# John Kerry and Vietnam **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 4, 2004, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262 "2004-08-04T11:19:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 47
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/921 "2004-08-28T04:38:29Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Yah, I screwed up the coding. Pisses me off to no end but I have dial-up and it is a PIA to use preview post repeatedly. I will probably buy faster service the next time I fold a keyboard in half. You really should spring for cable or DSL, if you can get it. It’s the difference between (as Twain said of the right and almost-right word) the lightning and the lightning bug. Or between a fire hose and a garden hose. > [@](#): > > The Swiftboat Vets are taking their anger out on Senator Kerry over every aspect of his career. It’s free speech, it’s sad politics, and if Kerry had included them in his war crimes mia culpa he would have more Veteran votes today. If you put yourself in the SB Vet’s shoes, they watched him publicly agonize over his treatment of the Vietnamese and wonder where their apology was. That just made it worse. My feeling on this is that certain vets will/can never forgive _ **anyone** _ who protested the Vietnam War, no matter what mea culpa may be offered them. I doubt there is anything that Kerry could say or do to win over O’Neill, for example – the blinding, relentless hatred is too strong. I believe that some vets (and civilians, for that matter) simply can’t perceive _ **any** _ criticism of the government’s course during wartime as anything other than treasonous aid and comfort to the enemy; that to admit its validity to any degree would wholly invalidate their own experience of that war, leaving only futile hollowness behind. (Please note: I don’t ascribe this irrational emotionalism to ALL Kerry detractors. I DO believe it’s the motivation for some.) > [@](#): > > I am going to toss a softball up so someone can knock it down (not sure how to Google it) Did Lt. Kerry really film himself while piloting a boat (camera in one hand)? If this is true his crewmates would have to think him the glory hound. I hope it’s not true but I would like to bury it. I came across it looking for something else and now I can’t find it. I recall reading somewhere in this morass of a thread an assertion that very little of the home-movie footage Kerry shot actually shows him; most of it is the sort of “lookee this place!” stuff that any young man in a strange new place might shoot. But I stand (sit, actually, cat-lapped) to be corrected. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/922 "2004-08-28T04:38:57Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > By these standards, Kerry’s fitreps were a signal to him that his services were valued in wartime, but the Navy didn’t want him to stick around and make the service a career. Kerry had many “excellents” and even many “superiors” which were a death knell to the selection boards. When did the republicanization of the officer corps start? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/923 "2004-08-28T04:44:59Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > When did the republicanization of the officer corps start? You might want to ask my old skipper that question, **Squink**. He grew up in Lower Manhattan. I don’t think he ever saw a Republican until he got his Academy appointment. He was a Clinton Democrat, to my recollection. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/924 "2004-08-28T05:13:26Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > You really should spring for cable or DSL, if you can get it. It’s the difference between (as Twain said of the right and almost-right word) the lightning and the lightning bug. Or between a fire hose and a garden hose. > > \*\* I’m going to remember the lightning bug quote.\*\* > > My feeling on this is that certain vets will/can never forgive _ **anyone** _ who protested the Vietnam War, no matter what mea culpa may be offered them. I doubt there is anything that Kerry could say or do to win over O’Neill, for example – the blinding, relentless hatred is too strong. I believe that some vets (and civilians, for that matter) simply can’t perceive _ **any** _ criticism of the government’s course during wartime as anything other than treasonous aid and comfort to the enemy; that to admit its validity to any degree would wholly invalidate their own experience of that war, leaving only futile hollowness behind. (Please note: I don’t ascribe this irrational emotionalism to ALL Kerry detractors. I DO believe it’s the motivation for some.) > > \*\* I agree there are some veterans who will never forgive him. I’ve met Vets who still will not buy a Japanese car because of their war experiences and ditto for the Jane Fonda crowd. I still think an apology would have prevented the SB Vets from breaking the surface before the election. It took them 8 months to get any media time. 3 more months would have made all the difference.