New York Post
January 31, 2000
Why did John Kerry get a pass from Democrats?
Kerry (the one with only one e) isn’t quitting the Senate. What is he getting a pass for?
No, he was quoting what they’d told him, and those stories have, sadly, all been confirmed. There’s room to discuss how prevalent they were, but you do need to read and understand Kerry’s testimony first before you accuse him of “aiding the enemy”.
I’m glad you’re looking forward to comparing his Vietnam record to Bush’s, though. Let us know how it turns out for you.
John Kerry got a pass during Democratic primaries. His abuse of his Viet Nam service record was not challenged. If it was, Kerry would have to explain his exaggerations much earlier. As a result, Democrats would either have a different candidate or clean, humble and eager Kerry. Swift veterans accusations would be put to rest much earlier. Instead, Democrats backed-off against Kerry frontal assault and presented the nation with arrogant and tainted SOB as a candidate.
**OK, since were talking about Presidential candidates: If President Bush was in charge of the Vietnam War the ground battles would have been over in a month with elections following a year later. There wouldn’t be any hand wringing finger-in-the-wind, UN waffling. He could have waited for hell to freeze (or a UN solution) but he didn’t. **
>>insert elucidator here <<
Kerry told the truth. In my America, telling the truth is never treason, as we are dedicated to a higher set of principles than simple and mindless nationalism. “My country right or wrong” is the credo of one prepared to accept being wrong as normal, to shrug off the deaths of innocents as being of minor consequence.
There was no aid and comfort, for the simple reason that everyone else already knew to what depths we had sunk. It wasn’t news to the Vietnamese, on that point you can be entirely assured. I would that my President tell the truth, I will prefer the candidate who has shown he is willing to speak the truth, however unpleasant and unwelcome the news may be.
In the words of another famous traitor, “If this be treason, make the most of it!”
NI, what “abuse of his Vietnam service record” do you mean? His using it to tell the truth to those still in denial and still getting good people killed uselessly? That’s the highest form of patriotism, fella. Or do you mean his 1971 self-assessment of his own role in killing civilians to be an “atrocity”, a word he’s since retracted unnecessarily?
Just like the ground battles are over in Iraq? Vietnam would have been on the path to being a stable, free democracy just like Iraq is? Gawdamighty.
Not only that, it wasn’t even treasonous.
Yup. There was Kerry, just repeating what he had been told. Every statement that he gave, I rush to add, has since been proven correct. So your beef isn’t with Kerry, it’s with everyone who acted like an ass and those who condoned their behavior. After all, if they hadn’t broken and pissed all over the Geneva Convention, Kerry would have had nothing to testify to.
So if only the Pentagon had been given it’s head, the US would have won? You realize that there’s precious little to back up your assertion, but refuse to debate it. My, how intellectually dishonest of you.
Yeah! Damn him for flip-flopping anyway! Treasonous bastard!
Horsehit, sparky. Bush fils doesn’t want to lose, and Karl Rove certainly doesn’t want him to lose, so you can bet the farm that even if Kerry had never uttered the words “service” or “Vietnam” that the Swifties would have come crawling out from beneath their rocks.
Yeah, because Clinton certainly wasn’t bonin’ strange while turning his weakness to his strength. Nosir, not even one time.
Eh, BWP was a barely adequate movie. And there are three Swifties that have gone down in flames as of my last check. And the number of vets is decreasing as well, once they realized that their statements were being applied to things that they never once spoke out on. “Strong message” my ass.
Whereas I predict that there will be a hell of a lot more than two parts. Bush knows that he can’t run on his own record, and the only thing to do is to try and make Kerry look worse. The Swiftie campaign is backfiring. I can hardly wait to see what’s next.
If Bush starts claiming that Kerry is engaging is self-promoting media stunts, will he do so before or after he arrives at the RNC in NYC. He’s already given up on trouping down to Ground Zero, due entirely to the flap raised from his. . .self-promoting media stunt. And we mustn’t forget the Thanksgiving dinner that took place in Iraq. You remember that one, right? The. . .self-promoting media stunt. I know you do, because I’ll bet that you were one of the ones bitching that Hillary Rodham-Clinton was involved in a. . .self-promoting media stunt when she, too, was there. If he tries claiming that, it will blow back and cover him in the same shit that he’s trying to scrub off from the Swiftie debacle.
What an extraordinary proposition! I have heard many remarkable statements of faith in GeeDubya’s abilities and capacities, but this stands head and shoulders above the crowd! Johnson, McNamara, all of those, could not accomplish it, but a man of will and grit, a firm and unswerving leader like GeeDubya would make short work of those little brown buggers with thier funny pajamas.
I only regret that, in your haste to post your pangyric to the Shining One, you neglected to advise us as to how this might have been done. Is it by sheer force of will? Would a just and loving God Almighty, previously reluctant to directly express any such committment, have swept the Godless Commies into the sea? A plague of boils, perhaps? Hosts of angels slashing Charlie with terrible swords of Wrath, hallelujah! Nuclear weapons? Biological warfare? How?
And how might we word the announcement, so that the admiring world could gape with awe and wonder as the most powerful nation in human history indulges itself in the mindless massacre of a pathetic cripple of a nation?
