And codpiece! Can't forget the codpiece! :-D
Kerry testified about spending Christmas in Cambodia - "I have that memory which is seared--seared--in me." Now that is really over the top as a 'faulty memory'. The best face anyone can put on it is that it was 'made up' for effect, sort of like Bill Clinton talking about his mother driving him around showing him the burned out black churches even though no black churches burned there.
You have to wonder though. If he 'made up' the Christmas story for effect, did he 'make up' the terrible atrocities he witnessed that more than 200 men who served with him say didn't happen? Even his supporters from his own boat crew haven't backed him up on that story. How much was truth? How much was flat out lies? Lies that hurt and smeared honorable men?
Why did Kerry choose to make this the cornerstone of his campaign? What happened to the next 30 years, especially most of his last two decades in the Senate?
These are all legitimate questions. If the man is a flat out liar, maybe many or most won't care. But its only fair to know whether we are electing a man of questionable ethics and/or even possibly a pathological liar to the presidency of the United States.
The Christmas part is not the point, though. It's not a story about how the kind little Cambodian children brought him a little scraggly Christmas tree since he was so far from home, and he was touched, and their kindness was seared into his memory. It wasn't that his buddy couldn't talk to his fiance on Christmas day and tried to be stoic and Kerry gave him a rousing Christmas speech and restored his morale. The point of that statement is that the President of the United States told a bold-faced lie -- there were no troops in Cambodia when Kerry, a troop (a troop? whatever), was there. A statement in the context of other covert operations (Central America).
What was seared -- seared in his memory was "what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia."
Now if the President of the US never said that while he was in Cambodia at all, fine, I sort of get it. (Though I'd still stop well short of calling him a "pathological liar" -- he was making a rhetorical point.) But that's not even what is being said here. He said CHRISTMAS and it was actually JANUARY! Horrors!
"Pathological liar"?? Good grief.
Quote:It wasn't that his buddy couldn't talk to his fiance on Christmas day and tried to be stoic and Kerry gave him a rousing Christmas speech and restored his morale. The point of that statement is that the President of the United States told a bold-faced lie -- there were no troops in Cambodia when Kerry, a troop (a troop? whatever), was there
Even that's not the point. The point is that Kerry is ahead in a lot of polls, and that Bush's approval ratings are down, and that the conservatives are latching on to whatever hope they can for winning this election. In this case, it means petty, pathetic smear tactics that try to paint a man who was a war hero as a liar. This despite the fact that their candidate was too much of a pussy to go to war in the first place. It's unbelievable, the hypocracy that floats around the GOP these days.
I bet a lot of you conservatives never thought it would get this close, did ya? Muahahah
Cycloptichorn
Sozobe, that was a really creative spin. I'm impressed.
I maintain, however, that for those of us who don't need for Kerry to be morphed into the president of our dreams, it's too much of a stretch to think he would remember an event in January as "Christmas' if he was in Cambodia at all which itself remains questionable. So either the good Senator is capable of a pretty good whopper or he got senile at a fairly tender age. Neither I think look good on his resume.
Quote:http://www.hughhewitt.com/
(excerpted)
It is all about the current war --how big it is, how it will be waged, who is better equipped to lead it? Kerry used his convention to try and build his four months on a swift boat and his rescue of a comrade into a shield against accusations that his muddled thinking on every foreign policy challenge of his 20 years in the Senate didn't count against him, and that his "old Europe," U.N.-matters, let's get talking and be more sensitive approach made sense in 2004. Christmas-Eve-in-Cambodia blew a hole in the defense because now all of Kerry's narrative is tainted by the aroma of resume-padding, and the president and vice-president have begun to underscore the seriousness of the times in which we live. -Hugh Hewitt
There plenty of hypocracy floating around for everyone to enjoy some Cycloptichorn. The GOP hardly has a monopoly on it.
Foxfyre, have I said anywhere that Kerry is the president of my dreams? On the contrary, I've had a lot of qualifiers.
