posted on August 19, 2004 08:31:16 AM
Kerry is telling the truth, as reported in The Congressional Record, on March 27, 1986, when Sen. John Kerry spoke on the Senate floor against U.S. support for the anti-communist contras in Nicaragua: "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.”
It's becoming increasingly obvious to me that conservative hacks like the Swift Boat Vets will do or say anything as long as it bolsters their argument. Because the U.S. government has officially denied conducting operations in Cambodia in 1968 that it's not possible that Kerry spent Xmas of that year in that country. Hacks are using that as evidence that the U.S. government was not in Cambodia in 1968.
What on earth do the Republicans hope to gain from these smears? Do they really want to make the election a referendum on the Vietnam War records of Kerry and Bush? While President Bush served in the National Guard, John Kerry actually saw combat in Vietnam. President Bush—to put it diplomatically—has been unable to put to rest questions (unable to prove he wasn’t AWOL) as to whether he really fulfilled his commitment . So, we're no longer discussing whether or not Bush completed his military service at all, we're debating the quality of Kerry's well-documented service. Pretty damned clever, huh?
I don't know if John Kerry was a great swift boat commander or not. I do know he actually showed up for duty, saved a couple lives, received wounds himself, was recognized and rewarded for his service. That's what we know for sure. We don't know if Bush even showed up for duty, don't know how long he served or even where. But now we debate the Kerry record, not the Bush non-record.
The Bush flip-flops, about which we hear almost nothing, are nearly legion. He didn't want U.N. involvement in our nifty little war but now he does. He specifically excluded NATO from the original war planning but now he wants their help. He opposed the creation of the Homeland Security Department, now takes credit for its existence. He opposed the independent 9/11 Commission and now takes credit for it. He refused to allow National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to testify before the commission on constitutional grounds but now brags about how cooperative he was to allow her to testify. He was adamant that neither he nor Vice President Dick Cheney would testify before the commission for the same mysterious constitutional reasons, then acquiesced as long as the two of them could hold hands during the session.
And we've almost completely forgotten about the monumental Bush flip-flops that got us into this mess in the first place. Remember the Iraqis "active" nuclear weapons program? That morphed into the manufacture and stockpiling of "hundreds of tons" of non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction. We even had pictures. When the weapons were never discovered, they morphed into the "means and intent" to create WMD. Absent even that, the Bushies told us Saddam was either an "imminent threat" or a "clear and growing danger" to our national security. When they couldn't even make that stick it finally came down to the notion that Saddam was a really bad guy and we needed to get rid of him.
Oddly, no one seems to be talking about these flip-flops or the dozens of others.
What we don't hear from the Bush camp is any new plan that would help us any way on any issue. No plans in Iraq and no plans here at home. Other than to wait until the Kerry campaign actually focuses our attention on the incredibly shabby job being done by the Bushies. Then they spring into action to make sure we quickly concentrate on something else, like whether or not John Kerry actually deserved the Silver Star he received for saving a life while under enemy fire.
Nor are we likely to hear any explanation from the Bush camp as to why their "roaring" economy managed to produce a pathetic 30,000 new jobs in July. (Bush will become the first president since Herbert Hoover to realize a net loss in American jobs during his first term in office even Jimmy Carter's presidency of "malaise" fame produced real job growth.) Or why those jobs, on average, provide only about 70% of the income of the jobs lost. Or why inflation continues to gnaw away at our buying power. Or why corporate CEOs continue to inflate their own salaries while they export American jobs elsewhere. Or anything else of substance. Not as long as they can drag both the media and voters around by the nose discussing the relative importance of John Kerry's military service or the wealth or comments of his wife.
On the other hand it's not all bad. The Bush Team will, one day, be able to brag they ran the most duplicitous and cynical campaign in American history. I guess that's something.
Irregular News is right. Republicans are scared because Bush sure as hell can't run on his record. The only thing he can do is run on a smear campaign.
posted on August 19, 2004 09:47:56 AM
Kerry can't use his record acainst Pres Bush.
Calls Get Louder For Kerry’s Intel Committee Records
By Jeff Gannon
Talon News
August 18, 2004
WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- Republicans continue to press Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry to release his attendance records from his tenure on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Television ads that began airing Monday call into question the Massachusetts Democrat's commitment to reforming America's intelligence community.
