SwiftVets.com

[theflickster]

Kerry’s Allergy to the Truth
Joan Swirsky
September 10, 2004
http://www.therant.us/staff/guest/swirsky/kerrys_allergy_to_the_truth.htm

A few years ago, I mentioned to a colleague that I had a twin brother. Since she had never heard me speak of him before, her incredulous reaction was, “No way!”

It took me about five minutes to search through some files I keep in my home until I produced both of our birth certificates and promptly made her a true believer.

Of course, I could have taken a different tack, angrily accusing her of attacking my credibility, reproaching her for even suggesting that I was making up the existence of my twin and calling her friends to insist that they stop her from spreading her doubts about my veracity.

But then again, I’m not John Kerry, to whom the simple truth seems to produce nothing less than a full-blown allergic reaction.

For instance, over the past month, Kerry has been assailed by accusations from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth about the legitimacy of the two medals and three purple hearts he received during his four months in Vietnam, the accuracy of the after-action and medical-treatment reports he submitted to the Navy that ostensibly attested to their merit, and the possibly treasonous action he took following his service in which he testified before Congress about the “war crimes” both his fellow soldiers and his country committed.

It would have been so easy for Kerry to counter each accusation with the kind of hard data that would be immediately available if he simply signed Standard Form 180, allowing the Department of Defense to release the entire record from his days in Vietnam, or releasing the entire journal he kept in Vietnam (and not just self-aggrandizing tidbits as he has done so far) as well as all the film he shot in jungle reenactments of his own exploits.

Instead of taking the advice of his official biographer, Douglas Brinkley, to open up his military records to the public, Kerry – to avoid fessing up – has figuratively coughed and gasped and wheezed and sneezed around the truth, preferring to consult the Democrats’ encyclopedic “Playbook of Avoiding Accountability.” We all know the chapter headings well:

▪ Attack the messengers. As Kerry has the 254, mostly-decorated Swift Boat Vets (SBV), as well as the author of the best-selling “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,” John O’Neill.

▪ Pressure the media. As Kerry has, either imploring or threatening them not to play the SBVet’s TV ads.

▪ Call in the lawyers. As Kerry has by sending his to the Federal Election Commission to have the FEC stop those big, bad Swifties.

▪ Engage in denial. As Kerry has in saying that members of his campaign staff are somehow not accountable for their close ties with numerous 527 groups – but that the solitary 527 the Swift Vets have now formed is worthy only of vilification.

▪ Lie. As Kerry has about his so-called foray into Cambodia and his first purple heart until, that is, “evidence” proved that he was lying!

▪ Deny the facts. As Kerry has by continuing to insist that those pesky empirical things are not important when propounded by the “right wing attack machine.”

And then, in a huge and revealing blunder, Kerry dispatched his surrogates to plead his case to the man he clearly considers THE AUTHORITY FIGURE in matters of judgment and power: President Bush!

With a remarkable lack of self-awareness and a desperation bordering on hysteria, he literally threw himself at the mercy of his rival, in essence saying: “This isn’t fair, Daddy, but you’re big and I’m small so you fix it!”

Without the manliness to stand on his own two feet and face his questioners head on – indeed with a timidity rivaling Caspar Milquetoast’s – he literally begged for help from his arch political enemy.

“If he groveled in front of George Bush even before the GOP convention,” said journalist Raymond S. Kraft, “how will he deal with the likes of Kim Jong Il and Osama bin Laden? They're gonna have him for breakfast!”

It looks now like those hungry terrorists will have to wait in line. And that Kerry and company may run out of their wheezing and sneezing evasions and accusations before the month is up.

Any day now, CSPAN may run the original tape of Kerry’s Congressional testimony in 1971, so that all the world can see exactly what slanderous words he used to indict the entire American armed forces and our country itself – while hundreds of thousands continued to fight in the jungles of Vietnam and others were being tortured in North Vietnam’s prison camps.

And Kerry will (or should) have to explain why he told a student newspaper at West Virginia's Bethany College in 1971:

"Our democracy is a farce; it is not the best in the world."

And Kerry will surely have to respond to the Navy’s recent decision to investigate his days in Vietnam and his anti-war activities that followed – including his meeting with North Vietnamese and Viet Cong delegations in Paris, while he was still a member of the Naval Reserve.