But this is just silly. If you find something that shows he was not in Cambodia at ALL, let me know. If you find something that shows he was not in Cambodia when the president said there were no troops there, let me know.
Until then, this is silly. And gratifying -- January-not-December is the best they can come up with? Worth arguing extensively rather than shrugging and saying "yeah, whatever."? Wow. Better for Kerry than I expected.
http://humaneventsonline.com.edgesuite.net/UnfitCh3.pdf
This is a chapter from the "Unfit for Command" book that is coming out. Scroll down to the section: Christmas in Cambodia. It has names, dates, places, all which should be able to be verified. Certainly the statement by John Kerry on the Senate floor indicating that Christmas in Cambodia was 'seared into his mind' is in the Congressional Record.
And this from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth website with map, more dates, places, etc.
http://www.swiftvets.com/staticpages/index.php?page=Christmas
foxfrye
It is clear that you accept these stories from these people as gospel. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs or perceptions.
As for me, I went to your link and read what I could stomach.
Janurary is around Christmas time. If he said Christmas when it was in July I could understand the big deal. Like sozobe said, if he told stories related to Christmas then that would put his use of the word christmas in a different context and would make his account a lie. He probably did use the word for effect but it does not take away the truthfulness from his account. Just answer this question: did the president say that there were not any troops going into Cambodia when there was troops going into Cambodia? If the answer is yes, then Kerry main point was accurate.
I can't hardly believe that a person would go into a hostile area to see a Bob Hope show. For one thing I don't think an entertainer would be in such a dangerous place to start with for Kerry to be seeking him out. I also can't hardly believe that people are actually accusing Kerry of illegally signing his own purple heart recommendation. Do you not see how suspect all this seems now that Kerry is running for President?
Revel/Sozobe, Kerry, claims to be a devout Catholic. He knows when Christmas is and he is very unlikely to confuse Christmas with January.
For Sozobe, yes you provided qualifiers and my comments related to me, more than you. I, in a round about way, was simply saying I have a different perspective than ABB people do because I don't 'need' Kerry to be a great candidate. I wish he was. I wish I could be confident that the country was in good hands no matter who was elected in November and that I was now weighing a choice between two great candidates.
Revel if the accusations against Kerry were coming from the Bush campaign, I would indeed consider the information suspect. After looking at all of it and listening to these guys, I am convinced they are acting independently. Their largest contributor came on board many months after they were already working. They despise Kerry, yes, for betraying them and lieing about their service. And there are more than 200 of them who were supervising him, taking meals with him, sleeping in the same room, patroling and/or fighting within a few yards of him who dispute his version of the facts on several issues. One of them was a gunner assigned to Kerry's boat for more than two months of Kerry's four-month tour while I believe all of the handful of guys who are speaking up for Kerry served at most a very few weeks on his boat.
I think one has to completely shut down all reason and logic to dismiss all 200+ of these men, almost all who put in their full time in Vietnam and many who were just as decorated and/or more decorated than Kerry. They have nothing to gain by speaking out. If it is so easy to just dredge up testimony, don't you think the DNC would be able to dredge up a few guys who would back up Kerry's assertion that he was in Cambodia; who would say they were there with him? So far all who have spoken to this issue say he was never there.
I haven't looked into the issue, but I don't think you are right that there is no one to back Kerry's statements about Cambodia. I hardly think Kerry is stupid enough to say something that is flat out not true in any shape or form. If no one does it before me, when I get the time I will look into the matter.
I just found their statements to be petty no matter who they are and how many years they served or how many medals they have, you won't believe this, but I would think the same no matter who they were talking about.
I don't know who the men are or what their political stance is. I do know what side is pushing this stuff, those like drudge and the like. That alone makes the all the hoopla questionable.
