SwiftVets.com

[cedarford]

At an Aug 23rd campaign rally, "Max" Max Cleland charged that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is a slime machine:

The president is so scared of Kerry he's activated a "slime machine to assassinate John Kerry's career, to assassinate John Kerry's character," he said. "They are wrong. John Kerry is going to be the next president of the United States. This is a fight for the soul of our country."
Said Max at a Milwaukee rally

How do you other Vets feel about Max? Sorry for him? Just let him vent his inchoate anger, since it would be inappropriate to criticize Max, given how he lost 3 limbs serving America? Or is he someone who should be confronted?

I don't know. He has gone over the top many times with outrageous accusations, and Kerry has manipulated Cleland into being his personal attack dog, even if Max is cluelessly humiliated in the process - as recently demonstrated in the sorry spectacle of Cleleand down at Bush's Crawford ranch.

IMO, SwiftVets should just ignore MadMax and not respond. Keep your organizational focus on Kerry, not his lackies.

But for the rest of us Vets, I don't think Cleland is sacrosanct, above reproach. As a MBA, my biggest problem is not in Cleland exercising his own 1st Amendment Right to trash Bush or Vets he disagrees with, but that he is AWOL from his 130,000 government job as he campaigns virtually full time for Kerry. Cleland is a patronage leech of the worst sort.

He got it, after a year of being in a miserable funk when he was voted out of the Senate, when he was sponsored by Daschle and Kerry to get a sweet job Board of Director at the Export-Import Bank, where Max votes on approving or disapproving 15 billion in taxpayer-funded loans annually - despite his poor banking oversight credentials - he has degrees only in History, never worked in a business, and only briefly served as a junior member of the Senate Commerce Committee. This is a big deal, highly responsible position in Government that required a Senate vote and Presidential appointment. Every week, the Board meets to determine if the loans they vote on are just pure corporate welfare for a company with good DC lobbyists, or will stimulate US exports and create jobs. The Bank has refused to release Max's attendence to reporters since he joined Kerry's Team, but confirmed that he is still getting his 130,000 in pay plus full benefits and GS supergrade executive perks. They also mention he can still "attend" by phoning in to a Board meeting to cast his vote, assuming he has had time to review the loan applications or other Bank business, but will not confirm or deny Max is even doing that.

Worse than drawing 130K for a job he does little, if at all, is that the squandered pay is a pittance compared to the real damage he could do. If he takes a phone call on Kerrys lear jet to "vote" on a half dozen corporate, state grant, or foreign nation packages a week in the amount of 8 million to 230 million - packages he never heard of before he takes his Kerry Roadtrip calls - Max could make a vote giving a fatcat company tens of millions in corporate welfare with no job or export gains. Or give say 30 million to a poor national credit risk like Haiti to buy 4 million in US construction equipment as part of a road project. I assume that Max, if he actually has bothered to vote, is having a Bank "handler" advise him on how he should vote, but that means he defaults on his Board Oversight role.

In Private business, for years now, the Boardroom "golf buddy" and brother-in-law deadwood types are mostly gone - since insurers, pension fund managers, and big stakeholders concluded they hurt company performance. And Board members are expected to physically attend except in extreme emergency - and to show up with their preparation complete to intelligently vote on Board agenda items.

I personally plan on shopping the story of Cleland's Export-Import Bank shenanigans, and Bank officials covering for him, to Bloggers and the Media. It's clear that Max is really angling for a big job in the Kerry Administration anyways, and regards his current government "job" as an interim paycheck, benefits, and perk source. To get that, Clelend has gone AWOL from his cushy patronage job to campaign - it appears full time - for his Man.

[Colorado Coasty]

I think you are giving way too much credit to Max. While he may be angling for a new higher paying job, I think he's just anxious to get even with Republicans for his recent Senate defeat.

And like most Democrats, he simply hates the President. Hate is a strange emotion. I dislike John Kerry's positions, but I understand that in a personal relationship it might be possible, maybe even probable, to like him. Most Bush haters probably can't give you a rationale to explain their hatred. It could be his anti-abortion stance, his strong religious views, or his family upbringing that gave him a political headstart. It isn't anything he has done since he became President since the vitriol started in the last election.

Max hates the President, and he is willing to disgrace himself to prove it.

[DevilDon]

The way I see it is that it's embarrassing for Max, but he's not mentally disabled. He is going into this with eyes wide open. He chose his path, so be it.

