"Unfit for Command"

foxfrye,

swolf already has this same topic further on down the topic list.

Personally I think the book and the ones that do not support John Kerry saying what they are saying will not effect anything either way. Kerry had lots of support from the military yesterday on the convention and that will stick in people's minds more than this book. Most people know that war crimes were committed back then and Kerry's testimony was hardly something that was out there all by itself.

It is not surprising that the conservatives will eat it up just like we ate up Moore's movie. In the end, both just preach to the already converted.

Since it is already being leaked by the drudge guy, then kerry will be able to counter most of it before it even hits the stores and we will still be at the same place we are now. Dead lock evenly split.

(least that is my predictions, may not turn out that way)

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It won't bother you then Revel if Kerry lied extensively about his Vietnam record that he so proudly leads with now as his most important qualification? It won't bother you that he may have grossly misrepresented what he did to political advantage? You will still trust him to tell you the truth now?

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He did not lie about his record in Vietnam.

This is the GOP slime machine cranking at full-bore diarrhea volume.

The only person who has lied about his record is George aWol Bush.

Try to keep the facts straight.

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I see Swolf's thread now and am discontinuing this one - reposting my initial post in that one and moving there. Sorry about that.

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foxfrye

I just quickly looked over the drudge report that is posted here in A2k and it seems to me this was just a bunch of guys disputing some of Kerry's statements about what happened back then. I also see people with a personal political axe to grind and their statements about things Kerry might of said or did should be taken with a grain of salt.

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Of course you don't. No one expected that you would.

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The GOP bullshit firehoses are full-on:

Quote:

One day after Internet gossip Matt Drudge, on his website The Drudge Report, revived and expanded on the discredited charge that Senator John Kerry (D-MA) reenacted Vietnam combat scenes on videotape for his future political ambitions, the false charge spread through cable, radio, and Internet news outlets. The sources Drudge cited for the smear were a 1996 Boston Globe article and two books by known Kerry-bashers: retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Robert "Buzz" Patterson and anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth founder John O'Neill. Yet in a September 7, 2002, column, The New York Times' current executive editor and then-columnist Bill Keller took up the issue of Kerry's wartime films and debunked this charge.

While the right-wing Internet and radio media largely accepted the charge as fact, several cable news networks also picked up on the story but indicated that the Kerry campaign denied the rumor's validity. While FOX News Channel attributed the claim to "critics" of Kerry, CNN was more explicit in reporting that Republicans were pushing the charge.

<snip>

On FOX News Channel, "critics" made the charge and the smear was explored

As Media Matters for America has noted, on July 28, FOX News Channel's chief political correspondent Carl Cameron repeated the Drudge story on FOX News Channel's Special Report with Brit Hume, reporting that "critics" made the charge.

Media Matters

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"They hired a goddamn private investigator to dig up trash!" charged a top Kerry adviser traveling with the senator late Tuesday. "This is pay for play, and the dirtiest of all dirty tricks ever played on a candidate for the presidency. How low can they go?"

What moron made this comment? John O'Neill has a long history with Mr.Kerry,challenging him on his service record, and conduct after Vietnam.

Is that desperation I smell?

Quote:

THE POODLE'S BAND-AID PURPLE HEARTS

He wanted to make his service in Vietnam an issue, so here we go. I'm perfectly willing to help Mr. Kerry in that regard.

A group of swift boat veterans is releasing a book August 15 with some pretty damning allegations. Among them: two of The Poodle's three Purple Hearts resulted from self-inflicted wounds and had nothing to do with enemy fire and all three Purple Hearts were for minor injuries that required no hospitalization. They're also claiming The Poodle filed a false report involving the death of a father and a child in a fishing boat. Another allegation is that sKerry entered an abandoned village and burned it down with his lighter after slaughtering all the domestic animals. The other swift boat veterans thought he was so reckless, he had to go. Doesn't quite match his image as a courageous war hero, does it?

The Poodle has been bragging for a year about his four months in Vietnam, and it's fair game. The Democrats and the media will no doubt whine and cry about these 'dirty tricks,' but Kerry put himself out there. He's running on his Vietnam war experience front and center, and people have a right to ask questions. If all of his awards were the result of minor injuries or outright fabrications, shouldn't that figure into voter's decisions? If he'll lie to receive a Purple Heart, what else would he lie about?