Kerry served on the panel from 1993 to 2000 and according to official records missed 76 percent of the public committee hearings during that time. During his eight years of service on the committee there were 49 open, public hearings. Of these 49, Kerry attended just 11. Among the most notable of those he missed is the June 8, 2000, hearing on the report of the National Commission on Terrorism, which warned about the terrorist threat faced by the United States and recommended numerous steps to address that threat.
In 1994, the year following the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, Kerry missed every committee hearing, including a hearing on the report of the Joint Security Commission.
The report warned in part, "The bombing of the World Trade Center and the assassination of two CIA employees in Virginia heightened our sensitivity to the fact that terrorist activities against Americans can occur domestically as well as abroad."
Not included in the attendance figures is Kerry's presence at closed-door meetings. Those records could only be released to the public with the senator's permission. Republicans in Congress are challenging Kerry to make a full disclosure of his attendance records for his tenure on the committee.
On Sunday's "Meet The Press," Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said that both Kerry and Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) should allow the release of their attendance records.
He said, "The easiest way out of this is for John Kerry and John Edwards to request of Senator Rockefeller and myself to release the attendance hearings -- not only the public hearings, which they have rebutted, but the closed hearings."
Sen. John Warner (R-VA), another member of the committee, said that Kerry should simply release the attendance records if he disputes the Bush-Cheney ad.
"So I would go to what is solid, incontrovertible fact, and that is the records that each committee keeps with regard to the attendance at every hearing of all the members, whether they're there or not," Warner told CNN. "Now, those records are available. John Kerry, if he questions the authenticity of this ad that's out there now, should simply get those records and put them into the public domain."
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) added his voice to the controversy when he issued a similar challenge.
"So I would like to call on Senator Edwards and Senator Kerry today to publicly release their attendance records at the private, or classified, hearing on the intelligence committee so the American people can really know the truth," Cornyn said.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), also a member of the committee, said, "The fact of the matter is, even though he claims to have gained a lot of that expertise by serving on the senate intelligence committee, during his eight years of service on the intelligence committee there were forty-nine public hearings held by the intelligence committee, and John Kerry was absent from thirty-eight of those forty-nine hearings."
He added, "That does not include the classified hearings. ... And I would hope that he would agree to release to you the record of his attendance at meetings and hearings of the Senate Intelligence committee over the last year and a half, or his total service on that committee."
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) also called on his Senate colleague to disclose his attendance records.
"The other illustration of lack of leadership with regard to this issue is the question of the intelligence," Kyl said. "And since I served on the Intelligence Committee with Senator Kerry for eight years I believe, I call for him to disclose his attendance at the briefings and hearings of the Intelligence Committee. The classified briefings and hearings of course are not on our public record, but he could make his attendance public."
Kyl continued, "John Edwards was on the committee and came on later, and he missed half of the public hearings as well. But I think that they should both disclose their record of attendance in the Intelligence Committee."
House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) also weighed in.
He said, "This is something that needs to be done, and I join Senator Roberts, Senator Chambliss, Senator Cornyn and others in calling on him to do so, so that the American people can judge the whole picture for themselves."
Bush Nails Kerry's Poor Attendance at Intelligence Committee Hearings
Summary
A Bush-Cheney '04 ad released Aug. 13 accuses Kerry of being absent for 76% of the Senate Intelligence Committee's public hearings during the time he served there. The Kerry campaign calls the ad "misleading," so we checked, and Bush is right.
Official records show Kerry not present for at least 76% of public hearings held during his eight years on the panel, and possibly 78% (the record of one hearing is ambiguous).
Kerry points out that most meetings of the Intelligence Committee are closed and attendance records of those meetings aren't public, hinting that his attendance might have been better at the non-public proceedings. But Kerry could ask that his attendance records be made public, and hasn't.
Aides also claimed repeatedly that Kerry had been vice chairman of the intelligence committee, but that was Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, not John Kerry.
Analysis
Kerry often touts his eight years on the Senate Intelligence Committee as a prime qualification for office. The Bush ad takes that on, describing Kerry as a no-show for most of the committee's public meetings. If anything, the ad understates Kerry's lack of attendance.
Public Hearings
The Bush ad shows Kerry promising to "immediately reform the intelligence system," then counters with an announcer saying "as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee Kerry was absent for 76 percent of the committee's public hearings." As support for that statement, the Bush campaign states that Kerry is listed as present at only 11 of the 49 public meetings of the committee while he was a member, from 1993 through January, 2001, when Kerry left the committee.
