SwiftBoat Veterans for Bush ?
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o.k. i'm not a dem, and not particularly liberal. voted repl in the presidentials 70's thru the late 80's. so don't go r/w on me.
what i see of the swifties is this; this is a very old feud between o'neill and kerry. having read the transcript of the '71 cavett debate between the two (on the swiftboat site), i noticed that o'neill made not one allegation against kerry's citations or p/h's. his entire complaint was with kerry's anti-war activity following his return to the states.
if, as he claims, he is telling the truth about kerry's citations, why wait 34 years to bring it up? considering his claim to have replaced kerry on the boat, wouldn't he have known about the allegations in '71? wouldn't he have used them to undermine kerry's position then? i sure as hell would have.
so why did o'neill wait till now to put this bunch together?
could it be, umm... P-O-L-I-T-I-C-S ??
there's something pretty fishy about the whole thing, imho.
just a couple of oddities to chew on...
1) thurlow was reportedly the ranking officer that day(rassman rescue). yet he claims, with no proof, that kerry wrote up the after action report. now doesn't the ranking officer normally write the reports? and if he assigns it to someone else, isn't it his job to read it and sign off?
2) why didn't thurlow raise an objection when he recieved a bronze star based on the very same report he challenges? wouldn't that have been the truthful thing to do? he says"he got it after he was cashiered and went home and forgot about it". must not have been too bothered by getting a medal based on a lie at the time, huh?
3) thurlow is now saying that "kerry staged the whole thing". is this guy nuts or what? how the hell does that work? what, kerry swims out under a moonless night, tethers a mine and the next day makes sure that another guy's boat hits it? then grabs a green beret and throws him off the boat? this is the same bunch that says that kerry had a guy film his re-enactment of the war for later use. and they say that hollywood is la-la land. sheesh... funny though, nobody has brought that up about the filming of bush sr.'s "rescue at sea".
4) both thurlow and elliot have praised kerry in the past. and both have now flip-flopped on their "swift boat truths" over the last few weeks.
these guys are playing a very stupid and dangerous game. they have now opened the door to question every single citation ever awarded to any soldier. and that probably means a lot of you reading this right now.
and here's something else to think about. kerry could have avoided any service and vietnam in particular. using the same deferments that kept cheney, ashcroft, delay and, yes, clinton, et al cozy and safe at home. or even the national guard sidestep that worked so well for quayle and bush jr.
but he didn't. he volunteered for 2 tours of duty. and the idea that he went just to pad his resume is silly. would you step in front of a bullet just to get a job?
if you want to get a clue on who does what for the vets, think about what o'neill did when he got home. then go to the thomas website and look through the multiple legislations that kerry sponsored, co-sponsored or voted for in favor of veteran's benefits and rights. and against when it hurt vets.
this swift boats stuff is the same type of dirty politics that were used on mccain and cleland.
bottom line; bush in 1968-69 - tejas. kerry in 1968-69 vietnam.
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