I am sure that others can come up with better and if I take my time I might even be able to. Nevertheless I found an interesting article about the issue we are talking about from both sides.
http://www.alternet.org/election04/19532/
Quote:I was on that boat with him that Christmas, and we were not anywhere near Cambodia," says Steven Gardner, who served as Kerry's gunner's mate on PCF-44 (patrol craft fast) and who is now a member of SBVT. PCF-44 was based in Cam Ranh Bay, a good distance from the Cambodian border. "He didn't have the balls to do that and break international law, let alone do what we were supposed to half the time.
Even one of the guys who are against Kerry calls the time Christmas.
Quote:Jim Wasser disagrees. He was a radarman who was second in command under Kerry on PCF-44 and is now affiliated with his campaign as part of Veterans for Kerry. Wasser, who now lives in Illinois, says that it would be unusual for an enlisted gunner's mate to specifically know the boat's position at any given time.
"I had to go on [Fox News show] Hannity & Colmes with him, and even though he's wrong, and I truly believe that, he's my brother, and veterans should never say anything about each other," Wasser says of Gardner. "[Swift Boat Veterans for Truth] say they're about the truth; that's a falsehood.
"On Christmas in 1968, we were close [to Cambodia]. I don't know exactly where we were. I didn't have the chart. It was easy to get turned around with all the rivers around there. But I'll say this: We were the farthest inland that night. I know that for sure."
Another guy who called January Christmas. However, this guy said that they were close to Cambodia. So the whole story of Kerry blowing his account of Cambodia tour out of proportion is out of proportion itself.
A lot of these guys seem to have either a beef with Kerry personally or just a beef with vets who later were against the war. So it is no wonder there are conflicting stories coming out about such a terrible time in our history. It was a bad time and the wounds are still felt. There were vets and people against the war and people who felt that those people were wrong being against the war and saying bad things that our country did. It is those people that are speaking out against Kerry then and now.
Anti-Kerry group sees rise in donations after airing ads
Posted on Fri, Aug. 13, 2004
Anti-Kerry group sees rise in donations after airing ads
By Tom Infield
Knight Ridder Newspapers
PHILADELPHIA - A group of Vietnam veterans that is challenging Sen. John Kerry's claims of heroic war service says it received a flood of donations in recent days after advertising its contentions on television in three states.
The group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, said it hoped to use the money to monitor Kerry's campaign travels and run ads in cities where he appears.
"That's our goal," said John E. O'Neill, a Houston attorney who's one of the group's leaders and co-author of "Unfit to Command," a 251-page book being distributed this week by the conservative Regnery Publishing house. The book quotes Navy veterans as saying Kerry distorted his record as a river boat commander in Vietnam's Mekong Delta in 1968 to 1969.
Democrats have said the group is nothing but a Republican hit squad determined to besmirch their candidate.
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is registered with the Federal Election Commission as a so-called 527 organization, not affiliated with any party. It got off the ground with a $100,000 donation from Texas homebuilder Bob J. Perry, a prominent Republican donor.
Roy F. Hoffman, a retired admiral and chairman of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, said the first TV ad, which ran for one week in Ohio, Wisconsin and West Virginia at a cost of $550,000, got so much national news attention that it generated an additional $400,000 from 8,000 donors around the country.
"We are putting together the second ad," said Hoffman, 78, of Richmond, Va. As a Navy captain in 1968 and 1969, Hoffman commanded a unit of 1,650 sailors that included Kerry as a lieutenant.
Hoffman said the unit, known as Task Force 115, included about 16 swift boats and their crews, which patrolled the delta for Viet Cong and other enemy fighters.
"I knew Kerry pretty well," he said. "I did not ride his boat, but we operated very close together. ... I can't say I was a personal friend or buddy-buddy, but I sure knew him ... and I never felt he had the qualifications."
Kerry has made his war service the centerpiece of his campaign to become president. His supporters include men who served on his boat, including a former Green Beret who said Kerry rescued him from the water while under fire.
