Perhaps the Crack Is Widening

[Annie]

Today I found the second major American media story of the problems with Kerry's story. It only deals with a couple parts, but at least it's a start:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002005720_cambodia15.html

In case you want to see how they handled the Bush AWOL charges, for those that think there is no media bias, here is a roundup:

http://nerepublican.blogspot.com/2004/08/media-hypocrisy-how-media-handled-bush.html

Since I decided that this might warrant a thread-Something along the 'media does it's job, finally, here's the other links posted elsewhere:

The regular media is beginning to break-newspaper in CO this am. http://www.insidedenver.com/drmn/news_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_86_3109807,00.html

The Telegraph in London is all over it. http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/08/13/wus13.xml

http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/08/13/dl1302.xml

http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/08/12/wus12.xml


Bloggers keep at it: http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/002251.php

 

[Jimmyeatworld]

Today I found the second major American media story of the problems with Kerry's story. It only deals with a couple parts, but at least it's a start:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002005720_cambodia15.html

In case you want to see how they handled the Bush AWOL charges, for those that think there is no media bias, here is a roundup:

http://nerepublican.blogspot.com/2004/08/media-hypocrisy-how-media-handled-bush.html

Since I decided that this might warrant a thread-Something along the 'media does it's job, finally, here's the other links posted elsewhere:

Lo and behold the first one is from Seattle! LOL! :teeth:

 

[Annie]

Hot dam, a South African newpaper gets it:

http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/2004/08/15/news/world/world04.asp

FOUR major charges have been levelled against John Kerry by a group of Vietnam war veterans opposed to the Democratic presidential challenger.

Charge One: Kerry is lying when he said he was sent, illegally, into Cambodia, on missions that made a mockery of official US claims that American forces were not in Cambodia, a neutral country.

According to a forthcoming anti-Kerry book, Unfit for Command : "All the living commanders in Kerry's chain of command... indicate that Kerry would have been seriously disciplined or court-martialled had he gone" to Cambodia.

Steven Gardner, the gunner's mate on Kerry's boat, has denied any knowledge of illegal CIA missions.

Kerry's account of Christmas 1968 is being questioned. On March 27 1986 Kerry told the US Senate: "I remember Christmas of 1968, sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember 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."

Charge Two: A medal-hungry Kerry falsely claimed to have been wounded in combat. He earned three Purple Hearts, the US medal awarded for any injury sustained in combat.

The allegation is that Kerry lied to obtain his first Purple Heart. Critics say he fired a grenade too close to his boat, injuring himself with a tiny metal fragment which was removed with tweezers.

Anti-Kerry veterans have produced, as their star witness, Dr Louis Letson, who said he treated the first wound. Pro-Kerry veterans retort that Letson's name is not on the relevant medical records.

The anti-Kerry group also query his third Purple Heart, saying that he lied when he said a mine had gone off under his boat, smashing his arm. They say the mine hit another boat, many kilometres away. His only wound was from rice grains blown into his buttocks after he threw a grenade into a rice store.

In response, the Kerry campaign produced Jim Wasser, the boat's radar operator, who said: "I never witnessed anything like what they're claiming."

Charge Three: Kerry lied to win a Bronze Star for risking his life to pull a special forces officer, Jim Rassman, from the water under hostile fire.

Anti-Kerry veterans on other boats insist there was no hostile fire near Rassman, and Kerry was, in fact, fleeing an outbreak of heavy fighting when he found Rassman, and pulled him aboard his boat.

Rassman, however, says there was hostile fire, and is backed by Del Sandusky, a crewman from Kerry's boat at that time.

Charge Four: Kerry lied to win a Silver Star after beaching his boat in the face of an enemy ambush and killing an enemy soldier.

The anti-Kerry veterans say that the enemy was a "skinny kid" in a loincloth, who was shot as he ran away, already wounded.

Kerry's backers say the "skinny kid" was carrying a rocket launcher and that the Silver Star was awarded for beaching his boat in the face of "intense fire" and leading a landing party against the enemy. - © The Telegraph, London

 

[Annie]

More cracks? Granted not NYT or WaPO or Chicago Tribune or even the Miami Herald, but:

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/9404816.htm

http://www.harktheherald.com/module...article&sid=31787&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/special_packages/election2004/9402884.htm

Seems to be leaving the 'blogs only universe'...

