| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
FF1047
Lieutenant
Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 222
|
 Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 4:00 pm Post subject: Kerry's Cambodia Whopper (Wash Post article) fixed ... |
 |
|
article in todays Washington Post ...
| Quote: | Kerry's Cambodia Whopper
By Joshua Muravchik
Tuesday, August 24, 2004; Page A17
Most of the debate between the former shipmates who swear by John Kerry and the group of other Swift boat veterans who are attacking his military record focuses on matters that few of us have the experience or the moral standing to judge. But one issue, having nothing to do with medals, wounds or bravery under fire, goes to the heart of Kerry's qualifications for the presidency and is therefore something that each of us must consider. That is Kerry's apparently fabricated claim that he fought in Cambodia.
It is an assertion he made first, insofar as the written record reveals, in 1979 in a letter to the Boston Herald. Since then he has repeated it on at least eight occasions during Senate debate or in news interviews, most recently to The Post this year (an interview posted on Kerry's Web site). The most dramatic iteration came on the floor of the Senate in 1986, when he made it the centerpiece of a carefully prepared 20-minute oration against aid to the Nicaraguan contras.
Kerry argued that contra aid could put the United States on the path to deeper involvement despite denials by the Reagan administration of any such intent. Kerry began by reading out similar denials regarding Vietnam from presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. Then he offered this devastating riposte:
"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."
However seared he was, Kerry's spokesmen now say his memory was faulty. When the Swift boat veterans who oppose Kerry presented statements from his commanders and members of his unit denying that his boat entered Cambodia, none of Kerry's shipmates came forward, as they had on other issues, to corroborate his account. Two weeks ago Kerry's spokesmen began to backtrack. First, one campaign aide explained that Kerry had patrolled the Mekong Delta somewhere "between" Cambodia and Vietnam. But there is no between; there is a border. Then another spokesman told reporters that Kerry had been "near Cambodia." But the point of Kerry's 1986 speech was that he personally had taken part in a secret and illegal war in a neutral country. That was only true if he was "in Cambodia," as he had often said he was. If he was merely "near," then his deliberate misstatement falsified the entire speech.
Next, the campaign leaked a new version through the medium of historian Douglas Brinkley, author of "Tour of Duty," a laudatory book on Kerry's military service. Last week Brinkley told the London Telegraph that while Kerry had been 50 miles from the border on Christmas, he "went into Cambodian waters three or four times in January and February 1969 on clandestine missions." Oddly, though, while Brinkley devotes nearly 100 pages of his book to Kerry's activities that January and February, pinpointing the locations of various battles and often placing Kerry near Cambodia, he nowhere mentions Kerry's crossing into Cambodia, an inconceivable omission if it were true.
Now a new official statement from the campaign undercuts Brinkley. It offers a minimal (thus harder to impeach) claim: that Kerry "on one occasion crossed into Cambodia," on an unspecified date. But at least two of the shipmates who are supporting Kerry's campaign (and one who is not) deny their boat ever crossed the border, and their testimony on this score is corroborated by Kerry's own journal, kept while on duty. One passage reproduced in Brinkley's book says: "The banks of the [Rach Giang Thanh River] whistled by as we churned out mile after mile at full speed. On my left were occasional open fields that allowed us a clear view into Cambodia. At some points, the border was only fifty yards away and it then would meander out to several hundred or even as much as a thousand yards away, always making one wonder what lay on the other side." His curiosity was never satisfied, because this entry was from Kerry's final mission.
After his discharge, Kerry became the leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). Once, he presented to Congress the accounts by his VVAW comrades of having "personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires . . . to human genitals . . . razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan . . . poisoned foodstocks." Later it was shown that many of the stories on which Kerry based this testimony were false, some told by impostors who had stolen the identities of real GIs, but Kerry himself was not implicated in the fraud. And his own over-the-top generalization that such "crimes [were] committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command" could be charged up to youthfulness and the fevers of the times.
But Kerry has repeated his Cambodia tale throughout his adult life. He has claimed that the epiphany he had that Christmas of 1968 was about truthfulness. "One of the things that most struck me about Vietnam was how people were lied to," he explained in a subsequent interview. If -- as seems almost surely the case -- Kerry himself has lied about what he did in Vietnam, and has done so not merely to spice his biography but to influence national policy, then he is surely not the kind of man we want as our president.
The writer is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. |
_________________
JJC
USNA class of 1980
Last edited by FF1047 on Tue Aug 24, 2004 4:42 pm; edited 2 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Scott
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 24 May 2004
Posts: 1603
Location: Massachusetts
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 4:01 pm Post subject: |
|
|
The WaPo site can't find the page you linked to.
