SwiftVets.com

[Aristotle The Hun]

You folks have probably seen this before but just in case you haven't:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1202276/posts
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Deportè Monsieur Kerrè

[Aristotle The Hun]

http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2007/11/pickens-v-kerry.html

Pickens v. Kerry - The Swift Battle Continues
Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens came on Hannity and Colmes last night to explain the staus of his proposed bet with John Kerry regarding the veracity of the Swift Boat ads that helped scuttle Kerry's ship in 2004.

When last we looked, the LA Times was reporting that Pickens seemed to be backing away from his original proposal; Chris Cilizza of the WaPo Fix has additional background, and the letters exchanged by Kerry and Pickens can be found at Mr. Pickens' website.

Mr. Pickens introduces some clarity early on - his wager related specifically to the ads run by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, so "Unfit For Command" and the many other talk-show discussions and newspaper op-eds are not in play.
Colmes reveals his unfamiliarity with the material and recycles a classic lib pratfall here:

COLMES: We had William [Rood] of The Chicago Tribune, the only living officer who was with John Kerry when he earned his Silver Star who talks about that [link], yes, John Kerry earned that Silver Star. He did everything that he claimed he did, versus what the swift boaters said. And he came out in The Chicago Tribune, for whom he writes, again claiming that the swift boaters were absolutely wrong in the thing that they said.

Here we go again - there were no Swifties who claimed to have witnessed the Silver Star incident! The basis of the controversy surrounding that incident was that the versions of the incident - basically, Kerry's citation and Kerry's own interview with the Boston Globe from 2003 - were somewhat different. (If someone has a link to the evolving Kerry citations, that would be lovely - I had been going to the Kerry campaign website, which was short-sighted of me.)

Well. I think Pickens moved the goalposts a bit by asking Kerry to risk his own cash, a notion not in his original proposal. And I can see where Kerry has weasel room on full disclosure of his records and diary - if Kerry only intends to dispute one incident to prove the Swifties to be lying, why should he provide records not relevant to that incident?

Grrr - badly framed by Mr. Pickens. But time is on his side:

PICKENS: He hasn't released anything. But Sean, you know, he's just now answering something that happened three years ago. And so I don't want to rush him into a response. I mean, he can take as long as he wants. The bet's open.

Troubling - Mr. Pickens is walking the fine line between clarifying and backing out, although another theory says that this is the classic way to lure a mark.

STILL THE ONE: I will modestly assert familiarity with the various Swift charges and opine that the best chance for crushing Kerry lies with the story around Kerry's first Purple Heart. Part of the controversy revolves around just who was with Kerry when he did or did not engage the enemy for the first time; Zaladonis, who was a crewman on Kerry's first boat, told people in 2004 that he was with Kerry and vouched for his conduct, but that colorful tale was never elicted by either historian Douglas Brinkley or Boston Globe reporter Michael Kranish when they interviewed Zaladonis in 2003.

So, Zaladonis remembers it as "one of the scariest nights I've had in my life", it was his first side-by-side adventure with John Kerry, it was Kerry's first medal and first combat, yet Zaladonis never mentioned it to anyone in 2003? Troubling - one might almost suspect that he only realized in 2004 that Kerry's story could use a bit of support.

Of course neither Brinkley nor Kranish are in a hurry to follow-up on this and perhaps pen the story about how they were duped by Kerry's Band of Brothers in 2004, so here we sit. But it is possible that Kerry's war diary could shed some light on the incident - although one might have expected Kerry to have penned some contemporaneous thoughts about his first medal, Brinkley never cites Kerry's account when re-telling that tale. Again, troubling.
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Deportè Monsieur Kerrè

[Me#1You#10]

[kate]

[BuffaloJack]

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Swift Boats - Qui Nhon (12/69-4/70), Cat Lo (4/70-5/70), Vung Tau (5/70-12/71)

[Me#1You#10]

I was wondering where that graphic was from and stumbled onto it tonite just by happenstance...musta been dat cheesesteak what done it after all...