I am continually astounded by the lack of objectivity of the left.

I am never surprised by the lack of objectivity on either side. It’s politics. It’s a complex, judgment call-filled business. How the hell can it not be objective.

The facts so far are that the SwiftVets have themselves flip-flopped, supporting his senate run eight years ago, saying he’s the greatest guy, but now chewing him up one side and down the other. They accepted medals whose commendations cite action they now claim are false, but which they failed to deny afterwards.

They waited years to come down on Kerry, not responding when Chuck Colson asked now Senator John Warner to dig up dirt. Warner defends Kerry now.

They claim two people were on the boat who the other two crewman deny were there, crewman who also deny the charges that there was no gunfire. You have denials of Cambodia, when one Swiftboat officer, a Michael Bernique, received a commendation from the commanding officer of Kerry’s operation for an aggressive intrusion into Cambodia. The story on that is that the ruler of that nation protested this to the US Government, and the US government covered for Bernique, giving him a medal when they could have had him Court Martialed. In fact, the stretch of river along which this occured became known as Bernique’s Creek. John O’Neil may remember certain things differently, but then John O’Neil denied atrocities history has since proved really happened.

They called Jim Rassmann, a decorated special forces officer and lifelong Republican a liar for saying their was return fire. A liar! They call the crewmates who said there were bullets flying liars. They say reports were doctored, because the reports don’t support their case. They claim Kerry engineered his medals despite the fact that the Silver Star he was given required witness statements and approval of officers. You have all these facts which really amount to a misunderstanding of procedure, a poor grasp of the evidence, and the unwillingness to accept any report that praises Kerry as true.

The SwiftVets, with the burden of proof on them, have only succeeded in imagining a huge campaign of deception and manipulation by Kerry in this Vietnam days, where somehow he managed to convince everybody he was a war hero. Never mind all the sources that contradict them with hard evidence, with bullet holes in boats they claim to have escaped undamaged.

These SwiftVets deserve what they get, because they have distracted America from the real issues with charges that don’t stand up to critical examination. You can believe whatever you want on faith, but I will not simply take your word for this, like the Doctor Letson is asking us for. You do not have hard documentary evidence on your side. If you did, this debate would be over. All you have are eyewitness accounts, and those alone prove absolutely nothing. Kerry has both documentary and eyewitness accounts all corroborating each other. In the search for the truth, I believe that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and that evidence must not be simply given the true believer treatment. It has been long known that if you brow beat a person long enough, if you use the right kinds of leading questions you can manipulate a person into saying and believing things that simply aren’t true. This is part of how you get all these elaborate and fairly similar alien abduction accounts. This is part of how false confessions are wrung out of defendants. This is why I insist on more than just the word of people like Dr. Letson. I studied Neuroscience under a man who often explains such things about eyewitness accounts to a jury. If the leaders of the Swiftvets badgered these people enough, raised enough doubts in their mind, they could alter these people’s conception of small but crucial details.

So bring us more evidence, more documents that corroborate the accounts given. Kerry has his evidence. What’s yours?

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at August 22, 2004 12:02 PM

> It’s my (limited) understanding that they
> are not charging that Kerry deliberately
> wounded himself.

Yes they are. They say things like “he had a plan” and that he shot a rocket propelled grenade at a rock so it would ricochet and hit him. It’s true that some of them say he made an accident seem like the result of enemy fire, but some of them argue that he did it on purpose. They literally have it both ways.

That’s the sinister thing about their strategy: They blend lies and truths together so that people like you, who desperately want America to beleive that Kerry is an inherently bad man, will perceive the group as credible even after the bulk of their allegations have been proven to be lies. They’ve created a witches’ brew: 50% mere opinions about John Kerry, 40% outrageous lies and specious, unprovable allegations, and 10% pedantic irrelevant arguments over minor details of Kerry’s biography.

> All? Proven lies? Hardly. One allegation is
> that what Kerry said about spending
> Christmas in Cambodia was not true.

Everything I listed *has* been proven to be lies, or, at best, those SBVT allegations have been revealed to be hearsay and groundless speculation cynically masquerading as “documented” facts.