_________________
Bye bye, Boston Straggler! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
You GottaBeKidding
Rear Admiral
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
Posts: 692
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 4:02 pm Post subject: |
|
|
link needs to be edited to remove the code at the end and it requires registration
Last edited by You GottaBeKidding on Tue Aug 24, 2004 4:04 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Skywatch
Ensign
Joined: 22 Aug 2004
Posts: 74
Location: Michigan
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
You GottaBeKidding
Rear Admiral
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
Posts: 692
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kmudd
Master Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 16 Aug 2004
Posts: 825
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 4:20 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Wow that was a damming piece againt Kerry. I am suprized it saw the light of day in the Post. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Jungle_rat
Lt.Jg.
Joined: 20 Aug 2004
Posts: 106
Location: Geyserville, CA
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 4:34 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | | Wow that was a damming piece againt Kerry. I am suprized it saw the light of day in the Post. |
Not when you consider the Clinton camp wants him to lose.
This is why the MSM helped slam Dean.
There's more going on here than meets the eye.
I can't stand Clinton, but if he want to help SBVT take Kerry down, fine by me...he owes us bigtime.
_________________
"Medals do not make a man. Morals do."-Don Bendell |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mjanay
Ensign
Joined: 20 Aug 2004
Posts: 51
Location: NY NY
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 4:38 pm Post subject: |
|
|
"McCain was right, and when he returns to the United States from a trip to Europe this week, he should stand up for that principle by suspending his campaigning for Bush's reelection until the smears against Kerry's Vietnam record stop. More than anyone, McCain is the person to make the case that slaughterhouse politics is particularly ill-suited to this moment in our history. "
McCain may well be the nail in Kerry's coffin.
If he comes back, and tells the world that SBVT have nothing to do with the Bush campaign, Kerry's strategy is sunk. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kmudd
Master Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 16 Aug 2004
Posts: 825
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 4:41 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Clinton also brought in Wesley Clark to try and mess up the Democratic primaries. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kmudd
Master Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 16 Aug 2004
Posts: 825
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 4:43 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| In New Jersey the Dems changed canidates at the last minute in the senate race maybe they will switch to Hillary? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
scotty61
LCDR
Joined: 07 May 2004
Posts: 419
Location: Glyndon MN
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 5:03 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| The problem with the Hillary scenario is that you have to register as a candidate in every state to be on the ballot. In many you have to file by party. If Kerry drops out, depending on the timing, the deadline to register may have passed or the process to file by party may not allow substitution. This is what happened in New Jersey, but I doubt that all the rest of the states' supreme courts will be as compliant as Jersey's. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rsrobinson
Seaman Recruit
Joined: 21 Aug 2004
Posts: 20
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 5:36 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| kmudd wrote: | | Wow that was a damming piece againt Kerry. I am suprized it saw the light of day in the Post. |
The Washington Post has been better than the wretched New York Times in investigating the Swiftees claims rather than just denouncing them out-of-hand. Not a high bar to clear to be sure but give them a bit of credit.
I'm getting the feeling that the media is beginning to smell blood in the water. As much as most journalists hate Bush they hate missing a big story even more. If more of this stuff on Kerry starts to stick they'll begin pouncing on Kerry's record like Michael Moore on a cheeseburger. I think we're near the tippling point. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
neverforget
Vice Admiral
Joined: 18 Jul 2004
Posts: 875
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 5:40 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| scotty61 wrote: | | The problem with the Hillary scenario is that you have to register as a candidate in every state to be on the ballot. In many you have to file by party. If Kerry drops out, depending on the timing, the deadline to register may have passed or the process to file by party may not allow substitution. This is what happened in New Jersey, but I doubt that all the rest of the states' supreme courts will be as compliant as Jersey's. |
It would be a logistical nightmare, but I bet they could find judge after judge to allow them to circumvent whatever laws there may be. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
GenrXr
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 05 Aug 2004
Posts: 1720
Location: Houston
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 5:54 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Hillary does not want to take on an incumbent Bush. No way she would even attempt a bid against him.
_________________
"An activist is the person who cleans up the water, not the one claiming its dirty."
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Founder of Conservative Philosophy |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Polaris
Rear Admiral
Joined: 16 Aug 2004
Posts: 626
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2004 6:00 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I agree with GenXr. Baring something outright criminal (which is possible given the political damage Kerry is taking for not signing that SF 180), the Dems will hold their noses and allow Kerry to lose. IMHO they expected to lose regardless when the primary season started.
If, OTOH, Kerry does step down, I expect Edwards to be the sacrificial lamb.
_________________
-Polaris
Truth is Beauty |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
