posted on August 10, 2004 04:42:25 PM new
It would seem that turn-about is not fair play, at least in the Democratic Party.
Written by Frank Salvato
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
It would seem that turn-about is not fair play, at least in the Democratic Party.
Recently an organization of Vietnam veterans released a commercial that raised questions with respect to the validity of John Kerry’s service medals. ''Swift Boat Veterans for Truth'' is an organization of more than 250 Vietnam Veterans--many of whom were wounded or highly decorated--that served on swift boats during the Vietnam War. Many of the veterans affiliated with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth crossed paths with John Kerry during his self-inflicted four-months of duty in Vietnam and many of them are of the opinion that John Kerry is far from being commander-in-chief material.
In the commercial ad, people who were there—some who served and completed one and sometimes two tours of duty, some who interacted with John Kerry during his “glory days”--step up to the plate and tell it as they see it is. They leave the beating around the bush for the Kerry campaign and come straight out and say they believe John Kerry has not been truthful about his service, that based on the quality of his service he cannot be trusted and they go on to refute the circumstances of how John Kerry acquired his ribbons, medals, and whatever else Kerry wants to call the commendations he received during his abbreviated military career.
Make no mistake the McAlli-nistas are not happy. They came out with a blistering rebuttal that included a charge linking the Republican Party to the release of the ad. Sadly, as is often the case, the Kerry campaign is completely wrong. Neither the Bush campaign nor the Republican National Committee has anything to do with the ad. It was produced and paid for by the organization of Vietnam veterans known today as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
In addition, and surprisingly so, some in the conservative circles are infuriated about the ad. They call it dangerous and stupid. Among the dissenters read Bill O’Reilly, Charles Krauthammer, and Dick Morris. They say the ad is a baseless attack on Kerry’s honorable military career. But how are we to be sure Kerry’s service was honorable when questions from those who have earned the right to make such allegations exist?
What really should be absolutely stunning to the American people is the fact that Kerry’s campaign is taking such offense at the charge of deceit. Why should it be so outrageous that some organization should dare to call John Kerry the Vietnam War Hero, a liar? The Kerry campaign and its surrogates didn’t blink an eye before calling President Bush a liar and there was a mountain of evidence that Bush had never lied. One could argue that believing George W. Bush lied to the American people in pursuit of Iraqi oil is almost a prerequisite to being on the Kerry campaign staff. But make the assertion when it comes to John Kerry, war action figure who can’t throw a baseball, who doesn’t release his military medical records in total, and watch out!
Predictably, the mainstream media will cry foul while coddling the crying child that is the Kerry campaign. They will heap shame upon those who would be so cruel to brave, brave Winter Soldier Johnny, and after all he did to preserve freedom for our country.
But one better than kissing the skinned knee of the Kerry campaign, the mainstream media could inject themselves into the process just as they did during Watergate. Why not set the wannabe investigative reporters of The Fifth Column on the matter? Why not get to the bottom of this issue once and for all? If the Kerry campaign has nothing to fear, nothing to hide, the investigation into these allegations would only help to bolster his war hero status and he would be in receipt of that elusive bump in the polls he was surely “cheated out of” after the Democratic National Convention. But each moment Kerry and his handlers deflect, each finger that they point, each accusation they make only serves to create an of air suspicion and with the polls so close, and Kerry making Vietnam the cornerstone of his electability, he can hardly opt for the wrong choice in this matter.
We need to know if Lt. Com. Louis Letson, the medical officer who treated Kerry for his first injury resulting in a Purple Heart, is correct in his claim that the wound didn’t warrant the commendation. We need to know if Gunners Mate 2nd Class Van Odell, a man who insists he was present when Kerry’s action allegedly warranted him his Bronze Star, is correct when he contends that Kerry lied to get that honor. We need to know if Rear Admiral Roy Hoffman, the recipient of a Distinguished Service Medal and a Silver Star, is correct when he says John Kerry is unfit to be commander in chief. We not only need to know, we deserve to know.
We could listen to the he-said-she-said game of tit-for-tat that politicians like to play when they don’t want to answer specific questions. We could listen to Terry McAuliffe, James Carville, Bill Clinton, and the rest of the Leftinista say that this attack was a creation of the GOP--undoubtedly Ted Kennedy will blame it on the Crawford Cabal--but, as Kerry likes to say, simply saying something isn’t so doesn’t prove anything.
This time around John Kerry should have to face the real heat of the intrusive American media and the mainstream media should obligate itself to hold Kerry’s feet to the fire. After all, it doesn’t matter whose blood is spilled just as long as the scandal bleeds long enough to sell papers, right?
These accusations need to either be validated so the American people can dodge a bullet (no pun intended) or they need to be put to bed as slanderous rumors. This time the American people deserve more than flip-flopping and arrogance. This time we deserve the truth.
posted on August 10, 2004 06:17:33 PM new
LOL @ case closed. Not yet it's not.
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The public needs to know of kerry's actions to base their decision on the FACTS....not how kerry would like to present them.