“The United States of America, having lost confidence in the population of Viet Nam, shall dissolve that population, and replace it with one more compliant with our views…”
I am not trying to be a pain. Really. The interview you posted does not use the word attack. It uses the word “shadowy”. Are you claiming that Bush is claiming that all 527s whether involved in political attack ads or not are shadowy? I suppose that is possible, but it does not seem a reasonable interpretation of his position.
I did, post a link to a press release on Bush’s site. It suggests that Bush is primarily interested in closing a campaign finance loophole. It appears to be a continuation of his earlier stated policy (after learning that the FEC interprets the law differently than he does) and thus not hypocracy.
I suppose that is one interpretation. Really, though, I am simplytrying to learn something. You know, fighting my own ignorance. I’m not trying to generate a “gotcha”.
Well, yes, a ban would. What Bush seems to be trying to do, however, is make the campaign finance laws apply to these 527 groups when they make adds which directly target particular candidates. He supposed that the recent campaign finance laws did this. But the ruling in May by the FEC essentially said that no, for this election at least, these laws do not apply to the 527s.
I may be mistaken, but the laws do not prohibit political adds by PACs or 527s. They simply make certain rules about who and how much money these groups can raise for such things. Basically the laws make it easier to see who is funding this sort of ad.
[ul]His theatrical antics in Congress in 1986, claiming Cambodia, Christmas and Nixon presidency of 1968 rolled in one as “seared, - seared! -into” him.[/ul][ul]His endless clubbering of political opponents with his Viet Nam record[/ul][ul]His presumptuous convention salute and saying that he knows how to fight a war, apparently because he’s been there[/ul]
“Johnson, McNamara, all of those” were the CAUSE of it. You’re not going to argue that Vietnam actually defeated the United States military are you? If so, have a muffin, start a thread. Thanks for the post though. Always enjoy your romp through the dictionary.
19 going for 20.
** Yah, the troops really hated that visit. And it was surely timed to take the wind out of Senator Clinton’s trip, which made me laugh, and laugh, and laugh some more. I laugh every time I imagine the expression on her face when she found out about it. As did my friends who were over there.**
So, Magiver, if you’re only going to address one point in GL Wasteful’s long post (and an irrelevant tangent, at that), couldn’t you have, you know, snipped out the rest? All the points you failed to answer?
Meanwhile, yet another voice is heard contradicting the Swifties’ claims that Kerry’s medals were undeserved:
Of course, she’s merely repeating what her husband told her (other than her own observations of Kerry’s character), so of course, as hearsay, her testimony must be dismissed when compared to the rock-solid evidence of the Swifties’ hearsay.
:smack:
You know, I could try to pass off the blame onto you for sloppy coding that put all but your last reply into one long quote box.
[Tricky Dick]
But that would be wrong.
[/Tricky Dick]
Okay, Magiver, you did in fact answer the other points. I was wrong on that. :o
The validity of your answers? You haven’t made the sale, at least to me.
A liar is a liar is a liar…
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/109360837947360.xml
You know, when I was a Wiccan, there was a saying… “If you’re going to invoke the Goddess of Swift Justice on an enemy, you’d better hope you have a perfectly clean karma slate.”
It was demonstrated with Clinton’s detractors (how many times were Gingrich’s, Barr’s, and Hyde’s “youthful indiscretions” pushed to the surface?), and it’s demonstrated with the Swift Boat Bullshitters for Bush.
[QUOTE=New Iskander]
His endless clubbering of political opponents with his Viet Nam record/QUOTE]
Clubbering? I think you just made up a new word. 
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.
Although it seems like I’m trying to make a sale I’m really pointing out the position of the Veterans. Kerry’s war protest and testimony made a large enough splash to garner a Doonsbury cartoon of him. It was a big deal back then and it apparently left an open wound with the Vets.
I haven’t really addressed much of the SB Vet arguments because it’s mostly he-said-she-said. I personally believe they’re all right (including Kerry) to a certain extent because it is almost impossible to reconstruct events under stress. Having just healed from a barroom brawl I still don’t know what happened and I was literally in the middle of it. I would expect people (after hitting a mine) to shoot at every bird and animal that reacted to the noise. I don’t know if he was shot at and I really don’t care. He was out there in harms way (kudo’s to Lt. Kerry). However, if he had made amends to these Vets years ago I think he would be sailing pretty right now.
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.
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.
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.
It is a code, and you have to look past the narratives.
I’m trying to find a cite that isn’t blisteringly anti-Kerry. I’m asking fellow vets to back me up here.
In the military, you always want your checkmarks on your evals or fitreps in the left land column. That’s the “outstanding” column. About ten years back, the Navy reformed the system to correct the system so that overinflated evals and fitreps and evals were curbed somewhat. In John Kerry’s day, an officer was expected to line up straight outstandings, unless he was a trainee or was in a situation where he wasn’t observed at a unit for very long.
Even one check mark in the “excellent” column was a signal to a junior officer to unfuck himself quickly, or he’d be in deep trouble. Getting another “excellent” on another fitrep was a career ender. It told selection boards you couldn’t be trusted with command of a large ship or a boat or plane squadron. And command is the goal for a junior officer. A good command tour opens up flag rank.
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.
Take a look at the fitness reports here.
Now, you don’t need to be a career officer to be a hero. My problems with Kerry concern what happened when he came home from Vietnam, not what happened while he was there.