Note that I didn’t list Cambodia. The Cambodia thing is an example of the aforementioned “pedantic irrelevance”, easily attributable to the memory conflations that take place over decades. For comparison, the Cambodia story is way more excusable than when, during the 2000 campaign, Bush on several occasions “forgot” that he was arrested for drunk driving.

-Cf

Posted by: Christopher Fahey at August 22, 2004 02:38 PM

Christopher Fahey: Isn’t it odd that Kerry returned home from Vietnam and wasted little time denigrating and humiliating those with whom he had so recently served ? Now when asked about his testimony before Congress his response is something like a weak ass, “never mind”. He acted (to borrow a phrase) “In a manner reminiscent of Genghis Khan” when dealing with his former crewmates, indeed all honorable Vietnam Vets. He testified as a member of Congress that his memory of his Christmas in Cambodia (1968) was “seared, seared in him”! He also blamed (as you already know) Pres. Nixon for sending him there ??!? An odd statement since Nixon wasn’t in office yet! As of today the response of Kerry’s camp is, again, something like a weak ass, “never mind”!
This weenie voted for regime change in Iraq then later said…well, you already know what he said, don’t you ? Recently, when asked if he would support entering Iraq today, he AGAIN changed his mind ??!? He changes speed, lanes (and direction) faster than Richard Petty. Anyone who votes for this guy should seriously ask themself if maybe they should have waited another 24 hours, just to find out what his position on ANYTHING really is ! Today’s Kerry is likely not to be tomorrow’s Kerry.
Of course their is at least one group that will thrive on American indecisiveness, and they are very likely to treat Kerry (and the rest of us) “In a manner reminiscent of Genghis Khan”, aren’t they…..

Posted by: Samaritan at August 22, 2004 11:11 PM

Unlike Bush who was lost in space in 71-72, Kerry willingly served his country as a soldier by doing two tours in Veitnam, than returned home as a civilain and again served his country as a civilain. Doing what is right for God and Country takes courage when you know what is right does not reflect the policies of the current administration. I suppose the Republicans would do the same thing over the prisoner abuse in Iraq scandal if the media would let them. Right is Right and no amount of BS can cover it up. Did it hurt America? Yes, but how low is it to have an administration close its eyes to the problems it itself has created? Much like the Bush has done during his term in office.

Posted by: Henry Schlatman at August 23, 2004 12:16 AM

Samaritan-
You underestimate the denigration and humiliation of having to fight a senseless war. He never blamed Nixon for sending him there. He blamed him for denying that troops were in cambodia. It should be pointed out-

Nixon was president elect at that point-
Nixon did deny that he had troops in Cambodia-
Kerry is proven to have been sent into Cambodia during the next month. If you don’t think that’s possible, recall that Admiral Zumwalt, uncle to one of the SwiftVets, gave a man a commendation for going in there, a man named Michael Bernique. They went in their so often that that stretch of river became called by Naval personal Bernique’s Creek.

He supported the President by giving him the Authorization to use force. The conditions were that he would exhaust options with the UN, and write an Executive Report with a decent case for going to war. What we got is a president who telegraphed an unwillingness to abide by the decisions of the UN, who made an end run around them, who used the language from the preface of the authorization for the use of force, language that was hardly binding or important to the law itself, and knowingly used that as his executive report. What makes it even worseis that his people suggested the language of that preface.

Kerry, in other words, set up or concurred with certain criteria that were put in the law, and the President really failed to comply with those criteria in any substantial way.

As for voting against it, this is a case of your politicians using nuance to undermine your critical examination of the facts. He was not voting against giving troops supplies. He voted for a bill that would have done the same thing, but shouldered the cost on us, instead of putting it upon our children with added interest. All he wanted was UN involvement, like Bush was supposed to get in the first place.

Even then, do you understand what that bill was about? Your president missed his guess on the price of the war by more than 150 billion dollars, 90 of which turned up in this bill. The supplies and the body armor Bush accuses Kerry of witholding from people, were the supplies and body armor Bush failed to send in the first place.

