National Review smears Kerry: KGB Dupe!

The BBQ Pit
1

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/pacepa200402260828.asp

You gotta read it to believe it. They retain the meagerest scrap of dignity based on deniability, since it is on the opinion page. It’s still slime.

Some excerpted glops…

(Regarding Kerry’s “war crimes” testimony…)

“…To me, this assertion sounds exactly like the disinformation line that the Soviets were sowing worldwide throughout the Vietnam era. KGB priority number one at that time was to damage American power, judgment, and credibility. One of its favorite tools was the fabrication of such evidence as photographs and “news reports” about invented American war atrocities…”

“…As a spy chief and a general in the former Soviet satellite of Romania, I produced the very same vitriol Kerry repeated to the U.S. Congress almost word for word and planted it in leftist movements throughout Europe. KGB chairman Yuri Andropov managed our anti-Vietnam War operation…”

“…As far as I’m concerned, the KGB gave birth to the antiwar movement in America. In 1976, Andropov gave my own Romanian DIE credit for helping his KGB do so…”

"…During my last meeting with Andropov, he said, wisely, “now all we have to do is to keep the Vietnam-era anti-Americanism alive…”

Here’s the punch line: the guy used to Romania’s secret police/spy guy. That’s right, Ceucescu’s goon. Indeed, this is offered as verification of his bona fides.

Didn’t the National Review have, at one time, a scrap of dignity, some meager sense of political right and wrong. Wasn’t there, at one point, a line they wouldn’t cross? True, don’t read NR a lot. Were they always a pen of venemous reptiles, or is this recent? Will somebody buy me a subscription so that I can vehemently cancel it?

2

Oh Dear! They’re bamboozling their readership!

Well now, as far you lefties are concerned, I suppose this means the gloves are off. No longer can we expect the good-nature and restraint that has always been the hallmark of the left.

So sad to see for years of conscientious and restrained reporting fly out the window like this.

It won’t be long now before the lefties begin to retaliate and commence to smear Republicans and other right-leaning personalities.

Perhaps (and I hesitate to say it,) they might even attempt to smear Bush.
I for one mourn the loss of the integrity that has long characterized U.S Political reporting, and weep to think of the punditry and knee-jerk rhetoric that is sure to follow.

I hang my head in shame to know at this moment it has been revealed to me that it was this day, and this moment that Republicans started it.

Let us raise us a glass and drink solemnly to the loss of bipartisan fellowship.

3

When John Kerry appeared before the Foreign Relations Committee in 1971 he related the testimony of other veterans speaking at another gathering in Detroit. Recently I heard a right wing operative taking Kerry’s quotes out of context in an attempt to give American voters the impression that Kerry was dishonestly claiming to have first-hand experience of certain atrocities.

I’m not surprised that a right-wing rag is trying to smear Kerry by revising history and painting Kerry as a “Jane Fonda” puppet of communist propaganda.

William F. Buckley, Jr. probably still insists that all employees of National Review espouse the view that the Vietnam War was a necessary and noble endeavor, and that all critics of the war should continue to be branded as un-American communist enablers.

4

I think the only thing that surprises me is that this level of mudslinging is already happening, more than 8 months before Election Day.

5

Don’t need smear. Got facts. Why bother?

6

This guy is truly a Renaissance man. He even can explain where the WMD are.

7

Wow, the credentials just keep piling up! He also has a book out from the prestigious Regnery House, preferred publisher of some of our nation’s most respected Rightards. Red Horizons: Chronicles of a Communist Spy Chief

(I forget…Washington Times…is that the Moonies or Lyndon LaRoach?)

8

The Bush campaign is either reallllllllllly desperate this early in the game, or they’re really hoping to milk the holy bejeebus out of terrorism and 9/11 during the Autumn months.

9

Worse. NewsCorp. :wink:

10

Because, as we all know, two wrongs ALWAYS make a right. nods solemnly

11

Or in this case, the right.

12

I already know how I’m voting. Can I be frozen until November?

13

I second this. How dare you suggest, elucidator, that this modern, ultra-ugly mudslinging in Presidential politics was just started recently, by the Republicans, when really they started it almost a dozen years ago with Clinton and Vince Foster? Have some historical perspective, whydontcha?

(Oh, sure, Democrats were smearing Reagan even earlier about little trifles like selling arms to terrorist nations, but that just wasn’t the same level of vitriol).

Daniel

14

National Review? Wasn’t that the same rag that assigned sinister motives to anti-bullying initiatives in elementary schools?

I find The Weekly World News more credible. Less spin.

15

Bat Boy Endorses Kerry!

16

Whaddayamean, “two”?

17

Nay, sir! News World Communications, Inc…the Reverend Moon.

I interviewed over there one century/afternoon. Is it any surprise that less than 2 years later I left DC?

18

Or, you could be actually in their employ, and are now an embedded spy.

Check the back of his neck, quick!

19

Somewhere in this house I have, saved, the NR where they spent the entire issue, almost, lobbying for legalization of drugs. A masterpiece.
OTOH, in that same issue, they published an article by some Canadian professor arguing for craniometry (see The Skeptic’s Dictionary ). I could only stare in disbelief, that a magazine in the late 20th century could publish such amazing nonsense.
Nothing published in that magazine could surprise me, not after seeing that.

20

Sheeit. They nailed me with a good dose of STP and sent me on my way, with a few interns shadowing to make sure I didn’t kill myself over the following weeks. Real clever addition to the mix is a laxative so that when you’re losing your mind, you also crap your pants.

There is no reason whatsoever why you should believe me. Let’s see if I wake up in the morning.