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth first gained public attention in May when its leaders - including men who served on boats near Kerry's - called a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington.
Hoffman denied that the group is connected to the Republican Party. He said he hasn't been politically involved since leaving the Navy in 1978. Yes, he said, the group had taken cash donations from Republicans. But that became necessary, he said, because the news conference received little attention on network television and in national newspapers.
The group concluded that it needed to buy its own TV ad, he said. And that required money.
He said of Perry: "We had our hand out, and he put money in it. ... As far as I'm concerned, he's a wealthy construction person. If he owns the money legally, I'm all for it."
The group reported $158,000 in donations as of June 30, its latest filing with the election commission.
Donors as of that date included O'Neill and Texas real estate developer Harlan Crow, also a Republican contributor. Each of them gave $25,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington nonprofit that tracks political donations.
The group has received strategic help from Merrie Spaeth, a GOP strategist in Dallas. Spaeth was involved in a 2000 ad campaign against Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, then running for president against George W. Bush.
Current advisers include Creative Response Concepts, a public relations firm in Arlington, Va., that Mike Russell, a spokesman, said has done work for the Republican Party and "conservative-oriented causes."
O'Neill's co-writer on the book is Jerome R. Corsi, an author of other books on the Vietnam-era anti-war movement and political violence.
Now 58, O'Neill was a Swift boat commander who took over Kerry's boat after Kerry returned home with three Purple Hearts in 1969. He didn't know Kerry until later. They met in the national debate over the merits of the war and a claim by war opponents, including Kerry, that American troops commonly committed atrocities.
After O'Neill confronted Kerry on a Washington TV station, he said, he got a call from the White House. He then met with President Richard Nixon and his counselor Charles Colson.
O'Neill said he had "read in the papers" that the White House later asked him to speak in Philadelphia at a meeting of the National Conference of Mayors. He said he made a speech but doesn't remember who asked him to attend.
f a man shows any courage in the battlefield, he's done more than most people do in this country. He's gone out and fought for his country and risked his life for his country and shot one of the enemy for his country. That puts him a step above most people, doesn't it?
O'NEILL: I think he is millions of steps behind, because he went over ...
MATTHEWS: Behind whom?
O'NEILL: Behind everybody.
MATTHEWS: Behind Bush? President Bush?
O'NEILL: Yes. I'm not going to speak to President Bush.
After listening to all of O'Neill's claims, Matthews concluded the program by stating: "Well, I've already heard enough that he's [Kerry] done more than I ever did for my country and a lot more than anybody else ... and more than the president."
Stmt. of 10 Military Officials response re VP's Kerry attack
Statement from Ten Senior Military Officials in Response to Vice President Cheney's Latest Round of Personal Attacks
8/12/2004 6:32:00 PM
http://www.usnewswire.com/
To: National Desk
Contact: Mark Kitchens of Kerry-Edwards 2004, 202-464-2800
WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Ten senior military officials released the following statement today in response to the Vice President's attacks on John Kerry today:
"We are deeply disappointed by the tone and tenor of President Bush and Vice President Cheney's personal attacks on John Kerry, a decorated combat veteran who served his country with courage and honor. John Kerry is talking about his plan to address the most pressing issues facing our nation -- jobs, the economy, health care, the war on terror, the war in Iraq.
George Bush and Dick Cheney have chosen take their campaign to the gutter. We call on President Bush and Vice President Cheney to stop the irresponsible personal attacks and tell us where they want to take the country. Tell us how they plan to win the peace in Iraq. Tell us how they plan to get us back on track with the war on terror. Tell us where they plan to lead the country. The American people and our troops deserve better."