[Rurik]

I'm glad you've put Mad Max on the agenda. I agree that the Swift Vets are wise to ignore him; but he's made himself fair game, necessary game for the rest of us.

First of all, I do feel a certain compassion for him. I'd feel compassion for anyone who lost even a single limb, even in a civilian accident. But compassion is not a blank check nor even a blackout curtain.

When I got back from Nam I took a management job in the summer of 1971 in the VA hospital system, (By the summer fo 1978 I had become too frustrated and burned out and went my own way". I did not have a great regard for the the Adminstrator, Don Johnson - until the fall of 1976 when we got Max Cleland. Max was a numbah 10 suck job even then. He pretended to "support" the veterans, mainly by beating up on the usually hard-working butunderstaffed and frustrated employees. He did nothing to address any of the serious and genuine problems degrading the system. And of course a politically connected vet would always get precedence over an ordinary vet. Instead of monetary bonuses or step increases, we were supposed to reward outstanding performance by first line employees with "VA May I help you" buttons. - That was really appreciated, you bet I heard some of our more bitter staff calling him "The one-armed bandit". Hollow rewards, disloyalty to his people and sucking up to his superiors. Sounds like some officers we encountered. I couldn't help but wonder if that was the sort of officer Captain Cleland had been.

When Max first came to the VA we also heard his story about the tragic grenade accident. But somehow, that story has always seemed to me just a little odd. First, we were also told that Captain Cleland was a Signal Corps officer, which meant he probably led relatively flew combat patrols or air inserts, and probably had little reason for regularly toting grenades. Second, while grenades might fall off somebody's web gear, pins were usually pretty secure, and not known for falling out and arming the grenade all on their own; somebody has to give them a pretty deliberate pull. Another part of the "official resume" was that in his last assignment before coming to Nam, Max had been an aide-de-camp to a general in Germany. OCS, Signal Corps, general's aide in Germany, all that sounds like the sort of background which produces an aggressive stickler for rank and formalities, **** and polish, and who is also probably a shameless self-promoter. And later at the VA we saw precisely that sort of a "leader". You can guess where this is leading... I do not know, but cannot help wondering if Captain Cleland's wounds were accidental or inflicted by one of his own men.

Regardless, he still deserves compassion for his injuries. But there also appears to be a long and consistent pattern of suck selp-promotion and misuse of authority from the start of his career until the present. He certainly seems to be a congenial companion for another self-promoting officer, the one who provoked this website.
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Hating John Kerry continuously since 1971.

Essayons!
Fight Build and Destroy

[lucky]

All I can add to this and since I live in Texas is. HEY MAX!!! WELCOME TO TEXAS. ENJOY THE STAY IF YA CAN BUT GO HOME.
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life is great

[Gray Temples]

Don't you find it ironic that Max has 0 purple hearts and Kerry has 3....this is an object lesson in itself about how the issuance of Purple Hearts is supposed to work!!!....i.e. if no enemy fire, no PH!!!!!

[roughfun]

I read that Max saw a grenade on the ground and and bent over to pick it up. You know the rest. He said it wasnt his. Semper Fi.

[Truegrit]

CedarFord,

Good comment. It doesn't speak well for Kerry that he should pull Max Cleland into this -- into muck of Kerry's own making, or should that be "slime." The Kerry people are desperate.

We must press on.
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Ted Harwood, Ph.D.
Enlisted, U.S. Army ('57-'60)

[Grampa]

Max and the Kerry campaign are playing the Cripple Card to gain sympathy from the press. Its BS and its VERY lowdown and rotten.
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Iraqi Freedom 2003-2004. We won't take any of that 1960s crap when We come home!

[air_vet]

[cedarford]

Rurik -

Good insights. Sorry about your experiences with "Mad" Max at the VA. I read a management case study on the VA a while ago that dealt with the VA's structural problems in the 70's and 80s. Essentially: (1) it was hard to get Congress to appropriate funds when the economy was bad. (2) The VA had lots of political hacks that hadn't bothered to modernize infrastructure in the 50's and 60's - other priorities. So some facilities were, no exaggeration, abysmal. (3) Demand for VA services surged as the first big wave of WWII soldiers reached late middle age, needed more medical services and sent to the VA as they were told they were entitled to as Veterans - and add in the younger soldiers still needing care for Vietnam traumas, diseases and the Cold War contingent disabled elsewhere.