FactCheck.org examined the official, published records of those hearings. And indeed, Kerry is listed as attending only 11 of those hearings.
Kerry's apparent absence from 38 of the hearings actually figures out to an absentee rate of 77.6%.
However, the Bush ad's lower figure plays it safe -- giving Kerry credit for attending one hearing for which the record is a bit ambiguous. The record of that hearing, on June 22, 1999, lacks the usual list of the senators and staff members who attended. We checked the full transcript for any sign that Kerry had been there, and found no record of Kerry speaking, or anyone else noting his presence. If Kerry is counted as absent from that hearing as well as the others, he missed nearly 78%. But if he attended and didn't speak, then he would have missed only 37 of the 49, for a no-show rate of 75.5%, which the ad properly rounds up to 76%.
In a rebuttal to the ad, the Kerry camp accused Bush of "fuzzy math and bad stats," saying "They rely only on whether Sen... Kerry made statements in one of a small number of open hearings." That's not true. Records list senators and staff members as being present whether or not they spoke, and -- to repeat -- the 76 percent figure actually gives Kerry credit for attending one hearing for which there's no evidence of his participation.
What About the Closed Meetings?
The Kerry rebuttal also noted that most of the Intelligence Committee meetings are closed and attendance figures for closed meetings aren't public, which is true. But Kerry offered nothing to show that his attendance at closed meetings was better or worse than his attendance at open hearings. He also has passed up a chance to have the full record of his attendance made public.
Over the weekend, the Republican chairman of the committee, Pat Roberts of Kansas, refused to say how often Kerry had attended closed meetings. But Roberts said Kerry could, if he wished, ask that his attendance at closed meetings be made public. Roberts spoke on NBC's "Meet the Press" Aug 15:
Q: Did he (Kerry) attend private sessions or was he not present?
Sen... Roberts: Well, I'm not going to get into whether he was there or not. Senator (Jay) Rockefeller (the Democratic Vice chairman of the committee) and I and the committee would have to agree to release the attendance records for...
Q: Well, it should be a matter of record, though, if you can...
Roberts: Well, it's in a closed hearing. . . . The easiest way out of this is
for John Kerry and John Edwards to request of Senator Rockefeller and myself to release the attendance hearings; not only the public hearings, which they have rebutted, but the closed hearings. . . .
Q: Well, has he been a hard-working member?
Roberts: They should request it. They should...
Q: Because that's one of the credentials he cites in his campaign.
Roberts: Well, hard-working member is in the eyes of the beholder. I'm just saying that John Kerry and John Edwards could ask Jay and myself to release the attendance records. It is important because you have to be in attendance to learn the job.
A Kerry campaign official responded to Roberts statement by saying "there's nothing to clear up" through releasing records of closed hearings. Stephanie Cutter, communications director of the Kerry campaign, said Aug 15 on CNN's Inside Politics Sunday:
Cutter: Well, there's nothing to clear up. . . . John Kerry has had a consistent record of improving intelligence over the past 20 years. He joined with many Republicans, including one of the chairs of the Republican campaign, Arlen Specter, to improve intelligence in a post-Cold War era. So this is -- this is just another distorted attack by George Bush, because he can't defend his own record.
As of 6:30pm Aug. 17 the Kerry campaign had made no request of the Senate Intelligence Committee to release records of the closed meetings, a committee spokesman told FactCheck.org.
"Vice Chairman?" Oops!
In their eagerness to dismiss the Bush ad's charges, Kerry campaign aides claimed that the senator had been vice chairman of the intelligence committee, which isn't true. In fact, former Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska was vice chairman of the panel for several years while Kerry was a more junior member of the panel. John Kerry left the committee in January 2001. He never served as vice chairman, a committee spokesman confirmed to us.
The erroneous claim appeared in several places on the Kerry website, one dating back to January, 2004, and another in a posting Aug. 13 to rebut the Bush ad. It said, "Kerry is an Experienced Leader in the Intelligence Field – John Kerry served on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for eight years and is the former Vice Chairman of the Committee."Kerry senior adviser Tad Devine told Fox News, which first reported the discrepancy, that the campaign would be "happy to correct the record" if needed:
Devine: I'll have to check with the issues people. It was my understanding he was. But if that's, you know -- but if that's not a factual case, I'm sure we will be happy to correct the record.