 

[Annie]

THE AMERICAN THINKER

Twilight of the press gods
August 14th, 2004


The genie is out of the bottle. The best efforts of the mainstream media to blockade the story of Kerry’s lies about Cambodia, and the charges by the vast majority of men who served with him in the Swift Boat operations, have failed. Glenn Reynolds prints a telling letter from a reader who requests anonymity. Read the entire entry, but here are the key sentences:

...last night I was talking to a friend who is a hardcore liberal Democrat and is, in fact, a first cousin of a very well-known Democratic Senator. He was very upset about the Kerry-Swift Vet-Cambodia controversy. He blamed Kerry for the whole thing, saying he had set himself up for this problem by making Vietnam the centerpiece of his campaign. Two things struck me about this. First, this is a guy who gets all of his news from the biggies - the NYT, NPR, and CNN - and yet he knew all about the story. That means the Big Media filter isn't preventing the story from reaching people. Second, he had concluded that Kerry deserves the criticism and is lacking in credibility. This is a guy who, if there were any yes-but talking points in defense of Kerry, surely would have stuck to them. This says to me that if Big Media is in the tank for Kerry, they may actually have hurt him by not covering this story. They've abdicated coverage of a story that is negative to Kerry to the Blogosphere, thus resulting in more damage to their favored candidate than if they'd reported on the story, but with an eye toward knocking it down. They can pretend the story isn't there, but they can't make blogs go away.

Glenn adds:

...they're damaging themselves as more and more people notice that they're ignoring it.

Just so. Credibility, once lost, is difficult to re-establish. Ask Bill Clinton.

In April, I used the metaphor of a driver stuck in snow, who presses the accelerator, and finds the spinning wheels only melting more snow, making traction all the more difficult. The current efforts of the press to define Kerry’s lies as a non-event are destroying their own traction. The media eruption over far less serious charges about Bush’s National Guard service is too fresh in the recesses of most peoples’ minds. And, of course, Bush didn’t choose to run for re-election on the basis of his honorable, even brave service as a jet jockey, a highly dangerous occupation.

But it is summer now. So let me switch metaphors. The establishment press is facing its Gottedamerung – the twilight of the gods. For decades, god-like figures handed down their version of the truth from corporate Valhallas like the New York Times and CBS News. The public credulously accepted their writ on what is important and what is not important.

But god-like pretensions are dangerous, indeed, often fatal. Especially when combined with mono-maniacal convictions on the need for their point of view to prevail. Post-modernity, a concept beloved of the bien pensants, cuts two ways. The public is skeptical of anyone who pretends to be an authoritative gatekeeper of knowledge. Kerry, who has never cut much of a figure as a genuine, warm, empathetic human being, is an ideal target for citizen skepticism.

The establishment press is coming across as every bit as pompous and conniving as the man who married two centi-millionaire heiresses.

They are, in fact, destroying themselves. Their industry is in serious trouble. Circulation scandals have hit major newspaper publishers, while the scandal-free press can take little comfort in their declining readership. Network TV news is a shadow of its former self, and its future is very limited. CNN’s monopoly is shattered, and it boasts a poor fraction of the viewership of Fox News, the only cable news outlet fully covering Kerrygate with the same seriousness accorded Bush’s National Guard service questions.

The blogosphere is the camel whose nose, and now a good part of its neck, is under the tent. Leadership in coverage of the self-destruction of the Kerry Campaign is in the hands of Instapundit, Hugh Hewitt (guru to many of us), Powerline, Captain’s Quarters, Just One Minute, and many other bloggers.

Nobody had ever heard of Bob Woodward until Watergate. Afterward, he became a powerful brand name, and his and Bernstein's work inspired generations of new journalists. The same phenomenon is taking place today, and journalism will never be the same again. The big difference is that this time around, there is a technological revolution compounding the destructive force operating on the old media. Hurricane Charley has nothing on the winds of change now blowing away the old media practices and economics.

Future historians are going to find this election deeply significant for not just War on Terror policy reasons. This is a transformative election for the structure of political information.

Thomas Lifson

 

[Hobbit]

The LMM can't cover this one up. They can't cover themselves up, either. Now, the only accusation I'm willing to let lie is pulling the guy out of the water. I'm a lifeguard, and have saved a few lives through similar actions (i.e. jumping out of a boat to save a person). Lack of enemy fire doesn't make it not be nerve wracking. I'm sure it would be more tense, but still, if there was enemy fire, then everybody was enduring it, and he'd be in it, rescue or no rescue. It just makes the story more dramatic. If they was no hostile fire, he still pulled a soldier out of the river, saving his life. That's a heroic act in any context.

 

[Annie]

The LMM can't cover this one up. They can't cover themselves up, either. Now, the only accusation I'm willing to let lie is pulling the guy out of the water. I'm a lifeguard, and have saved a few lives through similar actions (i.e. jumping out of a boat to save a person). Lack of enemy fire doesn't make it not be nerve wracking. I'm sure it would be more tense, but still, if there was enemy fire, then everybody was enduring it, and he'd be in it, rescue or no rescue. It just makes the story more dramatic. If they was no hostile fire, he still pulled a soldier out of the river, saving his life. That's a heroic act in any context.