Imagine if these type of allegations were leveled against George Bush? We would never hear the end of it. As it is now, you can bet the media will ignore this, the Kerry campaign will call it an outright fabrication and people will accuse George Bush of masterminding the whole thing.

We know for a fact that Lieutenant Kerry repeatedly lied about his fellow soldiers in Vietnam when he came back. By what standard to you believe him now?

Sidenote: Remember, I never served in the military. Tomorrow I'll share with you some of the emails I get from Kerry supporters that my lack of military service means that I have no right to comment on Kerry's legal service. It seems that this is the best the Kerry Krowd can do in countering the viable questions about his service in Vietnam.

BOORTZ

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Quote:

Is that desperation I smell?

No, it's bullshit. Clean out your nose.

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PDiddie wrote:

Quote:
Is that desperation I smell?

No, it's bullshit. Clean out your nose.

It's hard to get that bullshit smell cleaned out after so much of it ie. Woodward, Clarke, Moore, Wilson... Laughing

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Care to name some of those in his own cabinet and in the military who are coming out against him?

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Quote:

JOHN KERRY'S FORMER COMMANDING OFFICER ADMITS TO "KEVIN MCCULLOUGH SHOW" TODAY THAT HE ASKED KERRY TO LEAVE FOLLOWING THE ISSUANCE OF THIRD PURPLE HEART.

~5:40pm~ EST
HEAR THE ACTUAL AUDIO: Lt. Thomas Wright admitted to me on the air today several exclusive and revealing looks at the Vietnam service of John Kerry.

Wright's first claim was that as his former commanding offcier, Wright frequently had to confront Kerry over willful disobedience to orders aboard Swift Boat patrols.

On frequent occasions Wright stated that Kerry would randomly fire at "things he thought were moving" along the shoreline. Wright stated that the protocol was only to fire when the unit was receiving hostile fire. Wright explained that part of the Swift Boat patrol's goal was to develop contacts with non-combatants living along the rivers being patrolled.

Wright pointed out that firing on the people you were meant to develop contacts with generally worked against the goals.

Wright also points out that when confronted about his defiance of patrol rules, Kerry would make claims of not hearing the orders, knowing the protocols or "thinking that he saw something".

Wright's boldest claim was that after Kerry had in fact received his third purple heart, Wright along with two other ranking officers basically flat out asked Kerry to leave Vietnam. The reason being his behavior continually put the group in greater vulnerability and danger.

According to Wright, Kerry claimed he would not leave, "but was out of there by morning."

Source

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Vietnam vets commercial that will begin running on TV soon.

As with everything else with Kerry, a flip to the flop.

Commercial

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Any specific charge against Kerry or Bush is either true or false, regardless of who made it, why, or what the timing. If a prejudiced, unreliable source makes an accurate charge on the verge or an election, designed to sway the election, it is nonetheless an accurate charge. If it is inaccurate, then it is inaccurate, regardless of the credentials of the person who made it.

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As it happens with quick sound bites, you really don't get much information. If someone wants to say anything detrimental about Kerry's service, it should be discussed fully. Ah, but that is the nature of political ads, and TV in general!

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With all the air time the media gave the ABB book of the month club they are really going to look bad if some of these guys don't get interviews.

The docter that treated Kerry's first purple heart wound is going to be on the Neal Boortz show today, that's a start to some discussion.

If Kerry was asked to leave Vietnam because he was reckless and disobeying orders then the best thing his superiors could have done was get him out of there ASAP.

If that's the case It's no surprise at all that Kerry was relieved of duty in Vietnam. And if these allegations are true, I personally believe that is one of several reasons he "struck back" at the military through VVAW.

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CNN was in the Boortz studio recording the interview so we'll see what they do with it.

The interview concerned the first purple heart he recieved which Kerry said the injury, a metal sliver the diameter of a match stick and half as long according to the Doc., in his arm came from enemy fire. The Doc extracted the sliver with a forceps and put a band-aid on the cut.

Kerry put in a request for a purple heart but his commanding officer turned it down....Kerry didn't give up and finally after three months found an officer in Saigon to sign off on it.

The crew that was with him said there was no enemy fire and that the wound was self inflicted.