Two days later the erroneous claim was still appearing on the Kerry website, however. On Aug. 17 The Associated Press quoted campaign spokesman Michael Meehan conceding the error, adding: "John Kerry, Bob Kerrey -- similar names."
Listen Carefully
The Bush ad also says Kerry was absent for every single Intelligence Committee meeting during the year "after the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center." That's true. The official records list four public hearings in 1994 -- the year after terrorists set off a truck bomb in the Trade Center's underground garage -- and Kerry is listed as attending none of them. However, those who don't listen carefully to the exact wording of the ad might get the impression that Kerry skipped Intelligence Committee hearings even after the second terrorist attacks -- on September 11, 2001. That would create a false impression. In fact, Kerry left the committee months before the 9/11 attacks.
The ad also says Kerry "proposed slashing America's intelligence budget by 6 billion dollars," but fails to mention that figure was spread over six years. It would have represented a 3.7% cut in overall intelligence spending, estimated then at $27 billion per year. Kerry's proposal was part of a large deficit-reduction package that was defeated soundly. For further details on that, see our earlier article on Bush's charge last March that Kerry tried to "gut" intelligence spending.
Sources
Bush Cheney '04, "Bush-Cheney Ad Facts: 'Intel'" News Release, 13 Aug 2004.
John Kerry for President, "Bush-Cheney Ad Fact Check - 'Intel'" News Release, 13 Aug 2004.
Lolita C. Baldor, "Kerry-Kerrey confusion trips up campaign," The Associated Press, 17 Aug 2004.
NBC News, "Meet the Press," 15 Aug 2004
CNN, "Inside Politics Sunday," 15 Aug 2004
Related Articles
Bush Strains Facts Re: Kerry's Plan To Cut Intelligence Funding in '90's
President claims 1995 Kerry plan would "gut" the intelligence services. It was a 1% cut, and key Republicans approved something similar.
posted on August 19, 2004 10:33:05 AMBush sure as hell can't run on his record
He doesn't need to - he was given an honorable discharge....case closed...except to the dems who keep bringing it up.
Another reason he doesn't have to rely on a 30 service record is because he has a much *more current record to run on*. How he reacted in dealing with 9-11 and the terrorists who murdered 3000 innocent Americans and injured many more. AND how he deal with a 12 year long threat to the world by removing saddam from power. His war on terrorism shows a willingness to fight the terrorists....not be like kerry says he will be 'sensitive'
I sure don't want a leader who thinks being 'sensitive' to our enemies is going to change their desire to destroy our economy or our people.
I'm glad the Swift Boat Vets voices are beginning to be heard. It will show kerry for what he was then...a fraud...and what he still is....an elite ultra-liberal traitor to his own country when he returned home from the war. I'm on the side of those who don't believe siding with our enemies is way we want our CIC to run our country. I believe, come Nov. 2, it won't impress many swing voters either.
posted on August 19, 2004 10:56:02 AM
Linda: I sure don't want a leader who thinks being 'sensitive' to our enemies is going to change their desire to destroy our economy or our people.
Then I guess you don't Bush or Cheney either because both of them have used the term "sensitive" to describe the Iraq War.
Let's have a BBQ, Texas style, ROAST BUSH
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YOU CAN'T HAVE BULLSH** WITH OUT BUSH.
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We the people, in order to form a more perfect Union....
.....one Nation indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for ALL.
posted on August 19, 2004 11:00:29 AM
President Bush re-elected by a land slide in Nov.
You know as well as I do reamond, how quickly the political positions can change. A week is a HUGE amount of time for things to *totally* reverse themselves. Take for example what happened with Dean....he was beating kerry by a MILE before the convention. Or does the name McGovern bring back any memories on what the polls were show and what actually happened when the votes were counted.
posted on August 19, 2004 11:00:33 AM
Again because the neocons keep forgetting:
Kerry went and fought IN COMBAT for his country. This is true no matter what the Republican paid detractors say.
Will they say the same about the brave men and women who have fought in Iraq for us???
Will decorated heroes from that war face slander if someday THEY run for office?
YES, they will because the Republicans will stoop to anything to win.
How demoralizing for them knowing that so-called flag waving "patriotic" Republicans will only slander their efforts and sacrifices.