\*\* > > I recall reading somewhere in this morass of a thread an assertion that very little of the home-movie footage Kerry shot actually shows him; most of it is the sort of “lookee this place!” stuff that any young man in a strange new place might shoot. But I stand (sit, actually, cat-lapped) to be corrected. **What you say makes sense. It was the description of him holding a camera in one hand while steering with the other that caught my eye (I’ve actually tried this in a plane and it was hard to do). It was from a website that was gunning for Kerry so I took it with a block of salt.** ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/925 "2004-08-28T05:35:30Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > You might want to ask my old skipper that question, **Squink**. He grew up in Lower Manhattan. I don’t think he ever saw a Republican until he got his Academy appointment. > > He was a Clinton Democrat, to my recollection. Shrug it off with a personal anecdote if you will **Mr. Moto**. There are other sources for the information: > [@](#): > > Historians think that during World War II, when most soldiers had grown up during the Roosevelt '30s, the military was more Democratic than Republican. By the early ‘60s, the ranks reflected the conservatism of the 1950s. Vietnam made the military even more conservative. First, the all-volunteer military established by the 1973 abolition of the draft gave the troops a different demographic cast. They were disproportionately Southern, rural, poor, and morally traditional-the cultural base which would drive Nixon’s Southern Majority and, 30 years later, Red America. Second, and perhaps more importantly, scholars say, men who had fought in Vietnam came out of that era with the sharp sense that they had been abandoned by American liberals, and to a lesser extent by the nation as a whole. A profound cultural divide appeared to develop between civilians and the military, two institutions with different sets of values. The distinction served, social scientists say, to help sharpen the soldiers’ conservatism. [Corps Voters](http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0311.wallace-wells.html) I’ll bet that trend moved a lot of outstanding officer’s checkmarks over into the merely ‘excellent’ category. ---
**Author:** ![SnakeSpirit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snakespirit/32/7271_2.png) [@SnakeSpirit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnakeSpirit)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/926 "2004-08-28T05:41:08Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > I’m not sure what to make of his purple hearts. Since I’m not a Veteran I don’t like commenting on them. I think the damage to his image in this area is from the perception of what it takes to get one. I use to think that a purple heart required some kind of down time (broken leg, shredded skin, etc…) but that is not true from what I’ve read. Unfortunately, the court of public opinion will probably see it in a similar light. Everyone’s cut themself and needed a Band-Aid ™ or received a bruise so it’s hard for people to equate a purple heart to a minor injury. With Purple Hearts, you gotta remember: It’s better to make a mistake and award one than to deny one honestly earned. In spite of the fact they they are (or were, anyway) made from 24k. gold. If you get injured as a result of enemy action, you deserve one. It’s a tight club; there a lot more vets without them than with them. Plus, let’s remember, this is VietNam, not as clean as Wichata, and even a minor wound can be life-threatening. And as to whether the schrapnel was from kerry’s grenade or the deadly VC rice, or from his M-79 round (which generally speaking do not bite back, they throw schrapnel at 90 degrees from the plane of trajectory in 360 degrees around - I had one go off about 15 feet or so from me, but I was behind it and therefore safe {they don’t arm until they have traveled a certain distance from the barrel - hence at point blank range they don’t detonate} it’s real hard to catch schrapnel from your own M-79) or some other cause is irrelevent. Fact: More people die in hospitals from sepsis (secondary infection) than from the original cause for admission. In combat conditions, infection is probably even easier to acquire, save for the good first aid we got from corpsmen. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/927 "2004-08-28T05:44:14Z")
What apology does he owe for telling the truth? And to whom? ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/928 "2004-08-28T06:03:24Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > that to admit its validity to any degree would wholly invalidate their own experience of that war, leaving only futile hollowness behind. I think what you say is probably true. And I really have trouble understanding the attitude. The bomb group I was in in WWII bombed lots of things. I’ve since come to believe that bombing communication facilities, bridges rail yards etc., close to an area right before planned ground action in that area was useful. However I also think that bombing such facilities way behind the lines wasn’t effective. By that I mean, the effort on the part of the US in conducting the raid was probably equal to the damage that resulted to the enemy. For example we bombed a rail yard near Kaiserslautern so regularly that the railroad put us on the timetable, but I don’t think we interrupted service for long because they got very good indeed at rapid repairs. However I don’t feel that my service was in any way invalidated. Most people have trouble accepting what a teeney little pimple on the elephant’s ass they are in a war. I did what I was told to do and if I was told to do something that didn’t advance the war effort much, so what? ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/929 "2004-08-28T06:45:40Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > I’ll bet that trend moved a lot of outstanding officer’s checkmarks over into the merely ‘excellent’ category. I’ll take merely ‘excellent’ over ‘grossly incompetent’ every single day of the year. ‘Mediocre’ would be a vast _improvement_ over the lying idiot we’ve got in charge now. And after having met him, I can now concur that John Kerry is, indeed, inspirational, contagiously enthusiastic, diplomatic, dynamic and “particularly dept in his relations with people from all strata.” I’d also add insightful, charming, witty, intelligent and warm. And apropos of nothing; tall. Very, very tall! As to **Magiver** , all I can do is drop my jaw in utter disbelief. Although it should come as no surprise to me that there are people out there like you, who actually believe that the hideousness of war crimes should be hidden from the public, never exposed and only discussed behind closed doors, given that that’s exactly the frightening mentality with which our Despicable Misleader is trying to run our country. It should come as no surprise that I vehemently disagree with you. What John Kerry did when he came back from 'Nam was _honorable_. He owes _no one_ an apology for speaking the truth and exposing the criminal activity that some of our troops were perpetrating on fellow human beings. It turns my stomach that you actually condone secrecy over exposure. I thank G-d not all men are like you, or we’d never have learned about the atrocities of Abu Ghraib. And without the public outrage, I have my doubts that those horrifying abuses would have ever stopped (if they even have, seeing as how the monster who wrote the ““Interrogation Rules of Engagement,” specifying that soldiers… may subject prisoners to dietary manipulation, sleep deprivation, stress positions and the “presence of mil working dogs”,” is now in charge of _all_ the prisons in Iraq. “Instead of court-martialing the man who authored the plan to subject prisoners at Abu Ghraib to harsh abuses, Rumsfeld has left him in charge of the facility.” [[Source](http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story?id=6388256&rnd=1091336776270&rnd=1091358611905&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.687)].) And Kerry should have kept it behind closed doors? Astonishing. > [@Zoe](#): > > Then would you mind using your excellent powers of persuasion to get me back in good with elucidator? You see, he’s creative and can get away with a lot of things that retired English teachers can’t. I think he misunderstood something I said about a split infinitive and he said something thrilling but vile about my horse and me. My horse can’t quit grinning, but I’ve been a little glum ever since. I’m sorry I seem to have missed this earlier. I do so wish I could help, but besides not really having an “in” with **elucidator** , myself, I’m finding myself a bit distracted by that bright, shiny smile on your horse. 😃 [sub][sup](I have the feeling I’m being whooshed, somehow. But since I miss most of the inside jokes around here, that’s no surprise at all.)[/sup][/sub] ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/930 "2004-08-28T07:14:53Z")
And the little light goes on! A long abused synapse fires! The phrase “And the horse upon in which you rode” is a jocular response to **“Little David” Simmons** paraphrase of Churchill’s example of syntax tortured to confess! “Some shit up with which I will not put” or somesuch. No personal reference to any equine intercourse was implied. No hostile or retributive implication was intended. I have no more animosity to English teachers than any other high school graduate, and even that has faded. For the most part. Until know, I hadn’t even thought about how much I hated _Pride and Prejudice_ by Jane Fucking Austen, page after page of inane verbiage about people who don’t fuck, or fart, or do much of anything for a gazillion goddam pages Jesus Christ how I hated that book… (Wasn’t it Twain: about how he was in an empty library, but it had no books by Ms. Jane Austen, so was a pretty good library over all…?) Heaven knows, I want no trouble with the Professional Organization of English Majors, I still got a couple of Mensa goons on my case… ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/931 "2004-08-28T07:52:45Z")
Let’s face it, if Kerry didn’t make such a big deal of his Viet Nam record, perticularly in his nomination speech, Swift veterans ads would never make such an impact. [QUOTE=Frostillicus] > [@New Iskander](#): > > His endless clubbering of political opponents with his Viet Nam record/QUOTE] > > Clubbering? I think you just made up a new word. 😕 So I did, and it appears to be quite a beautiful one, as usual. I shall inform my solicitor to contact Webster people and offer them to include that word in their dictionary or face legal action. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/932 "2004-08-28T07:57:20Z")