An article from The American Thinker
Kerry the hero
July 7th, 2004
A photograph of Senator John F. Kerry, being honored by the Marxist government of Vietnam for special contributions to the communist victory in their war of domination, hangs in the War Remnants Museum (formerly the War Crimes Museum) in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon).
His partner in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), Jane Fonda, is honored in the Women¹s Museum, but she, unlike Kerry, apparently did not receive special commendation as a hero of the communist victory.
Kerry was acknowledged by the Vietnam government in 1983, when he was Lt. Governor of Massachusetts.
Kerry's record of activism benefiting the communists was also lauded by the military commander of the North Vietnamese forces, General Vo Nguyen Giap, in his 1985 memoir of the war. Giap wrote that
"…if it were not for the disunity created by...stateside protests, Hanoi would have ultimately surrendered."
Thus, Kerry¹s efforts aided and abetted the enemy, prolonged the war, and probably resulted in greater American casualties.
The photograph of the event can be viewed on the internet. It depicts Kerry being greeted by the future General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Comrade Do Moi.
This photo of special recognition by the former enemy is apparently not displayed on the wall of Kerry's Senate office, next his reclaimed US wartime citations, which he once declared were thrown away during a VVAW war protest. He now claims that he threw away awards belonging to another demonstrator, not his own.
In the 1970s, Kerry attended 2 meetings with North Vietnamese communist representatives, according to Marc Morano of CNS News (CNSNews.com).
Kerry admits to one meeting in 1970, but FBI records unearthed by Morano, indicate a second took place in 1971, with the purpose of securing the release of American prisoners of war. Freelance diplomacy by non-governmental entities, such as the Kerry-Fonda group VVAW, is illegal (US Code 18, USC 953). It is therefore understandable that Kerry would not wish to be portrayed as negotiating with the communists.
Kerry's efforts may have also led to a later undisclosed Vietnam trip, according to an unimpeachable source of information on antiwar activity: the Communist Party USA's Daily World newspaper of 16 June 1971. On the wintersoldier web site, Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D., has written extensively of Kerry's dealings with the Marxists, and is quoted by Morano as saying
"... Vietnamese communists would not have won the war without John Kerry…."
In 1991, Kerry co-chaired a Senate select committee evaluating whether unacknowledged American POWs remained alive in Vietnam. Once again, his loyalty was to Vietnam, rather than to his "band of brothers." He cut short the investigation rather than embarrass the communists -- and shredded the reports carefully collected over a period of years by the Defense Intelligence Agency, so that the evidence could not be reexamined in the context of new POW sightings.
Further, Kerry lobbied for renewed trade relations with Hanoi, and failed to vote in favor of measures that would require Vietnam to recognize human rights to qualify for that trade. After the Vietnam trade bill was passed (without the human rights requirement), Kerry's cousin, C. Stewart Forbes, chief executive for Colliers International, assisted in brokering a $905 million deal to develop a deep-sea port at Vung Tau.
Kerry has stalled the Vietnam Human Rights Act (HR2833) in the Senate.
Finally, were Kerry's activities in time of war, as acknowledged by the recognition given him by a foreign power, covered by Article III, Section 3 of the US Constitution, regarding giving aid and comfort to the enemy? A group of Navy veterans who served with Kerry in Vietnam believes they were, and otherwise declares Kerry unfit to be the Commander-in-Chief.
Kerry's actions may have also been crucial in persuading the Communist Party, USA, and the Marxist Socialist Worker¹s Party to support him for President.
Will Kerry repudiate that support, or wear it like a badge of honor, alongside his "Hero" status in the eyes of the communist government of Vietnam?
William Fielder
posted on August 10, 2004 06:54:48 PM new
Republicans crank up the smear machine
BUSH WHITE HOUSE SILENTLY PLAYS ALONG
By Tom Teepen
It's starting again.
The first President Bush won the White House in substantial part thanks to a TV ad that cast Democrat Michael Dukakis as indifferently turning scary black criminals loose to murder good (presumably white) folks.
In fact, Willie Horton, whose disarrayed mug shot became almost as well known as the ``Mona Lisa,'' had been routinely furloughed from prison in a longstanding Massachusetts work/release program that had bipartisan support. The ad was produced by an ``independent'' group, so that Bush's fingerprints weren't on it.
The current George Bush, after a rocky start, won the Republican presidential nomination against the rising Sen. John McCain four years ago thanks to a timely smear in the crucial South Carolina primary. McCain was portrayed as a near-lunatic who had been driven batty by his long captivity in North Vietnam. The group behind the smear was, again, ``independent,'' so that George W's fingerprints didn't appear on the slander.
And Bush went on to win the White House as the beneficiary of another smear that cast Al Gore, who is about as straight a shooter as politics allows, as a compulsive, almost pathological liar and exaggerator. Again, all the tsk-tsking and haa-haaing about Gore came from players outside the official Bush campaign. The nominee's fingerprints weren't on the project.
Now John Kerry's the target.
A TV ad is running in contested states, and a companion book is due out soon and is being ballyhooed on the Drudge Report Web site, claiming that Kerry's Vietnam service was all a sham.