Meanwhile, you don’t ask the other question. What is a supposedly fiscally conservative man doing running up a 445 billion dollar deficiet (part of which included much of the funding for Iraq)? Kerry’s much more consistent of a fiscal conservative than Bush is.

Oh, and if you’re getting your picture of what Kerry testified about the war crimes,you should be asked to recall that he prefaced what he said by saying that these were what other veterans told him they did, and that he simply brought these accounts to people’s attention.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at August 23, 2004 01:34 AM

The Democrats are creating yet another “strawman” which they think they can knock down. The strawman currently is that Kerry is accused of intentionally wounding himself.

This has NOT been accused. What HAS been said is that some of Kerry’s wounds were self-inflicted. Self-inflicted does not mean intentional, any more than the stupid hunter who walks with his safety off, trips over a root, and shoots himself in the foot is doing so intentionally.

Yet the Dems feel this is an argument they can win. And of course, they can, since there is no one on the other side of the argument.

Kerry needs to answer three questions:

1) Why does he continue to with hold ANY Viet Nam records at all? (And yes, it IS true that he has released some records, but also true that there are still many he has not released)

2) Where was he really on Christmas Eve of 1968? His answer can be Cambodia, or his answer can be Sa Dec, Viet Nam, but it cannot be both.

3) Why wont he release records showing his attendance at Senate Intelligence Committee meetings? We know he missed 76% of the public meetings, but we dont know how many private meetings he attended. He can easily clear that up with a simple phone call.

The bottom line here is that if Kerry wants clarity in these issues, he is in a position to provide it. And in doing so, if he debunks the SBVT’s claims, then he is a grand winner. So why isnt he doing so. Makes it appear he has something to hide.

Posted by: joebagodonuts at August 23, 2004 08:03 AM

Isn’t it odd that Kerry returned home from Vietnam and wasted little time denigrating and humiliating those with whom he had so recently served?

I never understood this argument. Everything Kerry reported in his testimony has been confirmed by stories I’ve heard personally, books I’ve read, and documentaries of the Vietnam War that I’ve seen. Is anyone really going to deny that some of our soldiers used free fire zones and randomly shot at civilians?

“They [over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans] told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.”

Which of those incidents is news? You can make the case that some of these personal stories that were told to Kerry were isolated events, but you can’t deny they happened.

Vietnam was a bad war. By the time Kerry testified, it was clear that it couldn’t be won without provoking China and the USSR. It needed to end and Kerry did his part.

Posted by: American Pundit at August 23, 2004 10:56 AM

> The Democrats are creating yet another “strawman”
> which they think they can knock down. The strawman
> currently is that Kerry is accused of intentionally
> wounding himself.
>
> This has NOT been accused.

You may not have accused it yourself, but plenty of others have. I read it all the time on message boards, including this one. Individual members of the SBVT say it, too. They say “he had a plan” to earn medals and get out. That the whole point of the scandal.

Joe, there wouldn’t even be a scandal if the accusation wasn’t intended to say that he injured himself!

Or would there? Would your actually side stoop so low as to discredit a man’s Purple Heart simply because, in the heat of combat, he made a mistake and ended up hurting himself?

I guess that’s precisely what you’re saying here:

> What HAS been said is that some of Kerry’s wounds
> were self-inflicted. Self-inflicted does not mean
> intentional, any more than the stupid hunter who
> walks with his safety off, trips over a root, and
> shoots himself in the foot is doing so
> intentionally.

Your side is backpedalling on this. Your revised accusation, that he got a self-inflicted wound by accident but still doesn’t deserve a Purple Heart for it, isn’t as scurrilous as the deliberate wound charge, but it is still pathetic and disrespectful.

First of all, the rules are crystal clear that such wounds still earn a soldier a Purple Heart.

