Kerry Wants To Fight With Swiftees Again?

[Annie]

Lots of links:

http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2006/05/bring_it_on.html

Bring It On

John Kerry wants to re-fight the Swift Boats wars. My goodness, that is the only thing that could get the Times to cover this - during his campaign they stayed about as far from this story as Kerry was from Cambodia at Christmas time.

Let me seize on just one detail - this relates to Kerry's controversial first Purple Heart:

But he can also barely resist prosecuting a case against the group that his friends now refer to as "the bad guys." "Bill Schachte was not on that skimmer," Mr. Kerry says firmly. "He was not on that skimmer. It is a lie to suggest that he was out there on that skimmer."

He shows a photograph of the skimmer being towed behind his Swift boat, insisting that it could barely fit three people, himself and two others.

"The three guys who in fact were in the boat all say he wasn't there and will tell you he wasn't there. We know he wasn't there, and we have all kinds of ways of proving it."

Fine - here is a link to the Schachte story, here are my questions about that incident, and here are my two suggestions for resolving it:

(1) Show us Kerry's diary, aka the "War Notes". Surely his first combat and first medal merited a contemporaneous account, yes? But that has never been made public, and Brinkley does not refer to Kerry's notes for that portion of his Kerry biography.

(2) Show us the paperwork backing the first Purple Heart - it should include a witness statement of the circumstances surrounding his wound; Kerry never released that during the campaign.

This should be beautiful.

And just to be clear - I have no interest in beating on Kerry like a rented mule (again). I am much more curious to see whether we can demonstrate that the MSM was horribly deficient in their coverage of their story. My recollection, which may be colored by hyperbole, is that the entire NY Times coverage amounted to one story saying "The Swift Boat Veterans are lying because Kerry says they are". That does not count the snide and ignorant asides in seemingly unrelated stories or misleading columns by Nick Kristof or the rest of the stable.

The Washington Post took a good look at one incident (Kerry's Bronze Star), ran a pro-Kerry headline, and concluded that they could not sort it out. The WaPo did not research the possibility (really, a high probability) that Kerry himself wrote the report on which the Navy records are based.

But that ambiguity notwithstanding, and notwithstanding Kerry's refusal to authorize the release of his military records, we can still get statements like this in the Times:

Naval records and accounts from other sailors contradicted almost every claim they made, and some members of the group who had earlier praised Mr. Kerry's heroism contradicted themselves.

And note how the Times puts itself firmly in Kerry's camp with their framing of the "Christmas in Cambodia" story:

...[Kerry's defenders] have returned, for instance, to the question of Cambodia and whether Mr. Kerry was ever ordered to transport Navy Seals across the border, an experience that he said made him view government officials, who had declared that the country was not part of the war, as deceptive.

The Swift boat group insisted that no boats had gone to Cambodia. But Mr. Kerry's researcher, using Vietnam-era military maps and spot reports from the naval archives showing coordinates for his boat, traced his path from Ha Tien toward Cambodia on a mission that records say was to insert Navy Seals.

The Times version sort of gives short shrift to his speech on the floor of the US Senate where Kerry was quite emphatic about the date:

Mr. President, I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by 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.

I have that memory which is seared-seared-in me, that says to me, before we send another generation into harm's way we have a responsibility in the U.S. Senate to go the last step, to make the best effort possible in order to avoid that kind of conflict.

Bring it on.

Posted by Tom Maguire on May 27, 2006

 

[Stephanie]

:teeth:

 

[Annie]

:teeth:

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Stephanie again.

 

[Stephanie]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Stephanie again.

:halo:

 

[musicman]

Kerry wants a rematch with the Swiftboat Veterans??!! I'm reminded of the swordfight scene from "Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail". An armless, legless Black Knight calls to the victorious, departing King Arthur: "Ah - running away, eh?"

 

[Annie]

Kerry wants a rematch with the Swiftboat Veterans??!! I'm reminded of the swordfight scene from "Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail". An armless, legless Black Knight calls to the victorious, departing King Arthur: "Ah - running away, eh?"

Yep.

