What the hell kind of “life-long Democrat” donates $1000 to “A Tribute to Ronald Reagan” in 1990? Or $400 to Republican Congressional candidate Hugh Shine in 1990? Or $1000 to Republican Congressional candidate Clark Kent Irvin in 1991, and another $1000 in 1992? Or $1000 to the Texas Republican Congressional Committee in 1992, followed by another $2500 in 1993 and still another $2500 in 1994? Or donates $1000 to Bush I in 1992? Or $1000 to Republican Congressional candidate Brent Perry in 1996? Or $250 to Republican Congressional candidate Rudy Izzard in 1998? Or $1000 to Republican Congressional candidate Peter Wareing in 1999? Or $2000 to Republican Senate and Congressional candidate Duane Sand of North Dakota in 2004?
John “Life-Long Democrat” O’Neill has not given so much as a penny to a Democrat since at least 1990, which is as far back as you can search using this campaign contribution database. See for yourself by entering his last name and ZIP code 77019.
John Kerry’s campaign spokesmen have admitted that Kerry wasn’t in Cambodia on Christmas Eve, 1968. They’re claiming he was there on other occasions, and got the dates mixed up.
This is, of course, a disavowal of the floor speeches made in the Senate.
The Swiftvets are claiming this as a victory, of course.
That clinches it for me. No way am I voting for someone who can’t remember exactly what what he did on what date as recently as 35 years ago. Why, that’s practically yesterday! The guy is clearly not smart enough to be president…
You can’t just right this off as a 35 year old fuzzy memory. He only spent 3 1/2 months in combat service so his life experiences are limited. His statements regarding Cambodia were made many years ago in a 1979 Boston Herald article and are specific to a date:
“I remember spending ** Christmas Eve** of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon [sic] claimed there were no American troops was very real.”
He didn’t say Easter, or the 4th of July. He said Christmas, which falls within his 3 1/2 months of combat duty.
To recap: this debate involves the believability of 23 Swiftboat Veterans vs Senator Kerry’s account. Senator Kerry just admitted he wasn’t in Cambodia getting shot at by a bunch of Christmas Eve drunks.
Even if he out and out lied about this episode, it still wouldn’t matter to me. All politicians lie, and this one would be pretty insignificant. The more likely scenario is that he embeleshed things a bit. Big deal.
If we’re debating about whether this might become a camapaign issue, then I can see where you’re coming from. It could be turned into an issue for some fence sitters who don’t dig deaply into policy concerns. But the Pubs have to tread lightly on this one-- it could easily backfire.
John, are you serious? This issue is irrelevant to you?
This isn’t a case of him misremembering a situation 35 years ago. John Kerry has been repeating this story since he got back from Vietnam. He’s told the story to reporters in print since at least 1979. Christmas Eve is crucial to the story, so he couldn’t even have gotten the dates mixed up. As he tells the story, it was horrible sitting in Cambodia on Christmas eve, while his president told the world no troops were there. In some versions of the story, he and his crew were almost hit by celebratory gunfire as South Vietnamese shot into Cambodia randomly to celebrate Christmas.
Let’s face it. John Kerry built up an elaborately detailed story, which he has been repeating since he got back from Vietnam. And it’s not just a tall fish tale - he used this precise story in testimony in front of Congress in opposition to Reagan’s request to arm the contras. He claims it was, and I quote “Seared - seared!” into his memory.
This is a huge blow to John Kerry’s credibility. And also, since the Swiftvets have been proven right on the first story we could actually fact-check, their credibility goes up. Now it seems to me that the other charges will have to be investigated.
Consider this, from Lileks today:
And here’s what the Washington Post reported in June 2003 when Kerry was getting ready to run for President:
Sorry, but if Kerry was not in Cambodia (and I now believe that he never was), this story make him more than a little twisted. It’s one of those “what the hell?” moments.
Or ask yourself this: Let’s say in congressional hearings for Porter Goss it was uncovered that he had been telling a large, elaborate lie about his military service for thirty years. Do you think he’d be confirmed? If not, why should the standard be lower for CinC?
That’s the thing. Is it “large” and “eleborate”? I’m not going to justify lying, if that’s what it was, but the fact remains that we have Kerry’s version of something that happend 35 years ago vs some other folks’ version. Kerry may have been repeating this story over the years, but the other folks are tapping into decades old memories.
If Kerry and Bush were identical in every way except for this one, then I guess it might matter to me more. But frankly, I can look at some of Bush’s anti-Kerry campaign ads and see “larger” and more “elaborate” lies than this one.