The “unresolved allegations against Kerry,” said Judicial Watch, “include false official reports and statements; dishonorable conduct; aiding the enemy; dereliction of duty; misuse and abuse of U.S. government equipment and property; war crimes; and multiple violations of U.S. Navy regulations and directives, the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the U.S. Code.”

Further, Kerry will (or should) surely be called on to explain why the Silver Star he received in 1969 – our nation’s third-highest award for heroism – was signed by Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, who did not serve in this capacity until 1981-1987! And, for that matter, why the medal appeared on his website with a combat V even though the combat V is never given with the Silver Star award.

"It is a total mystery to me," Lehman recently told the Chicago Sun-Times. "I never saw it. I never signed it. I never approved it. And the additional language it contains was not written by me."

And Kerry will be unable to avoid explaining why his military service ended in 1972 but he didn’t receive an honorable discharge until 2001.

And that is not to omit the all-important questions of his 20-year voting record in the U.S. Senate, during which he consistently voted to gut our military, intelligence and defense budgets.

Will Kerry respond to these legitimate questions – after all, he is running for president! Will he miraculously be cured of his allergy to the truth and give the American people the straight answers they want and deserve?

It doesn’t look that way. After consulting with Bill Clinton a few hours before the former president underwent heart surgery, Kerry apparently reinforced his supply of Kleenex, preferring – as always – to eschew the truth in preference to wheezing and sneezing his way through the rest of his campaign.

But his “new” strategy, as articulated by both his old team and his new Clintonian advisors, looks suspiciously like the one he’s been using all along: attack the messenger of a strong defense and good economy (Bush); pressure the leftist media to spin their tangled web of anti-Bush, pro-Kerry propaganda; continue to lie about his service in Vietnam; and if all else fails, drag out the old, tired, debunked Halliburton mantra.

And then take the very original advice he received from Clinton: assail Bush on domestic issues! Now why would Clinton set Kerry up to walk straight into this minefield? After all, when Clinton was running for reelection in 1996:

▪ The unemployment rate was 6.2%. Today, under Bush, it’s 5.4% – with 1.7 million new jobs created and a record of steady job growth for the last 12 months!

▪ The inflation rate was 2.6%. Today, under Bush, it’s 1.9%!

▪ The mortgage rate was 7.81%. Today, under Bush, it’s 5.86% – at a 20-year low!

And let’s not forget that when Kerry’s hero, President Carter, took office in 1977, the inflation rate was 6.62%, then it jumped to 7.59%, then it soared to 11.28%, and then in 1980 it hit a high of 13.48%! Additionally, Carter’s unemployment rate was 10%. And this is the man who Kerry listens to!

Then there is healthcare. When Kerry had every opportunity to improve Medicare and prescription drug benefits during the eight-year Clinton administration, he supported “HillaryCare" – a disastrous socialized medicine scheme that was totally repudiated by the Congress and the country.

In contrast, Bush has already improved Medicare and, for the first time in history, introduced a prescription drug benefit.

These, of course, are facts, which are tantamount to deadly allergens to those like Kerry who break out in hives when truth is in the neighborhood. That is why it is clear that what the American public can expect from the Senate’s Number One liberal in the next several weeks is more coughing, more dripping, more wheezing, more sneezing and a warehouse worth of Kleenex!

Honestly, the whole sorry sight of Kerry reminds me of Rumplestiltskin and I suspect his fate will be the same as the gnome-like, fairy-tale figure. If you remember, Rumplestiltkin helped a miller’s daughter spin straw into gold in order to please their avaricious king. When the king promised to marry the girl if she could produce the gold a third time, Rumplestiltkin wanted something in return; her first-born child!

A year later, when he came to collect the child, the young mother wept, so Rumplestiltskin said he would spare her if she could guess his name. After she guessed inaccurately time after time, one of the castle’s spies found out the secret. And when the man who had spun straw into gold came to collect the baby, certain that his name would never be guessed, the young mother blurted out “Rumplestiltskin”!

And guess what Rumplestiltkin did when the truth came out? He became so irrationally enraged that he took hold of his left foot with both hands and pulled so hard that he tore himself in two!

Mmmm. Sounds like poetic justice for the “two Americas” candidate.

Joan Swirsky is a New York-based journalist and author.
_________________
If Kerry is the answer.... It must have been a STUPID question.