[the Black Knight continues to threaten Arthur despite getting both his arms and one of his legs cut off]
Black Knight: Right, I'll do you for that!
King Arthur: You'll what?
Black Knight: Come here!
King Arthur: What are you gonna do, bleed on me?
Black Knight: I'm invincible!
King Arthur: ...You're a loony.​

 

[Annie]

From the guy who 'broke it open' the first time:

http://www.democracy-project.com/archives/002565.html

May 27, 2006

NYT’s Is Full Of Kerry


The New York Times is past being the paper of record and is now again recorder for John Kerry’s crap. In another of the New York Times' pattern of weekend raids, this one ironically if not purposely on Memorial Day weekend when honorable service and sacrifice is remembered, it instead cooperates with John Kerry's pathetic attempt to redeem his record of exaggerations and lies, and his dishonor of those who served honorably.

Kate Zernike spent all of two hours interviewing John Kerry, writing a long piece headlined “Kerry Pressing Swift Boat Case Long After Loss” in which Kerry says, “They lied and lied and lied about everything.” Zernike, obviously, failed to research the facts of Kerry’s assertions, but continues the New York Times’ role as willing mouthpiece for Kerry. As the Newsweek reporters who had inside access to Kerry’s 2004 campaign revealed after,

The Kerry campaign did work closely with the major dailies, feeding documents to The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe to debunk the Swift Boat vets. The articles were mostly (though not entirely) supportive of Kerry, but it was too late.

An example of Zernike’s ignorant credulity:

The veterans group, led by Mr. O’Neill, a former Swift boat commander who was recruited by the Nixon administration to debate Mr. Kerry on “The Dick Cavett Show” in 1971, began his campaign in early 2004 by criticizing Mr. Kerry’s protests against the Vietnam War.

In fact, and well investigated and documented, including by a televised interview with Dick Cavett – a supporter of Kerry -- in 2004, it was I who independently founded and led the Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace in 1971, it was I who challenged Kerry to debate at our press conference on June 1, 1971, O’Neill was released from active duty in the Navy only a few days before and asked me if he could join us, Cavett says he had no contact from Nixon's administration, and it wasn’t until well after we received national publicity for challenging Kerry’s band of real and fraudulent Vietnam vets that Nixon invited O’Neill to meet.

So, now, John Kerry complains that during the 2004 campaign the Swiftees “spent something like $30 million, and we didn’t. That’s just a terrible imbalance when somebody’s lying about you.” It seems that John Kerry is very willing to spend the millions of dollars left from his 2004 campaign and Theresa’s hundreds of millions of dollars and to fundraise to mount a new campaign to rescue his discredited record of exaggerations and lies.

Make no mistake about it, this is a full-bore campaign by Kerry. Aside from again enlisting the New York Times, he may have directly or indirectly enlisted liberal former newsman Marvin Kalb, who together with his daughter is writing a book on these issues.

I suggest two things:
1. Go to the website of the Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation to familiarize yourself with what may turn into today’s version of the Alger Hiss trials. I don't know whether the "pumpkin papers" will be discovered, or transcripts of Kerry's meetings with North Vietnamese and Viet Cong negotiators in Paris documenting the remarkable subsequent parallelism between his positions and theirs. However, if these former star officers and POW’s can financially sustain their legal challenge to Kerry’s veracity and deep legal pockets, their legal discovery may judicially put many matters to rest.

2. Go to the “30 Questions” that I published September 10, 2004, and see whether Kerry has resolved these matters of fact and evidence. Compare them to the pap served up by Kerry to the New York Times transmission belt.

Sorry Kerry, you’re still full of it. Stick that in your phony hat from Cambodia.

For convenience, the “30 Questions” are below:

30 questions

Guest View:
Bruce Kesler

Special to The Augusta Free Press



I am partisan, opposed to John Kerry in 1971 and 2004.

Below, I will also try my hardest to be fair. Judge for yourself.


1. Did Kerry want to go to Vietnam?

He first sought deferment from military service.


2. Did Kerry exaggerate his service on the USS Gridley, offshore Vietnam, for Douglas Brinkley's book Tour Of Duty?

His two-levels up commander and a shipmate say he did.


3. Did Kerry want to be in combat?

The Swift Boats were an offshore patrol unit at the time Kerry volunteered for it.