Sorry, forgot. My bad, for assuming he was a lifelong Democrat. He voted for Humphrey in 1968, and said he would have voted for John Edwards this year had he been nominated. Didn’t realize he was involved with Republicans in the interim.
I’ve seen all the ‘fact-checks’, and they are lame beyond belief. Mostly they just repeat the Kerry Campaign’s talking points on this, such as the ridiculous idea that these men never served with Kerry because they weren’t on the same boat.
Perhaps you have a cite to a good fact-checking on them? Something that’s more than, “Hey, they’re Republicans! And they WEREN’T ON THE BOAT!”
By the way, one of the leading swiftvets is Steve Gardner, Kerry’s Gunner. He DID serve on the boat. In fact, he served longer with Kerry than any other person on the boat. Most of the people on Kerry’s boat only served with him for a few weeks. Gardner was on his boat for most of Kerry’s stay.
Look: John Kerry has chosen to make Vietnam the centerpoint of his campaign. He’s the guy who’s campaign says, “If you want to judge John Kerry, ask the men he served with.” He’s the one who got his aide to ‘force’ him to show his secret boonie hat. He’s the one who opened his convention speech by saluting and announcing he was ‘reporting for duty’.
Sorry, but if you hold your Vietnam service up as your prime character credential, and do so repeatedly, then that service is fair game for analysis.
Well, now the people he served with are speaking up. They deserve to be heard. The first claim they made which could be checked turned out to be true. Kerry has now been shown to have been telling one whopper of a lie his entire adult life. Telling it repeatedly, authoritatively, and on the record on the floor of Congress in support of his legislative goals. It’s a big deal.
So, after hearing that the Cambodia story is false, I wonder how true his other claims were after the war? You know, the claims that he saw the people he served with cutting off ears, machine-gunning children, razing villages, raping little girls… Those are the charges that have these guys REALLY mad. If those turn out to be lies, and he trashed the reputations of the men he served with for political purposes, does that get a pass too?
I don’t think it gets much larger than lying to Congress, does it? This story is entered in the congressional record as evidence he used to attack both Nixon and Ronald Reagan.
And I don’t think it gets much more elaborate than getting his handlers to prod reporters to ask him what’s in the briefcase, so he can pull out an old boonie hat and tell a story about how it was given to him on a secret mission to Cambodia by a CIA agent. Or to go into great detail about the Christmas eve mission, talking about how surreal it was to be shot at by people celebrating Christmas while sitting in a country his country denied he was in.
His crewmate, Steve Gardner, has this to say about the possibility that Kerry was ever in Cambodia:
Later in the interview:
John Kerry was never in Cambodia. He’s still lying about it.
I also have to ask if you’re serious? Of all the candidates that ran for the Democratic ticket, Senator Kerry carried the most baggage. He continually panders to whatever crowd he is speaking too. Whether it’s the environmental crowd, the SUV crowd, the doves or the hawks. He’s on record as supporting them all. How can you NOT like him. Pick your favorite causes and wait for him to show up at your rally.
The problem with this is that he continually has his words handed back to him with his hat and he has to eat them.
And this goes beyond minor embellishment. His entire campaign is wrapped around his service record. He mentions it often, which means it carries serious focus-group weight. By doing so he gives credence to the servicemen who now accuse him of lying about his heroic deeds. His words are his resume and its getting shorter with each passing day.
You guys sure this where you want to go? Each candidates personal veracity and honesty concerning their life history? So that embarassing episodes are presumed to have direct relevance on the candidates suitability?
Are you sure you want to go there? 'Cause we’re ready.
GeeDubya’s got a semiautobiography out, and there are a number of investigatory critques available. Want to meander through those, see if we can find any examples of exaggerations?
Or say, howzabout this picture (Picture is from flagrantly partisan website of Tom Tomorrow, but linked to story in LA Times, if you want to go to the trouble…)
shows renowned sportsman and Yale Varsity rugby star sucker-punching an opponent.
Want to compare GeeDubya’s drinking problem to Kerry’s? Fair game, right? I mean, if one’s past failings are relevent, then isn’t spending a bunch of years as a pampered, overprivileged sot? What was Kerry doing while Bush was nursing another hangover?
You guys sure about this? Because we haven’t even gotten to GeeDubya’s adventures in governance as inflicted upon Texas. You know, where the state’s major polluters are invited to write environmental legislation? Or about how the testing numbers for Houston’s schools were buggered to provide entirely false estimations of success. Oh, we could stay in Texas just about forever, mining great nuggets of Bushwah. Unless we want to amble over to GeeDubya’s career of turning other peoples money into shit. Or Harken. Or his passing acquaintence with What’s-his-face, the guy from that oil company. Kenny Frito! No, thats not it… And wasn’t there something about Guard duty?