I would agree with the last sentence, though not deserving of a bronze star. Heck, jumping into Lake Michigan or Vero Beach to save someone who deserves a Darwin award is very dangerous.

 

[Hobbit]

I would agree with the last sentence, though not deserving of a bronze star. Heck, jumping into Lake Michigan or Vero Beach to save someone who deserves a Darwin award is very dangerous.

I'm not sure what the qualifications of a Bronze star are, but I'll not press the issue. Once again, it was over 30 years ago and young people (like me) do stupid things, and I'm willing to forgive. What I'm not willing to forgive is his Senate record and the fact that he's running based on his Vietnam record.

 

[Annie]

I'm not sure what the qualifications of a Bronze star are, but I'll not press the issue. Once again, it was over 30 years ago and young people (like me) do stupid things, and I'm willing to forgive. What I'm not willing to forgive is his Senate record and the fact that he's running based on his Vietnam record.

Well I wish he was stupid like you. Considering that he is now older than me, but a significant amount, one wouldn't think he would perpetuate the failings of his youth. Not to mention, if he has a record since, worthy of being elected President of the United States, please, let's here that!

 

[Hobbit]

Well I wish he was stupid like you. Considering that he is now older than me, but a significant amount, one wouldn't think he would perpetuate the failings of his youth. Not to mention, if he has a record since, worthy of being elected President of the United States, please, let's here that!

I tend to agree, though I prefer the words foolish and ignorant, which are easily cured with time. Kerry is stupid, a permanent condiditon.

 

[Annie]

I tend to agree, though I prefer the words foolish and ignorant, which are easily cured with time. Kerry is stupid, a permanent condiditon.

Hey, think that didn't come across right. IF he was like you-he wouldn't be 'stupid.' Heck, he wouldn't have been very foolish or ignorant when young either!

 

[Hobbit]

Hey, think that didn't come across right. IF he was like you-he wouldn't be 'stupid.' Heck, he wouldn't have been very foolish or ignorant when young either!

Oh, I'm plenty foolish, I just tend to reread my posts before posting, and I was quite ignorant about politics up until about a year ago, when I started getting involved in the gay marriage and music downloading debates.

 

[Merlin1047]

I'm not sure what the qualifications of a Bronze star are, but I'll not press the issue. Once again, it was over 30 years ago and young people (like me) do stupid things, and I'm willing to forgive. What I'm not willing to forgive is his Senate record and the fact that he's running based on his Vietnam record.

Medals were frequently awarded based on the recipient's rank instead of his actions. If an enlisted man got a Bronze Star, you can pretty much bet your boots that he deserved at least that much and probably more.

While the policy varied not only from one branch to another, it also varied from one major command to another. In my case, a Bronze Star was practically meaningless. It was tossed out like rice at a wedding and that pretty much reduced it to the status of a certificate of attendance. Air Medals were awarded for 25 flight hours logged as "combat assault" missions, or fifty hours of "direct combat support" or 100 hours of "other" in the units with which I served. Over two tours, I have accrued fourty four of the little trinkets. After you get one, what the hell is the point of the other 43? Beats me. Even the Distinguished Flying Cross was cheapened. If you were a working stiff pilot (like me), you actually had to be in a situation where you were in imminent danger of getting your ass shot off in order to qualify for a DFC. If you were full colonel or higher, you might get one just for flying at 3000 feet above the guys who were flying the insertion mission into a hot LZ.

In many cases, the criteria for awarding medals for valor is one of the sorriest aspects of the whole RVN mess.

 

[Annie]

Thanks Merlin. It seems that if he wants to stop this issue, he just has to put his record out there, like he and others demanded and got from GW. Not that hard?

 

[Merlin1047]

Thanks Merlin. It seems that if he wants to stop this issue, he just has to put his record out there, like he and others demanded and got from GW. Not that hard?

But he can't do that, can he? The really funny aspect of this whole thing is that kerry had no need to embellish or invent the circumstances for receiving the Bronze Star. He would have been awarded one just for showing up for work.

 

[Annie]

But he can't do that, can he? The really funny aspect of this whole thing is that kerry had no need to embellish or invent the circumstances for receiving the Bronze Star. He would have been awarded one just for showing up for work.

He called the dance though. So he has to pay up. No one told him to make this the centerpiece of his election campaign, he could have run on his Senate record. ~cough~

 

[Annie]

Whoops, its readers do in the letters to the editor section:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61473-2004Aug12.html

 

[musicman]

"It was involuntary. They sank my boat."