So Cleland was dealt a bad hand of cards to begin with - but like you I fault him for trying to deal with it by beating up the VA staff. It's one thing as a manager to be focused hard on your customers - that's good - but if you see your employees as serfs to be treated like dirt and lied to in the process, you are not a manager that is strengthening the organization, but bleeding it's vitality to achieve short-term goals.

The case study said that administrator aloofness to problems at field hospitals and frustration that things weren't getting better had led many caregivers to flee the VA as a poor place to have a caregiver career. Which of course worsened the situation.

I also fault Cleland and other appointees for failing to forcefully tell Congress the VA was in crisis and desperately needed funds - and that if funds weren't coming, they would have to resign.

That would be asking a lot of Party hacks, and Max was one of many that didn't step up.

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On the grenade biz, that is one incident I hope doesn't get revisited with a full inquiry. THere are a lot of war and peacetime screwups that happen in the military - and I personally think witch hunts are counter-productive. That said, Max's whole story is still fishy. My limited experience with grenades (smoke only) was that they had a healthy respect given to them, like any weapon. Not just your own, but the weapons carried into your midst by others. You get ready to get on a helicopter and someone (in my limited experience) always ordered "ensure all weapons safed". The last thing you would want is a grenade accidentally made "live" on a packed helo in in close quarters on a boat or mess hall.

I remember the pin was hard to pull on the practice smoke grenade, and that you had to squeeze the safety lever down to make pulling the pin easier. After that, I had high confidence that the pin wouldn't just fall out if I dropped the grenade or it got jostled or if it got rolled half a mile down a rocky slope (not that I would try it!). Also, when the lever flew off, it made a "tiiuuung" sort of noise. I don't know if a Vietnam-era fragmentation grenade is similar in it's safeties characteristics, but I suspect it is.

The latest on his accident is that another soldier started claiming it was his grenade that he tampered with the safeties, that nailed Max, not one of Max's own grenades. The guy called into a talk show Max was on. I would like someone to look into that - not to open a criminal charge or do a witch hunt, but see if this guy, David Lloyd, was BS-ing. Max said he started going away in a helicopter, dropped out because he changed his mind at the last instant, was the only one to do so, and underneath the helicopter, in the LZ, he noticed a grenade and picked it up........

I know most soldiers on the ground do not hang around underneath a landing or departing helo, especially in a place where it is possible hostile fire might be directed at the helo, and when the risk of a crash and flying rotor fragements is greatest. So I wonder how Lloyd was in a position to "accidentally drop" his grenade right where Max jumped out of a helo taking off. It makes me curious, and spectulative that something else happened - as more likely. (1) That it was Max's own grenade that accidentally went off, and he had tampered with the safeties earlier. (2) That Max deliberately armed the grenade after the helo departed - intending to throw it like a firecracker for some post-beer consumption fun, or sad to think - he was suicidal...(3) Lloyd was well back at minimum safe distance from the rising helo, and chucked the grenade towards Max.

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I do plan on filing a FOIA request with the Export-Import Bank, requesting attendence information on all Board meetings for all Board members in 2004 so far. In the request, I will ask for a distinction to be made on physical prescence and "attendence by calling in to the meeting". I expect to be turned down, as a few reporters have been. And bear in mind that there are a few Republican hacks on patronage there too, and maybe their attendence is less than stellar. But I will post the Bank's response to my FOIA request later on, on this thread or a new thread on SwiftVets.com. If they actually do give me attendence records, I suspect they will show that Max has indeed been AWOL from his 136,000 taxpayer provided job to campaign virtually full time for Kerry.

[GoophyDog]

Max Clelland had an accident.

Max Clelland did not:

1. lie about the incident to garner awards or glory, he's always maintained it was an accident.
2. return to the states and condem his fellow soldiers.
3. throw his medals over a wall.
4. go into nor ever say he was in Cambodia
5. use his political office to grandstand his actions in Vietnam.
6. make false statements in on the senate or congressional floors to further bolster his "heroism".

Max Clelland is a tool. He's not and should not be the focus of attention even if that is what his party's candidate is trying to do in an effort to divert attention off himself.

Look at the track record folks its all there: lie, deny, divert. Don't fall for it, stay focused regardless of what Kerry's minions do.
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Why ask? Because it needs asking.