So, you sure?
And then of course, there’s Sammy Sousa. But our plates getting kinda full, and we’ve made our point.
Just to amply Gardner’s comments about PBRs being used for secret missions instead of Swift Boats:
This is a PBR. Looks like the boat Martin Sheen rode in ‘Apocalypse Now’. 31 feet long, 250 HP, jet propelled. That would make them quiet, and without a prop they could navigate small canals and shallower water.
Here’s a Swift Boat. Notice how big they are - over 50 feet long. They have twin engines totalling 960 HP, driving twin propellers.
A Swift Boat is NOT what you would use for a secret mission into Cambodia. They are huge and loud. It makes no sense.
Perhaps you were correct above when you speculated that you were on drugs. Because if that is all you’ve gotten out of the rebuttals posted in this thread, you certainly have a rather unique concept of reality.
Jesus F. Christ, the guy Kerry rescued during the Bronze Medal incident swears up and down that he was under fire and had to keep diving underwater to avoid the gunfire directed at him, and you think that’s “lame beyond belief”? You’re hopeless, amigo.
Um, I Googled all the relevant combinations of “Kerry,” “spokesperson,” “Cambodia,” “Christmas,” and/or “mixed up dates” that I could think of, and came up empty. Got a cite?
No, I’ve already said that the third Bronze Star criticism is questionable, and frankly I think the ‘fog of war’ could explain the differing memories. Ever been knocked off a speeding boat? I have. It’s startling and disorienting. Now imagine four other boats bearing down on you. Rassmann dove for the bottom of the river. When he came up, there was machine gun fire going off like mad - it must have sounded like a cacaphony. It’s very easy to see why he thought he was being shot at.
On the other hand, the other swift boat skippers who were RIGHT THERE that day say that after the mine disabled the boat, they automatically laid down suppressive fire on the banks in case it was an ambush. So Rassman comes up, there’s gunfire like crazy, and he dives back under. Comes up again, and there’s Kerry to pick him up.
So I think everyone could easily think they are telling the truth there. But consider this: The Swiftees say there was no bullet damage or gunshot injuries to anyone while they all sat dead in the water and performed a long, elaborate rescue operation with a disabled boat. If there were snipers on both banks like Rassman said there were, they must be the worst snipers in history. How do five boats and thirty men sitting dead in the water for some time come away with no damage or no gunshot wounds if they are being fired on by snipers?
The Cambodia story is different. Kerry has told that story repeatedly, in great detail. He claims to have a hat given to him by a CIA agent while they were on a mission into Cambodia. These stories are now pretty conclusively shown to be lies, and the Kerry campaign itself admits that Kerry was not in Cambodia in Christmas 1968, but that he’s pretty sure he was in Cambodia some other time, but he can’t remember even roughly when. Frankly, it looks to me like he wasn’t there at all. That means a big chunk of Kerry’s “Vietnam Chronicle” is completely fabricated.
Also, have you seen those ‘home movies’ of Kerry walking around in Vietnam?
The Swiftboat vets say that Kerry went back the next day and had his crewmen take that footage, and then he represented it as video taken during regular combat action. Today I read something interesting, and I just verified it by watching the video on MSNBC. - In the video, Kerry has a bandolier of ammo across his chest, and he has fragmentation grenades stuck in his webbing. Apparently, this would have been a major violation of operational orders. You’re not supposed to have grenades on your person when you’re operating a small boat, for obvious reasons. And you don’t carry ammo slung like that when you’re operating around salt water - it all corrodes. This is evidence in favor of the Swiftees claim that the video is a vanity film that Kerry made in Vietnam. He dressed himself up like Rambo and had people take video of him. That’s pretty strange behaviour. Maybe there is an explanation for why he’s walking around with grenades and bandoliers of ammo when he wasn’t ever even supposed to get off his boat (it was against the rules, and he almost got cout-martialed for jumping ashore when he got the Silver Star).
So Kerry WAS in Cambodia and he just got the dates wrong. As far as I’m concerned, that’s vindication for Kerry. He WAS in Cambodia, that’s what matters. The date is meaningless. His point about being in Cambodia while the President denied we were there still stands. Kerry’s credibility is intact and the Swifties are made to look like petty, carping, nitpicking crybabies.
I’m glad we cleared this up. Now let’s talk about 2004, shall we?