 

[Annie]

They've had swiftees, but this is WSJ senior editorial writer:

OPINIONJOURNAL

Last Wednesday Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan sent me a statement saying that "During John Kerry's service in Vietnam, many times he was on or near the Cambodian border and on one occasion crossed into Cambodia. . . . On December 24, 1968 Lieutenant John Kerry and his crew were on patrol in the watery borders between Vietnam and Cambodia deep in enemy territory." I asked for clarification as to whether the "one occasion" was Christmas Eve 1968. "No," was the reply.
"Watery borders" is something of an evasion, intended to imply that Mr. Kerry's "seared" memory might have been easily confused. But according to both the maps and the testimony of swift vets, the Mekong doesn't run along the Cambodian border but bisects it, such that the coincidence between the two is obvious. In any case, Mr. Kerry's own journal, as cited in Douglas Brinkley's biography, records him being 50-some miles from the border at Sa Dec on that day contemplating visions of "sugar plums."

Does this matter? Well, if President Bush was found to be using tall tales from his National Guard days to justify his policies in the war on terror it would certainly attract some attention. So the would-be commander in chief can hardly complain of being subject to scrutiny, especially since he's joined in criticism of Mr. Bush's war record and made his own a campaign centerpiece. Never mind the anti-Kerry swiftees. So far the veteran whose testimony is doing John Kerry the most damage is . . . John Kerry.

Mr. Pollock is a senior editorial page writer at The Wall Street Journal.

 

[Annie]

I saw someone say that with his head injuries, Alston could really not know what went down, Kerry however does. This appears to becoming definitive, Alston wasn't with Kerry, but Kerry let him deliver these lies at the convention, not a good thing to do to a 'really' wounded vet:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007486.php

Kerry's Story Continues to Unravel

By many accounts, the most effective speaker at the Democratic National Convention was David Alston, a minister from South Carolina who claimed to have been a Swift Boat crewmate of John Kerry's in Vietnam:

I know him from a small boat in Vietnam, where we fought and bled together, serving our country. There were six of us aboard PCF-94, a 50-foot, twin-engine craft known as a "Swift Boat." We all came from different walks of life, but all of us-including our skipper, John Kerry-volunteered for combat duty. And combat is what we got.
...Lieutenant Kerry was known for taking the fight straight to the enemy. I can still see him now, standing in the doorway of the pilothouse, firing his M-16, shouting orders through the smoke and chaos.

Once, he even directed the helmsman to beach the boat, right into the teeth of an ambush, and pursued our attackers on foot, into the jungle. In the toughest of situations, Lieutenant Kerry showed judgment, loyalty and courage. Even wounded, or confronting sights no man should ever have to see, he never lost his cool.

And when the shooting stopped, he was always there too, with a caring hand on my shoulder asking, "Gunner, are you OK?" I was only 21, running on fear and adrenaline. Lieutenant Kerry always took the time to calm us down, to bring us back to reality, to give us hope, to show us what we truly had within ourselves. I came to love and respect him as a man I could trust with life itself.


Very effective stuff. It appears, though, that not a word of it was true. Captain Ed has been all over this story, so we won't repeat the details. See his site for a time line. Ed's chief source, I believe, is located here.

David Alston did indeed serve on Swift Boat PCF-94, but apparently under a Lt. Ted Peck, not under Kerry. Alston and Peck were both wounded on January 29, 1969, and were medevaced out. The medical report on Alston's injury is here. John Kerry replaced Lt. Peck in command of PCF-94 the next day. He continued to command PCF-94 until March 13, when he received a scratch and took advantage of his third "Purple Heart" to get out of Vietnam after only four months.

There is no evidence that David Alston ever returned to PCF-94, although he did meet Kerry during the time the two men were in Vietnam. Alston suffered a severe head wound on January 29, 1969, and, while the evidence is not yet clear, it appears that he never returned to combat. He certainly was not present for the incident on February 28, when Kerry beached his boat and shot a Viet Cong, which Alston described in his speech to the Convention. He also was not present during Kerry's last combat mission, on March 13.

Given the severity of Alston's wound, the effects of which are still clearly visible, and given that he wasn't aboard PFC-94 on either February 29 or March 13, it seems an almost inescapable conclusion that Alston never served under Kerry. This is consistent with the statement, reported in this article about Alston's mother, that after being shot in the head and shoulder he "lived and came home."

Hard as it is to believe, it appears that David Alston's speech at the Democratic Convention was a lie from beginning to end.

The issue could be conclusively resolved, of course, if Alston allowed his military records to be released. My guess is they would show he never returned to combat, and certainly never served on PFC-94 after January 29, 1969. But, just as the press has let John Kerry get away with refusing to authorize the release of all of his military records, no pressure will be brought to bear on Alston to show that the story he told at the convention, and in a Kerry television commercial, was anything other than a fantasy. Like so much of what Kerry says about his service in Vietnam.

Posted by Hindrocket at 12:59 PM