Bush stayed home drunk aiding and abetting the enemy by not fighting. A traitor and a coward
posted on August 19, 2004 11:10:13 AM
LOL - The fact that clinton ran off to England...avoiding the draft totally...protested the war...didn't keep him from getting elected.
And the dems were soooo supportive of his actions....now they try to make claims that President Bush didn't serve....only making themselves look stupid/ignorant.
Claiming this President who like 400,000+ vets have served in the National Guard and who have been given honorable discharges is a joke. Especially when compared to the fact that they were supporting the position it didn't matter if clinton was a draft dodger. Those who make those statements discredit the service of all who HAVE served our country and who are currently serving in Iraq. Shameful - and shows your lack of regard for this branch of our Armed Forces.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"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
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"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:
posted on August 19, 2004 11:15:07 AM
Dr.D. also said: Hacks are using that as evidence that the U.S. government was not in Cambodia in 1968.
Are you calling kerry a hack? He has reversed himself [surprise, surprise] AGAIN and stated - when shown proof of what he'd said on two previous occassions that - he wasn't IN by near the Cambodian boarder. Two of three of those on his OWN boat [two of who stood on stage to support kerry at the DNC convention] have said they never entered Cambodia...AND his own Commanders said they hadn't. Who exactly is the 'hack'?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"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
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"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:
posted on August 19, 2004 11:39:17 AMOr does the name McGovern bring back any memories on what the polls were show and what actually happened when the votes were counted
Does the fact that Gore had over 500,000 more votes than Bush bring back memories?
Let's have a BBQ, Texas style, ROAST BUSH
------------------------------
YOU CAN'T HAVE BULLSH** WITH OUT BUSH.
------------------------------
We the people, in order to form a more perfect Union....
.....one Nation indivisible, With Liberty and Justice for ALL.
posted on August 19, 2004 11:41:04 AMWill decorated heroes from that war face slander if someday THEY run for office?
Only if they turn out to be a traitor like kerry... of course I haven't seen one yet come back and say our troops are commiting atrocities and slandering all the good men and women still there.
As more instances of Sen. John Kerry telling a story about his spending Christmas 1968 in Cambodia come to light, his campaign has yet to address the charge of fellow veterans that the presidential candidate's account is a lie.
As of press time, neither WorldNetDaily nor Fox News Channel has received a response to the charges from Kerry's staff, despite repeated requests.
As WorldNetDaily reported, the authors of the best-selling book "Unfit for Command," which refutes many of Kerry's war stories, claim that despite the senator's 1986 speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate mentioning spending Christmas Eve in Cambodia, the candidate was never in Vietnam's neighboring country.
There are other online links that show maps of the river kerry's swift boats patrolled....and prove they were 50-55 miles from the Cambodian boarder
"I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting in a gunboat in Cambodia," said Kerry on the Senate floor. "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 tell the American people I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia.
"I have the 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 to avoid that kind of conflict."
Kerry spent four months in Vietnam as skipper of a SWIFT Boat before returning to the U.S. and becoming a vocal leader of the anti-war movement.
Sen. John Kerry In a letter to the editor of the Boston Herald in 1979 Kerry wrote, "I remember spending Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real."
Please remember that Nixon wasn't our President in 1968 - LBJ was
The authors of "Unfit for Command" say that during Christmas 1968, Kerry "was more than 50 miles away from Cambodia. Kerry was never ordered into Cambodia by anyone and would have been court-martialed had he gone there."
At the time, Kerry was stationed at Coastal Division 13 in Cat Lo, which had a patrol areas extending to Sa Dec, about 55 miles from the Cambodian border.
All of the surviving officers in Kerry's chain of command deny he was ever ordered to Cambodia: Joe Streuhli, commander of Costal Division 13; George Elliott, commander of Coastal Division 11; Adrian Lonsdale, captain USCG and commander Coastal Surveillance Center at An Thoi; Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, commander of Coastal Surveillance Force Vietnam, CTF 115; and Rear Adm. Art Price, commander of River Patrol Force, CTF 116.
Since WND's story ran Saturday, other media have picked it up, and citations of other comments made by Kerry have been publicized, turning up the heat on Kerry to respond to the charge he lied about the Cambodia excursion.
WorldNetDaily columnist Hugh Hewitt points out other instances of Kerry telling the Cambodia story, including a 1992 AP story.
"We were told, 'Just go up there and do your patrol,'" Kerry told AP. "Everybody was over there (in Cambodia). Nobody thought twice about it."