Second of all, such wounds occur all the time - it’s part of the inherent danger of being in combat against hostile enemy forces. I would tell you to feel ashamed of your disrespectful armchair admiralship, but apparently even Bob Dole has just sunk into the gutter with you, insulting Kerry for his Purple Heart, even though Dole recieved one of his Purple Hearts in the exact same way that Kerry is accused of getting his wounds:

In a 1988 campaign-trail autobiography, here’s how Dole described the incident that earned him his first Purple Heart: “As we approached the enemy, there was a brief exchange of gunfire. I took a grenade in hand, pulled the pin, and tossed it in the direction of the farmhouse. It wasn’t a very good pitch (remember, I was used to catching passes, not throwing them). In the darkness, the grenade must have struck a tree and bounced off. It exploded nearby, sending a sliver of metal into my leg—the sort of injury the Army patched up with Mercurochrome and a Purple Heart.” (from talkingpointsmemo.com)

I am amazed and saddened by the recent desperate, hypocritical, and disrespectful rhetoric and behavior of Bush supporters and Republicans with regards to Kerry’s service record. First it was the smart red-column voices on this list who gave in to their more craven partisan selves, and now even Bob Dole himself.

-Cf

Posted by: Christopher Fahey at August 23, 2004 01:41 PM

> By the time Kerry testified, it was clear
> that it couldn’t be won without provoking
> China and the USSR. It needed to end and
> Kerry did his part.

Totally. I can’t imagine anything more heroic than to come back from Vietnam and to fight at home to end the war and prevent more men from being sent there. What’s so wrong with that?

His war crimes allegations were true! American troops were at times under orders to raze villages, and were often ordered to shoot anything that moves. There were discipline problems in Vietnam that led to massacres and instances of torture. This stuff is well documented, folks.

All Kerry did was say, in effect, “This war is a mistake, and the way it is being conducted dehumanizes the brave men forced to fight it.”

Also, this new SBVT ad practices the lowest form of manipulative reportage techniques, a practice that has recently become the Republican party’s favorite tool: Using a quote where the speaker is quoting someone else as if it was their own words.

Kerry: “Someone said ‘I did X.’ to me.”

Kerry (after GOP/SBVT hacks edit him): “I did x.”

You guys are already playing dirty pool, and it’s still August. I guess this means that you’re on the ropes, desperate to smear the opponent because your side has nothing to say. I look at the Bush Cheney campaign site and I see more images of John Kerry (four) than of Bush himself (none)!

Perhaps this is the GOP mindset in action. Whether it’s the Vietnam War or the 2004 election, practicing dirty fighting techniques is perfectly acceptable.

-Cf

Posted by: Christopher Fahey at August 23, 2004 01:55 PM

Kerry apparently hated the war in Vietnam ssooo much that he threw his medals away in protest. NO…Wait, he threw someone else’s medals away and kept his own safe and secure, didn’t he ? Well…it could be said of him that he protested the war in order to save his buddies who were still in the fight, couldn’t it ! Except for the ticklish fact most of them seem highly pissed at him for receiving a knife between the shoulder blades while they were still in combat! Some of his comrades were in the Hanoi Hilton, resisting and receiving routine beatings. No big deal, I am certain that they have all forgiven him, haven’t they ? Still, I am sure that what he did was purely altruistic and that he did it for the good of the country….aren’t you??
We are certain of a great many things re: John Kerry, for instance! He said he spent Christmas ‘68 in Cambodia (no doubt about this one folks ! :D), well, except for the fact that it didn’t happen. You see there is the little matter of his own (meticulously) kept journal which places him elsewhere !!?! Well, at least we can be sure that Pres. Nixon sent him to Cambodia as Kerry has claimed, eerrrrr uuhhh except for the fact that Nixon was NOT in the White House! We can be absolutely certain that, to receive his Bronze Star for saving Rassman, that he had to enter the area of conflict by travelling through 5000 meters of gunfire. Well, that might not be totally true. It seems that he would first have had to exit the area and then REENTER the area. Do you think that there might have been a Forrest Gump moment where he said, “And I ran, and found out that I was alone…and that was a BAD thing” (Run Forrest, Run !) Anyone care to venture a guess as to how many V.C. it would take to cover “both banks” of a river for 5000 meters ?? Of course we can be sure that brave Lt. Kerry risked life and limb performing this brave deed….how many of his men received Purple Hearts that day due to enemy gunfire ?? Ten? Five? Two?? Any at all??!?
Well, not to worry, despite all of this I am sure that in civilian life he would be destined to achieve a certain gravitas and reputation for reliability that may have, oddly, escaped him in his previous incarnation as the citizen soldier.
More to come….Make sure to tune in to the next exciting installment of “The Adventures of John F. Kerry. Chapter II will be the telling of the tale of how he came to receive the initials J.F.K. !!!! (By the way, did ANY of you know that he served in Vietnam, can this guy keep a secret, or what ??!?)