4. Was Kerry’s first Purple Heart merited?

The senior officer there on the boat at the incident says there was no hostile fire, and Kerry would not have been out on his own at that point in his early tour.
A sailor says the officer, (now Admiral) Schachte (a senior JAG officer), was not there. The wound was probably self-inflicted from an American M-79 grenade.
Nine days later, Kerry wrote, "We hadn't been shot at yet ..."
The wound was a paper matchstick piece of likely M-79 grenade treated with a band-aid.
It may not rise to the qualifications for a Purple Heart, and Kerry's request for it was denied by his superior.
Mysteriously, three months later, after those who knew the facts were gone from Vietnam, the Purple Heart was issued from Saigon.
No documents have been released as to who was on the boat.


5. What is the significance of this first Purple Heart incident?

It, along with two others, permitted Kerry to leave Vietnam eight months early. Without it, Kerry left Vietnam before he should have.


6. Was there political influence or other explanation for the issuance of the first Purple Heart?

Kerry refuses to release his full military records or his journal. No witnesses have emerged as to how the first Purple Heart came to be issued.


7. Has the merit of Kerry’s second Purple Heart been challenged?

No. It has not been seriously challenged.


8. Did Kerry’s account of his second Purple Heart vary from facts?

Yes. The Kerry campaign Web site's display of partial documents contained that Kerry was the commander of the boat that day. When the actual skipper challenged that, the Kerry campaign removed a 20-page batch of documents from its Web site.


9. Did Kerry merit the Silver Star?

A Kerry supporter who commanded another boat involved in the incident writes that it was the members of other boats that first and primarily mopped up from the encounter with Viet Cong. Kerry went ashore and killed a fleeing, wounded, armed VC. Kerry's actions do not rise to the standards of the Silver Star. The other sailors and officers on the three boats involved did not receive the Silver Star.


10. Did Kerry merit the Bronze Star?

Difficult to say. The standards of the Bronze Star are lower than for the Silver. The timeline of differing witnesses of whether there was enemy fire, and most particularly whether Kerry was under fire when he picked up Rassmann, have not been clearly delineated. Similarly, the facts of how Kerry came to go a half-mile to a mile downriver from the mine explosion under another boat, later returning to the other boats that did not leave the scene, are unclear.


11. Did Kerry merit the third Purple Heart for the Bronze Star incident?

It is proven that "shrapnel" to Kerry's buttocks came from his earlier being hit when blowing up some VC rice. The "contusion" to Kerry's arm during the Bronze Star episode may not rise to Purple Heart standards. There is confusion as to whether and when in the timeline Kerry fell and hit his arm against his own boat. The Purple Heart standard says, "A wound is defined as an injury to any part of the body from an outside force or agent ..."


12. Did Kerry display physical courage in Vietnam?

Indisputably. In all cases, maybe.


13. Does the Kerry Website displayed documents show a "V" on the Silver Star, which is not practice?

Yes.


14. Do the three citations for the Silver Star contain varying accounts of its merits?

Yes.


15. Why do the three Silver Star citations contain differing accounts?

Not answered yet. The Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman, says he did not do the third citation - the signature may be an autopen - nor does he know why it was issued in the '80s.


16. Was Kerry in Cambodia on Christmas 1968?

All evidence is to the contrary to Kerry's up to 50 times repeating this story.


17. Was Kerry in Cambodia at another time?

All evidence is to the contrary. No evidence has been presented to say that he was. Brinkley now says Kerry's statement about being in Cambodia at Christmas "is obviously wrong."


18. Did Kerry write up some of the reports at dispute in the medals?

Unclear without further documents being released. At his April 22, 1971, testimony to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry did say: "... I can recall often sending in the spot reports which we made after each mission ..." Not conclusive. Others recall Kerry often sending in reports, including when they did not. The "Market Time Spot Report 13/1/TE 194.5.4.4/1" that was the primary document relied upon for the Bronze Star/third Purple Heart was from Kerry's designator.


19. Did Kerry accuse the U.S. and Vietnam veterans of committing pervasive, sanctioned atrocities?

Yes. Read the words and accounts of the time in 1971.


20. Did Kerry attend a meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War in November 1971 at which it was proposed to assassinate several pro-Vietnam war U.S. senators?

Yes.

21. Did Kerry deny he was there?

Yes. Until a New York Sun reporter showed that FBI records proved otherwise.


22. Did Kerry report the danger to any authorities?

No.


23. Did Kerry break the Logan Act by going to the Paris Peace Talks to talk with the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong delegations, or other laws related to his deserve obligations in his protest activities?

That's for judicial decision. Others have not been convicted for similar deeds.


24. Did Kerry mislead that he tossed his medals during a protest demonstration?

Yes. Confronted, Kerry now says they were ribbons.