The AP story continued: "One of the missions, which Kerry, at the time, was ordered not to discuss, involved taking CIA operatives into Cambodia to search for enemy enclaves."
In a Jun 1, 2003, Washington Post story, Kerry talks of carrying a "lucky hat" in his briefcase. The hat, he says, belonged to the CIA agent with whom he claims to have entered Cambodia:
posted on August 19, 2004 12:49:16 PM
kerry's going to first have to make up his mind exactly which story he's going to use to defend his "I was in Cambodia" statement.
At this writing, the Kerry campaign has not yet responded to the media meltdown that is occurring around John Kerry's four decades of stories built on his secret, illegal missions into Cambodia during the four months he skippered a SWIFT boat.
It is impossible to stonewall a story that broke out of the blogosphere and into the major media on Monday night and Tuesday morning, so eventually John Kerry is going to have to stand by his wildly implausible tales of cross-border excellent adventures, or he's going to have to apologize for inventing personal history.
Here are the facts.
Not long after returning from Vietnam, John Kerry began telling people he had been sent into Cambodia on an illegal patrol on Christmas Eve 1968. He repeated that story on the floor of the Senate in 1986, to an AP reporter in 1992, and as recently as June 2003 was regaling a Washington Post reporter with a story of how he had ferried a CIA man secretly into Cambodia, and how he'd kept the man's hat as a reminder of that journey.
The Christmas-Eve-in-Cambodia story has already been completely shredded by the SWIFT boat vet critics of Kerry, and it is hard to imagine how Kerry is going to defend the CIA man who was never there, given independent testimony from Navy vets that the SWIFT boats never went into Cambodian waters.
If Kerry was sent on a secret drop-off mission, he's going to have to come up with some proof, especially with the Christmas Eve narrative now so discredited.
The blogosphere pushed this story forward.........
We teed it up after the publisher of "Unfit for Command" released a sample chapter from the new book which brought the Cambodian myth to light. I spent all day Thursday, Friday and Monday on the story on my radio program, and Monday night Carl Cameron ran with a story on "Special Report" with Brit Hume, followed by an "O'Reilly Factor" segment with Steve Gardener, a SWIFT boat vet who served on Kerry's boat. Gardener denied ever having been to Cambodia.
The Kerry campaign first denied that Kerry had ever claimed to have been in Cambodia, and then recanted upon being shown the 1986 Congressional record, promising to get back to Fox News with an explanation.
No explanation has shown up more than 12 hours later. In the interim, the New York Post has run a story, as has the London Telegraph, and the Washington Times' editors have produced a powerful editorial on the subject.
Why all the attention? Simply put, if John Kerry can be conclusively demonstrated to have lied about aspects of his Vietnam service, the media has to ask what else has he been lying about. The voters have to ask if he can be trusted. In short: Free fall.
The lefty bloggers and talking heads are stunned into silence, and have gotten no help from the Kerry people.
It's hard to spin a story that hasn't been spun by the campaign since Kerry could elect to go in completely different directions. If he hangs tough on the Christmas Eve and CIA man stories, his allies will know to hang tough as well. But they can't do that without a clear signal, because if Kerry comes out and apologizes for a tall tale, the commentators are cut off at the knees.
A nasty dilemma. Perhaps the lefty pundits should try sticking with the truth: It looks very bad for Kerry. It looks like he's been lying and padding his Vietnam resume for decades and that the elite media was so in love with the story they didn't bother to check it out. It looks like Kerry's selective release of his military and health records was smoke, and that the big-time journalists at the New York Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post fell for it.
Now we get to see if there's any pride left in the newsroom. Do any of these writers, reporters and producers resent getting played by Kerry? If so, payback will be stiff. Too early to tell whether Bush-hatred trumps anger at getting suckered. More to follow ...
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edited to add link to read the links referenced in this article.
posted on August 19, 2004 12:58:51 PM
I now understand why certain neocons want bush re-elected even though they can't find anything good to say about him.
He'll keep us in war...nice bloody war. if we run out of adults and children to torture in Iraq I'm sure Syria has plenty!
They enjoy seeing our servicemen and women killed and maimed for no good reason.
Maybe if it hits a little closer to home they won't be so happy to see another four years of the self proclaimed War president....he also says he's the Peace president but who cares about a lttle flip flopping.