Posted by: Samaritan at August 23, 2004 03:14 PM

> He said he spent Christmas ‘68 in Cambodia

I tell people I spent last Christmas at my parents’ house. I was actually there roughly from December 28- January 4th. Have you never used the word “Christmas” to refer to that general time of year?

> Well, at least we can be sure that Pres.
> Nixon sent him to Cambodia as Kerry has
> claimed, eerrrrr uuhhh except for the fact
> that Nixon was NOT in the White House!

Too bad he didn’t say that. He said that he was in Cambodia and that Nixon claimed that nobody was in Cambodia, but he didn’t say that these two events happened on the same day. If you were being shot at in a foreign country, and then, months later, you heard the President say that there are no American troops there at all, I can imagine you’d be pretty mad, too.

> It seems that he would first have had
> to exit the area and then REENTER the area.

Something like that. Here’s the map.

> Still, I am sure that what he did was purely
> altruistic and that he did it for the good
> of the country….aren’t you??

Yes, absolutely. Why else would he do it? For political gain? That doesn’t make any sense. The simplest and smartest thing to do in 1971 if you wanted to be politically viable in the future would be to do exactly what George W. Bush did: quietly support the war, but otherwise lay low and stay the hell out of politics until things quiet down.

At every moment where he had the chance, Kerry showed courage. Courage to volunteer for combat, courage to go home and work to end the war.

Damn right I respect him for that.

-Cf

Posted by: Christopher Fahey at August 23, 2004 04:59 PM

To: C.F.- And once more you blunder into the truth. Kerry said, on more than one occasion, that he was in Cambodia on Xmas Eve and Xmas. Remember now, that recollection was, “seared, seared into him”. Statements like that leave little wiggle room, not that he (and you) won’t try. His latest story is that he was 50 miles from the Cambodian border that very night while the Vietnamese were firing off rounds (not Khmer Rouge, Cambodians, Chairman Mao or even Papa Ho Chi Minh). He states in his journal that he contacted units on shore via radio and told them to knock it off! This is the memory that should have been “Seared, Seared In Him” !! Why ? Because it has the simple virtue of being absolutely true and not some dog and pony show made up by Lt. Kerry to make him look good in the press. His version of the truth (if it can be called that) reminds me of an old story that cowboys used to tell. “How many cattle does it take to make a stampede” ? Answer- No more than one, if you have a good imagination ! So I ask the question, “How close does Kerry have to be to Cambodia before he is actually in it” ? Answer- “Fifty miles away, if you have a good imagination”. Apparently Lt. Kerry and Sen. Kerry both have something in common…Don’t they !
As for your map…Show it Sen. Kerry, he’s the one so desperately in need of a geography lesson. :D

Posted by: Samaritan at August 24, 2004 12:03 AM

Hey Samaritan, I’m curious where you get your info. Could you link to it? Unless you do that, it’s all just your opinion. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, unless you’re trying to be taken seriously. :)

Posted by: American Pundit at August 24, 2004 09:29 AM

Dear A.P.- Unless you only have a computer (as opposed to a T.V. and/or Radio) Kerry’s claims simply don’t need linking. He’s been squeaking and whining about his record (and his NEW record and the new one after that and the new one….well, you get the idea !) ever since he discovered that Americans simply will not accept his claims at face value (No, trust me, I REALLY was in Cambodia ! No really….Honestly ! Still don’t believe me huh ??!? Okay then, you’re a Nazi !) That is about the level of debate that Democrats have come to expect, accept and even support.
Do I want to be taken “seriously” by you, HHhhmmm, golly gee willikers, that’s a toughie !! I’ll go with…”I don’t give a damn” with apolgies to Rhett Butler ! I think, however, he and I have both delivered our message !

Posted by: Samaritan at August 24, 2004 08:29 PM