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I like what snopes.com and John McCain state regarding this. Basically these former sailors were not even in the same boat that Kerry commanded. Those who served under him in the same book tell a different story. Three veterans on Kerry's boat that day Jim Rassmann, who says Kerry saved his life, Gene Thorson and Del Sandusky, the driver on Kerry's boat, said the group was lying on all fronts. They say Kerry was injured, and Rassmann called the group's account ''pure fabrication.''

http://www.snopes.com/politics/kerry/swift.asp
According to snopes.This " isn't really something that can evaluated as "true" or "false." It's true that the men named do exist, that they served in Vietnam, and that they made the statements attributed to them, but the substance of most of these quotes is an expression of opinion, not something objectively classifiable as right or wrong. The important point to note here is that this piece presents only one side of the story:
The men who served under Kerry's command continue to speak positively of him: "In 1969, I was Sen. Kerry's gun mate atop of the Swift boat in Vietnam. And I just wanted to let everyone know that, contrary to all the rumors that you might hear from the other side, Sen. Kerry's blood is red, not blue. I know, I've seen it. "If it weren't for Sen. John Kerry, on the 28th of February 1969, the day he won the Silver Star . . . you and I would not be having this conversation. My name would be on a long, black wall in Washington, D.C. I saw this man save my life."Fred Short

"I can still see him now, standing in the doorway of the pilothouse, firing his M-16, shouting orders through the smoke and chaos . . . Even wounded, or confronting sights no man should ever have to see, he never lost his cool. I had to sit on my hands [after a firefight], I was shaking so hard . . . He went to every man on that boat and put his arm around them and asked them how they're doing. I've never had an officer do that before or since. That's the mettle of the man, John Kerry." David Alston

"What I saw back then [in Vietnam] was a guy with genuine caring and leadership ability who was aggressive when he had to be. What I see now is a guy who's not afraid to tackle tough issues. And he knows what the consequences are of putting people's kids in harm's way." James Wasser

Many of Kerry's Vietnam commanders and fellow officers also continue to speak positively of him:
Navy records, fitness reports by Kerry's commanders and scores of interviews with Swift boat officers and crewmen depict a model officer who fought aggressively in river ambushes and won the respect of many of his crewmates and commanders, even as his doubts about the war grew.
"I don't like what he said after the war," said Adrian Lonsdale, who commanded Kerry for three months in 1969. "But he was a good naval officer." "I don't know what conclusions you can draw about someone's ability to lead from their combat experience, but John's service was commendable," said James J. Galvin, a former Swift boat officer . . . "He played by the same rules we all did."

How well all of these men knew John Kerry is questionable, and discrepancies between how some of them described Kerry thirty-five years ago and how they describe him today uggest that their opinions are largely based upon political differences rather than objective assessments of Kerry's military record. For example, Rear Admiral Roy Hoffman is quoted above (one of the negative quotes), yet the Los Angeles Times reported: . . . Hoffman and Kerry had few direct dealings in Vietnam. A Los Angeles Times examination of Navy archives found that Hoffman praised Kerry's performance in cabled messages after several river skirmishes.

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Here is the McCain article link:
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/218/politics/McCain_condemns_anti_Kerry_ads:.shtml
And a summary -
McCain condemns anti-Kerry ads, calls on White House to follow suit
By Ron Fournier, Associated Press, 8/5/2004 12:08
WASHINGTON (AP) Republican Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, called an ad criticizing John Kerry's military service ''dishonest and dishonorable'' and urged the White House on Thursday to condemn it as well.
''It was the same kind of deal that was pulled on me,'' McCain said in an interview with The Associated Press, referring to his bitter Republican primary fight with President Bush.

In 2000, Bush's supporters sponsored a rumor campaign against McCain in the South Carolina primary, helping Bush win the primary and the nomination. McCain's supporters have never forgiven the Bush team.
McCain said that's all in the past to him, but he's speaking out against the anti-Kerry ad because ''it reopens all the old wounds of the Vietnam War, which I spent the last 35 years trying to heal.''
''I deplore this kind of politics,'' McCain said. ''I think the ad is dishonest and dishonorable. As it is, none of these individuals served on the boat (Kerry) commanded. Many of his crew have testified to his courage under fire. I think John Kerry served honorably in Vietnam. I think George Bush served honorably in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.''

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"Unfit for Command"

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