Here’s what I don’t like about the whole thing, in case anyone is interested. I honestly don’t know one way or the other who is telling the truth, and as I have said before, I suspect that both sides are lying or at least misremembering to some extent. As Senator McCain said today on Face the Nation, that’s why they call it “fog of war”. What I don’t like here is your treatment of Sam for no reason other than that he interprets the facts differently from you. The facts are the facts, but that does not mean that two people cannot hold differing interpretations of them. Sam has been remarkably polite in the face of unbelievable rudeness and hysteria. You people are like the posters at StormFront, who gang up on someone and insult him until they drive him away, after which they celebrate their victory. Not one of you would go to that board and hold your ground as Sam has done here. You hurl posts at him at a five or ten to one ratio, and then sit back and laugh when he cannot do the impossible and address them all. No one is fooled by that sort of tactic, unless you are fooling yourselves. There is no ruder position to take in a debate than to say that your opponent won’t accept facts when what he won’t accept is your interpretation of facts. Hell, anybody can win a debate that way. Watch this: Diogenes, since you won’t accept the facts I have offered you, I have no choice but to declare that you have surrendered the debate. Good effort, though. And in general to the rest of you, none of you will accept facts, so off you go. You’re done. Debate’s over. Sam wins. Boy, that was easy.
That’s nice. However, for my money, someone who is “remarkably polite” while carrying out vicious smears and lying is far worse than someone who froths at the mouth while doing so. One may smile and smile, and be a villain. Lies are lies, no matter how they are delivered.
As to the facts, well, I contend that sticking to facts means that you don’t aver that there were no bullet holes if you don’t know it, at least without qualifying the assertion by pointing out that your source is the one group concurrently being revealed to be liars at the time. That’s my take on dealing with facts.
It’s just too bad you won’t accept facts. Lies are lies. Smear. Froth. Whatnot.
Liberal, there is a big difference between interpreting, and swallowing hook line and sinker the lies of someone else.
You are also falling in the trap that Both positions are equal, no: thirty year ago the swifters had better evidence, more fresh memories and time to discredit Kerry’s medals, this was not done, and several swifters praised Kerry, until a book deal, money, and partisanship appeared.
Also you are sounding silly when you still pretended one can not find or see evidence to the contrary:
The daily Kos points against O’Neill were corroborated IMO when I searched for other signs of partisanship, and lo and behold there was this that I found:
http://pr.baylor.edu/story.php?id=004733
I thought it did not meant much, until I realized there was no reason at all to mention partners unless they know what this effort is for, and approve of it.
So, O’neill once again appears as a filthy liar. This is only another bit of evidence, that shows a different interpretation (swifters are liers) is not and exercise in addition, but it is geometrical, taken in context, their position is not the right one, the swifters were not supposed to have even the time of day given to them, I remember that even reporters in the mainstream mentioned that the swifters, for the right compared to the loony left that purposes to have evidence the Bush family is a bunch of Nazis.
Now, Liberal, do you think that that loony left deserves to be heard regarding the Nazi accusations, and say that honestly you can’t tell who is lying?
I am sorry, when I saw Chompsky (the member, not Chomsky) going on and on, with nonsensical communist propaganda, I shot him down. Not all positions are supposed to be given the same value, specially when one finds a side lying with gusto.
Shayna: Are you using some alternate universe definition of ‘liar’? The accusation is that I lied in saying that there were no holes in any boats. I said that I said that when I said it that’s what the facts said, and I acknowledged it when the evidence about the three holes came out. The four links you posted are all messages in which I acknowledge those three holes. Or are you saying I’m a liar since I didn’t immediately accept those as slam-dunk proof of enemy fire? I said they were a point in Kerry’s favor, but then I continued to offer alternative explanations and explain why it wasn’t suffient proof. In other words, “Yes, the existence of three holes in a boat indicates that it was shot at. This is evidence on the one side. On the other side, being in an enemy crossfire for an hour and a half should result in a hell of a lot more than three holes.” I then explored alternate theories for those holes - specifically, that they got them in earlier combat. And that’s what you want to call me a liar over?
Where I come from, calling someone a liar is fighting words. You don’t toss the accusation around lightly. So, as I said to Hentor… PISS OFF.
elucidator said:
So is throwing your back out while changing a tire. But YOU DON’T GET A PURPLE HEART FOR it. Do I need to ‘laboriously’ explain the regs for the purple heart to you AGAIN? Self-inflicted injuries only qualify for a purple heart when you sustain them WHILE ENGAGED IN COMBAT WITH THE ENEMY, AND IF THE WOUND RESULTS FROM AN ATTEMPT TO INFLICT INJURY ON THE ENEMY. If you accidentally frag yourself in training, you don’t get a purple heart. If you trip and break your nose while trying to climb into a helicopter in a combat zone, you don’t get a purple heart. IF YOU HURT YOURSELF WHILE DISMANTLING ENEMY INFRASTRUCTURE, YOU DON’T GET A PURPLE HEART. There is no way in hell that Kerry qualified for a purple heart by injuring himself blowing up enemy stockpiles. Period, end of story. And you don’t get purple hearts for minor bruises, either. Kerry’s injury report stating a ‘minor contusion of the arm’ (i.e. a minor bruise), and shrapnel wounds in the buttock. IF HIS SUPERIORS KNEW THAT THE SHRAPNEL WOUND WAS SUFFERED EARLIER IN THE DAY, WHILE NOT IN COMBAT, HE WOULD NOT HAVE RECEIVED A PURPLE HEART.
Kerry lied. He got a purple heart for it.