The ad, sponsored by a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, claims Kerry lied about his Vietnam service and betrayed veterans by later opposing the war. The book reportedly charges that Kerry's wounds -- he has three Purple Hearts -- were self-inflicted and that he more or less simply murdered a Vietnamese teen, shooting him in the back to claim a Silver Star to go with his Bronze Star.
The U.S. Navy had closely investigated the situations before awarding Kerry's medals. Respected historian Douglas Brinkley has examined the record of Kerry's service and verifies it. All except one of Kerry's shipmates support his candidacy.
But energetic promotion has nonetheless managed to push ``Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry'' to the top of Amazon's pre-publication list.
The ad was bankrolled by major GOP contributors, many close to the Bush family, and none of the veterans cited in the book served directly with Kerry. A key figure in the ad and book projects is John O'Neill, who has made a career of denouncing Kerry.
McCain has denounced the ad as ``dishonest and dishonorable.'' He has called on Bush to disavow it, but the White House has declined. And why shouldn't it? After all, the president's fingerprints are nowhere to be found.
posted on August 10, 2004 07:00:06 PM new
Very few of the public care. If they did, they'd be asking harder questions about Bush's lack of service, and that of all of his cabinet's sons. This non-issue shows just how desperate the right really is. They tried the same tactic by calling Clinton a draft dodger, when in fact he was in England as a Rhodes Scholar. An honor our current President would no doubt be unfamiliar with. Nobody cared then either. It won't matter come voting time.
Health care, jobs, the corporatization of government, Lies about Iraq; these issues matter.
___________________________________
Beware the man of one book.
- Thomas Aquinas
posted on August 10, 2004 07:11:34 PM new
Really funny, all you libs praised Farenhate911 when it premiered and attempted to smear Pres Bush, yet when a NON Political group like the Swift Vets produces a segment expressing their personel views of kerry, the demo's go crazy & file suite to stop the airings.
Prof, it matters to the Vets that served in Vietman, even if they are not a majority. But you can bet the majority of those vets WILL vote and it won't be for kerry.
posted on August 10, 2004 08:49:32 PM new..yet when a NON Political group like the Swift Vets...
Non political...oh brother....please explain what makes them non political and M.Moore political bear...Mr. O'Neill has had a hard on for Kerry since the 70's. He has done every thing in his power to thwart Kerry's every run, and so far hasn't managed to be more than a minor annoyance.
I would imagine that the majority of vets will vote for Bush. But judging from the better than 100,000 vets currently working as active volunteers on the Kerry campaign, it just may be a record small majority. Besides, the popular vote doesn't mean squat, remember? I refer you to the survey of electoral votes on rasmussen.com
___________________________________
Beware the man of one book.
- Thomas Aquinas
posted on August 11, 2004 06:45:49 PM new
There was a poll yesterday on who the vets would vote for with Kerry at 46% to bush 51%. So its basically a tie.
posted on August 11, 2004 07:01:18 PM new
What or whose poll?
Did it include all the overseas vets? Were their voices counted?
Remember Al Gore's not going to be there working to block the absentee military ballots this election.
And I have a real hard time believing currently serving soldiers would support kerry who voted against their needs being met in Iraq. That little $87B dollar 'troop support' he voted against WILL make a huge difference to them in this election. I have no doubt about that.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"One thing is for sure: the extremists have faith in our weakness. And the weaker we are, the more they will come after us." --Tony Blair
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"The War on Terror will not be won until America is united. And as long as Democrats target the Bush administration -- not the terrorists -- as the enemy, we are in trouble." --Oliver North
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Those are only two reasons why we need to:
Re-elect President Bush!!
[ edited by Linda_K on Aug 11, 2004 07:04 PM ]
posted on August 11, 2004 07:07:55 PM new
Actually my sister had a friend from college who returned from Iraq, and according to him the soldiers hate it there(they call it hell on earth), and are voting for Kerry. I guess we shall find out soon.
posted on August 11, 2004 07:26:36 PM newMr. O'Neill has had a hard on for Kerry since the 70's. He has done every thing in his power to thwart Kerry's every run, and so far hasn't managed to be more than a minor annoyance.
O'Neill has been opossed to kerry since 1968, when kerry started his lies. The swift boat vets that oppose kerry are both republicans & democrats.
The swift boat verts are opposed to kerry for his tratorious actions, his lies, accusiations of "war crimes" and his libelous statements about fellow vets.
In his 1971 debate with kerry, on the Dick Cavett show, O'Neill challanged kerry to present signed doccumentation from as to the alleged war crimes. Kerry refused to identify those who made the claims.
O'Neill has made the statement he would have voted for Edwards for president, but will never vote for kerry.
posted on August 11, 2004 07:41:35 PM newAnd I have a real hard time believing currently serving soldiers would support kerry who voted against their needs being met in Iraq. That little $87B dollar 'troop support' he voted against WILL make a huge difference to them in this election. I have no doubt about that.
It would only make a difference to those that have only listened to republican lies about the $87 billion vote.
posted on August 11, 2004 10:08:41 PM newIt would only make a difference to those that have only listened to republican lies about the $87 billion vote
You mean the $87 Billion that kerry voted against fot the troops.
Not yet it's not.