_(clomp…clomp…clomp…)_ Arrrrrrr, ye scurvy land-clubbers! Arrrrrr! Arrrrr!. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/933 "2004-08-28T08:00:26Z")
By the by, to avoid the sins of needless cross-posting, I will merely point out that testimony by the man who rigged GeeDubya’s Texas Guard trick is available over at _Talking Points_. [http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/](http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/) Its seared in his mind. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/934 "2004-08-28T14:29:50Z")
Are there any Republican leaders with integrity left who are _not_ named McCain? [http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2105781&MSID=FD066FA631A94E67B529E36B57796D7B](http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2105781&MSID=FD066FA631A94E67B529E36B57796D7B) > [@](#): > > Democrats now have an unlikely ally in their quest to prove that Bush has a history of these kinds of dirty tricks: Bob Dole. No one has done more to lend establishment respectability to the falsehoods being peddled against Kerry than Dole. The former Senate majority leader and 1996 presidential nominee of the Republican Party made several demonstrably false statements about John Kerry’s war record this past Sunday on CNN’s Late Edition before saying that “not every one of these people can be Republican liars. There’s got to be some truth to the charges.” > > But Dole also made another statement that day, one that hasn’t been aired until now. Of McCain’s charge to President Bush during a 2000 debate—“You should be ashamed”—Dole told Wolf Blitzer, “He was right.” Dole made the remark off-air, while CNN broadcast the Kerry ad called “Old Tricks,” the one featuring McCain’s 2000 debate remarks. The campaign stopped airing it recently at McCain’s request. ---
**Author:** ![AZCowboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/97f17d/32.png) [@AZCowboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AZCowboy)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/935 "2004-08-28T14:45:04Z")
_Real Time with Bill Maher_ last night had John O’Neill as a special guest. John spent a good bit of time, as Bill pointed out to him, answering his own questions instead of those put forward by Bill. One of the arguments that O’Neill attempted to refute is one offered by **elucidator** on the first page of this thread. > [@elucidator](#): > > I’ve come across this odd notion before, that Kerry’s anti-war stance and activism was, fundamentally, the move of a political opportunist. Astonishing. I remember the time as if it were only thirty-five years ago. Please rest assured, the anti-war movement was by no means a wildly popular endeavor when Kerry first arrived on the scene. > > I have no doubt that Kerry is cut from the same cloth as Clinton: political animals, the both of them, and they share the faults and failings common to the breed. Clinton, you will recall, was very mindful of his draft status and possible induction, and did everything he could to stay out of the way, so long as he didn’t actually commit to something that would haunt him later. > > Consider Kerrys options: he could adopt a stance not that much at variance with the “normal”, the mainstream, with some vague and generalized allussions that would permit an anti-war person to accept him, without necessarily endorsing him. With a war-hero record, education, connections, he was a natural shoo-in for a politician. > > But a strong, even radical, anti-war position was not remotely a popular stance, in terms of a political career, it was the equivalent of shoving a grenade up your butt and pulling the pin. Even people who eventually came to accept his position never forgave him for it. Being right isn’t good enough for some people, he should have been more polite about it. > > So I think Kerry did what he felt he had to do relative to his war experience, as did many of his returning comrades in arms. He was gifted to be articulate and even, in an Opie way, somewhat charismatic. He lent those gifts to a cause he believed in while having every reason to suspect he was shutting himself out from his lifelong goal: politics. Kerry wasn’t active in the anti-war movement because he sought to launch his political career, he would have had that anyway. A radical and public anti-war stance was a threat to his political career. John Kerry the man was doing no favors for John Kerry the politician. I found the argument above quite persuasive. But O’Neill took it head-on. The gist of O’Neill’s argument was that while an anti-war stance was generally unpopular across the heartland of America, it played quite nicely into the politics of the Boston area at the time. IOW, O’Neill put forward that Kerry’s congressional testimony of 1971 **was** that of a political opportunist. Now, back in those days, I was yet only a little tyke, and living the heartland, so I really have no personal frame of reference for the political environment in Boston in the early 70s. So I’m curious - can any doper support either argument here? ---