25. Were Kerry's words used against POWs in North Vietnam?

Words like his were. Also, at least four of the POWs say publicly that John Kerry's words were used to try to break them down, so probably more were so subjected.


26. Did Kerry push normalization of U.S. relations with Vietnam, and for a relative's profit?

Kerry and others pushed for normalization. His cousin soon after obtained a large contract with Vietnam, but no direct link has yet been proven.


27. Has Kerry ever apologized or recanted for any of his above actions and words?

No.


28. Has John Kerry released his full military records and journals?

He refuses. Kerry has claimed he can't release his journals due to contractual obligations to Douglas Brinkley, author of Tour Of Duty. Brinkley says, however, according to The Washington Post: "... the papers are the property of the senator and in his full control." Brinkley says, "I don't mind if John Kerry shows anybody anything."


29. Has the mainstream press requested the release of Kerry's full military records?

Only one says so, the Washington Post, which only received about six of 100 pages of records.


30. Has there been more smoke than wood in much of this public debate?

Yes, in my opinion. That is why I wrote the above.

— Bruce Kesler

 

[Annie]

Well we now know the John Kerry thinks he can refight this fight. It should be fun, any way it turns out. I think considering what has been in the news, we should give him points just for amusing us. This was too good not to share, many linkies though:

http://rfraley301.blogspot.com/2006/05/john-kerry-nimble-swift-effective.html

Sunday, May 28, 2006

John Kerry--Nimble, Swift, Effective
John Kerry wants to respond to the Swiftboat Veterans who, before the election, said that many of the details John Kerry had told about his service in Vietnam were untrue. Since it's been a year and a half since Senator Kerry lost the election, perhaps this is just a little late. There is so much to cover, let's just concentrate on one story. Here is John Kerry in his own words:

Mr. President, I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by 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.
I have that memory which is seared-seared-in me, that says to me, before we send another generation into harm's way we have a responsibility in the U.S. Senate to go the last step, to make the best effort possible in order to avoid that kind of conflict.​

That was from the Senate Floor in 1986. Here is Senator Kerry recently: John Kerry starts by showing the entry in a log he kept from 1969: "Feb 12: 0800 run to Cambodia."

Maybe they celebrate Christmas at a different time in Viet Nam. Perhaps Kerry went often into Cambodia and was there at Christmas and 6 weeks later. Or perhaps he's just making it all up.

He even brings up the magic hat again. This could actually be some fun. It's not like it's going to influence the choice of the President this time.

Byron York at NRO has, from August, 2004, a lot about Kerry Kontradictions--just about the Cambodia thing.

Tom McGuire at Just One Minute sounds eager to recover this ground.

We know from Kerry's hagiographer Douglas Brinkley (who wrote Tour of Duty about Kerry) that the Senator kept a diary of his time in Viet Nam (Brinkley quotes from it from time to time in the book). Let Kerry release that to internet scrutiny--if it says that he went to Cambodia time and again, then he will at last have defeated the Swifties, at least on this issue.

However, since Kerry has promised Tim Russert twice on TV to release his complete Naval records and never did it (even though he claims to have done so), I'm not holding my breath for the war diary.

I've read three books about this matter: Tour of Duty, Unfit for Command and Brown Water, Black Berets. All give one a lot of background for this now continuing, but meaningless, controversy.

UPDATE: Kerry in 1979 said this about Cambodia: "In fact I remember spending Christmas Eve in 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border..." Now his researcher has placed him 35 miles from Cambodia, in Cao Lanh, Viet Nam. Anyone but me see a contradiction between 5 miles inside Cambodia and 35 miles from Cambodia, still in Viet Nam? Anyone? Anyone? Buehler? Buehler?

Here's what Kerry himself wrote about Christmas Eve in his diary reprinted in Tour of Duty via Mark Steyn:

On December 24 1968, Kerry was at Sa Dec – that's well inside Vietnam, 55 miles from the Cambodian border – and waxing wistful to his diary about a quiet Christmas far from home: "Visions of sugarplums really do dance through your head and you think of stockings and snow and roast chestnuts and fires with birch logs and all that is good and warm and real. It's Christmas Eve."​

# posted by Roger Fraley @ 9:20 AM

 

[red states rule]

I wish John "I Served in Viet Nam" Kerry would accept his loss and go away.