Signed by:
Admiral William J. Crowe (United States Navy, Retired)
Admiral Stansfield Turner (United States Navy, Retired)
General Wesley K. Clark (United States Army, Retired)
General Merrill "Tony" A. McPeak (United States Air Force, Retired)
General Joseph Hoar (United States Marine Corps, Retired)
General Johnnie E. Wilson (United States Army, Retired)
Vice Admiral Lee F. Gunn (United States Navy, Retired)
Lieutenant General Claudia J. Kennedy (United States Army, Retired)
Lieutenant General Donald Kerrick (United States Army, Retired)
Lieutenant General Edward D. Baca
This attack is as transparant as Saran Wrap and O'Neill has wrapped his head with it not realizing that he will eventually suffocate.
(He sure loves swimming in his own bile).
Revel writes
Quote:Quote:Quote:
I was on that boat with him that Christmas, and we were not anywhere near Cambodia," says Steven Gardner, who served as Kerry's gunner's mate on PCF-44 (patrol craft fast) and who is now a member of SBVT. PCF-44 was based in Cam Ranh Bay, a good distance from the Cambodian border. "He didn't have the balls to do that and break international law, let alone do what we were supposed to half the time.
Even one of the guys who are against Kerry calls the time Christmas.
Quote:
Jim Wasser disagrees. He was a radarman who was second in command under Kerry on PCF-44 and is now affiliated with his campaign as part of Veterans for Kerry. Wasser, who now lives in Illinois, says that it would be unusual for an enlisted gunner's mate to specifically know the boat's position at any given time.
"I had to go on [Fox News show] Hannity & Colmes with him, and even though he's wrong, and I truly believe that, he's my brother, and veterans should never say anything about each other," Wasser says of Gardner. "[Swift Boat Veterans for Truth] say they're about the truth; that's a falsehood.
"On Christmas in 1968, we were close [to Cambodia]. I don't know exactly where we were. I didn't have the chart. It was easy to get turned around with all the rivers around there. But I'll say this: We were the farthest inland that night. I know that for sure."
Another guy who called January Christmas. However, this guy said that they were close to Cambodia. So the whole story of Kerry blowing his account of Cambodia tour out of proportion is out of proportion itself.
Now I read this several times. How do you get out of it that we have 'another guy who called January Christmas?'
Kerry is on record of stating he remembers Christmas 1968. It was 'seared-seared-seared into his mind.' So far you have one of the guys on his campaign saying in effect 'it could have been Cambodia. We didn't know where we were'--you can believe that one if you like to buy swamps in the desert. But you aren't finding anybody who says it was January, mistaken for Christmas. You aren't finding anybody else who resented spending Christmas in Cambodia. Now of course, according to some accounts, this event, Christmas or January, that seared his memory, wasn't so searing to make it into his personal journal of that period.
Kerry further said he remembers being so angry about spending Christmas in Cambodia, being angry that Nixon had illegally ordered him there, and at another time referred to Vietnam as "Nixon's War"--of course we just forget JFK started it, Johnson escalated it, Nixon started troop withdrawal, and Ford pulled us out. Also Nixon wasn't president in December 1968 and didn't take office until late January 1969. Of course his very first act his first ten days in office was no doubt to order John Kerry into Cambodia. Want a bridge installed over that desert swamp?
Kerry's whole story is made up you guys, no matter how you try to spin it or how much doubt you try to cast on it. He's hung by his own statements, his own writings, and by the statements of the vast majority of men he was serving with at the time.
Now Kerry is scrambling to get something into print saying it was January, not Christmas. So he's going to have to round up more guys to say oh yeah, we were absolutely in Cambodia in January?
I can appreciate you want to believe Kerry. I just don't see how any thinking person can in this case.
foxfrye,
the first line of the guy's account says:
http://www.alternet.org/election04/19532/
I was on that boat with him that Christmas, and we were not anywhere near Cambodia," says Steven Gardner, who served as Kerry's gunner's mate on PCF-44 (patrol craft fast) and who is now a member of SBVT. PCF-44 was based in Cam Ranh Bay, a good distance from the Cambodian border. "He didn't have the balls to do that and break international law, let alone do what we were supposed to half the time.