**Author:** ![ZombiesAteMyBrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b4bc9f/32.png) [@ZombiesAteMyBrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZombiesAteMyBrain)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/936 "2004-08-28T14:58:14Z")
> [@New Iskander](#): > > So I did, and it appears to be quite a beautiful one, as usual. I shall inform my solicitor to contact Webster people and offer them to include that word in their dictionary or face legal action. Oh, and I thought it was a typo for ‘clobbering’ - a word with [I think] much the same meaning, but in common usage in this country. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/937 "2004-08-28T16:11:39Z")
> [@AZCowboy](#): > > Now, back in those days, I was yet only a little tyke, and living the heartland, so I really have no personal frame of reference for the political environment in Boston in the early 70s. So I’m curious - can any doper support either argument here? From one who was there, and just of voting age: BWA-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! :: snort gasp guffaw :: Outside of activist enclaves like the People’s Republic of Cambridge, the anti-war protesters were just as controversial as anywhere else in the country. Pro-war sentiment was still high enough among a sizable portion of the Massachusetts population to make an anti-war stance not exactly a career-enhancing move for any politican not running in a strongly liberal district. As has been pointed out before, Massachusetts is not monolithically liberal, or leftist, or whatever else happens to be the epithet du jour. So no, Kerry’s testimony wasn’t politically calculated and motivated; if anything, he was choosing to do what he believed was right even though it was highly likely to dash any political hopes he nourished. In other words: O’Neill’s just offered up yet another heapin’ plate o’ steamin’ road apples. [Julia Child] Bon appetit! [/Julia Child] ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/938 "2004-08-28T16:37:35Z")
You might also note that Kerry ran for Congress in the Boston suburbs in 1970 at the age of 26 on an immediate-withdrawal platform. He was planning to run even while still in the Navy. Father Robert Drinan won the nomination and the seat on a similar anti-war platform but with some age and priestly _gravitas_ that Kerry didn’t have. The Congressional testimony episode was the year after. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/939 "2004-08-28T17:02:30Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > By the by, to avoid the sins of needless cross-posting, I will merely point out that testimony by the man who rigged GeeDubya’s Texas Guard trick is available over at _Talking Points_. > > [http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/](http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/) > > Its seared in his mind. There is a huge difference between defending less then perfect personal record (and not for the first time) and abusing almost perfect personal record (and not for the first time). The question is not whether Bush has got something to hide, the question is whether Kerry has got something to show. > [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > You might also note that Kerry ran for Congress in the Boston suburbs in 1970 at the age of 26 on an immediate-withdrawal platform. He was planning to run even while still in the Navy. Father Robert Drinan won the nomination and the seat on a similar anti-war platform but with some age and priestly gravitas that Kerry didn’t have. The Congressional testimony episode was the year after. I think battlefield reconstructions have to be left exclusively to the Veterans, and I have no opinion on Kerry activities in 1970-s, as I wasn’t in US back then. However, there seems to be a discrepancy. Kerry ran for Congress in 1970 on “on an immediate-withdrawal platform” and was beaten by more qualified candidate running on the same platform. The platform must have been popular, then. In addition, there seems to be a clear path from running for office on such a platform and giving the well-known testimony a year later. Plus the unfortunate penchant for melodrama, of course. ---
**Author:** ![braintree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@braintree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/braintree)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2004, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/940 "2004-08-28T17:41:45Z")
Wow. This thread has gotten to be downright insane. And one side is responsible. When I made a wisecrack to the effect of that it’s amazing just how far a little cognitive dissonance will propel a thread I had no idea the extent to which that’s true. Why are we still arguing this? The Swift Boat Veterans for Character Assassination have been utterly discredited. Either they were not in a position to know what they claimed to know, misrepresnted the evidence, contradicted themselves, or outright lied. What the hell is going on here? So far ALL the documentary evidence supports Kerry. So far ALL the surviving witnesses not with the Swifties support Kerry — and, unlike most of the Swifties they were actually on hand. I mean, if I attacked somebody’s character and came up that screamingly short, I’d be too embarassed to go on. I’d feel ashamed of myself. I’d even apologize. But you guys (and you know who you are) are STILL at it. Wow. Amazing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262.md?page=46) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262.md?page=48)