In the case of the first Purple Heart, we have the word of Kerry, two enlisted men against the word of an Admiral (the former JAG), a rear admiral, Kerry’s commander in Vietnam, and the doctor who treated him. The commanding officer claims that he never approved a purple heart. The documentation backs him up, as it shows that Kerry got it after the CO left Vietnam. No one knows who approved it, because that document is not available.
Now, in trying to sort out who’s lying and who’s telling the truth, OF COURSE the officer status of the other men is admissable. That’s why we have notary publics, isn’t it? Because we recognize that some people through their accomplishments should be considered good witnesses. I’ve also heard it said (although I haven’t verified it) that both of the enlisted men were enginemen, which would seem to be evidence that they wouldn’t have both been on the mission together, since only one is required on a Skimmer. Schachte says that they always had two officers and an enlisted men on these missions. The enlisted guys said that they always had one officer and two enlisted men. But Schachte is the guy who invented the damned missions, so I’d think he would know. But in the end, we have a conflict between eyewitnesses. Therefore, there is no ‘slam dunk’ for either side on this. But Kerry could clear this up by signing his form 180 and allowing everyone to see what the documents say. He refuses. Where’s your outrage? I seem to recall significant outrage when Bush wouldn’t release his Guard records. Why the double standard?
Facts, in this case, are not “facts.” You and Sam persist in calling the Shifties’ unsubstantiated–indeed debunked–allegations as facts, when they are no such thing. Sam is rightly being called on presenting allegations as proven facts; neverMIND that those allegations have been thoroughly disproven.
Do you realize what you just said?
That Kerry was wounded and still got up to fulfill his duty and did choose to ignore his “training wounds” and go the mission at hand, making his wounds worse.
That is, if we believe what the swifters said is the truth, I think if Kerry was as they want to picture him, he would have gone to medic right away.
Sorry, Sam, logic points to more lies here.
Gigobuster: That sounds great, except that his injury was trivial. He got a couple of grains of rice in the ass. HE said that he and Rassmann were laughing about it afterwards. If you get a sliver in your finger, and somehow manage to go to work anyway, are you being heroic?
Besides, this is a non-sequitur. It doesn’t matter whether he was heroic or not - the fact is, he represented a shrapnel wound as coming from combat on the river, when in fact it happened elsewhere while not in combat. Therefore, he received a Purple Heart he did not deserve. Let’s try to stay focused on the issue, okay?
Lissener: There are some FACTS in this case, which can be evaluated. And there are other things which are disputes between eyewitnesses and unclear accounts. I have tried to be careful to distinguish between them.
For instance, it is a FACT that Kerry claimed to be in Cambodia on Christmas Eve of 1968. It is a FACT that he used that claim to argue in front of Congress in opposition to Reagan’s plan to arm the contras. It is a FACT that he was not in Cambodia on Christmas eve.
It is a matter of CONTENTION as to what actually happened on the Bay Hap river, and honest people can disagree. This does not mean it’s a worthless excercise to attempt to figure out what happened, despite the efforts of you and others to shout down and insult anyone who might try to actually have a debate about it. We have conflicting eyewitness testimony on BOTH sides. We have physical evidence which doesn’t seem to match Kerry’s account, and we have other evidence which doesn’t seem to match the eyewitness accounts on the other side.
See the difference?
We do??? Holy shit, let’s see it, Sam. Where’s the physical evidence? How does it differ from Kerry’s (and also BTW Rassman’s, and Lambert’s, and Russell’s, and Langhofer’s, and the AAR and other Navy records) account. Wow, now I am impressed. I can’t wait!
Hmmm. Ironic.
Like you ignoring how partisan O’neil is and lying saying he was not?
Also: Kerry was willing to risk his life after being injured. but once again, this is if we take into consideration what the swifters and you are saying is the truth.
I see the difference too, and finding the partisan nature of the attackers, some of them filp-flopping their views of Kerry; it is less likely that the swifter side is the right one.
And of course, the people on Kerry’s side couldn’t be partisan at all, right?
Silly Sam, that is what we wanted you to acknowledge ages ago! 
(the partizan nature of the attack on Kerry)
What it is important, is that O’Neill lied about him not being one.
I’ve reserved judgement on many of the charges against Kerry with respect to his service in Vietnam with the exeption of the Christmas in Cambodia claim, but you got to ask yourself. "If the vast majority of your peers in combat are claiming that you"re a lying sack of shit, what does that say about you?
It means that the Shifties’ are lying sacks of shits.
Here’s my general take: with all due respect to the Swift Boat VfT, I think the fact that a man wears the uniform of his country into a combat zone is admirable, period. I further think that when a man is awarded a Bronze Star and a Silver Star, and these awards go unquestioned for years, someone seeking to undermine the validity of those awards bears a heavy burden. I don’t say it’s impossible, but I do think it’s an uphill climb, and the VfT have not, in my view, come close to shouldering that burden.
Mr. Kerry is a war hero. I don’t much like his approach to the war after his return to this country, but, damnit, a guy who put his ass on the line in Indochina is certainly entitled to voice a contrary opinion after the fact. I also don’t much like Mr. Kerry’s subsequent Senate record, but that has nothing to do with the fact that the man did time in-country, earned ribbons, and deserves praise and honor for that fact.
- Rick
I hear you Rick, loud and clear, but I’m bothered by a guy who gets so much medal mileage out of a tour of duty that lasts less than four months. Are we to believe that Kerry was some sort of super hero? that his peers fell far short of his heroism? Can those purple hearts be claimed without corroborating evidence? Are there other veterans who managed to get out in less than 4 months. This justs gets fishier every moment I think about it.
Wow. A single issue like “four months” and the more you think of it the fishier it gets? I see the Swifties have not at all underestimicated their target audience’s enthusiasm for collaborating in their own miseducation.
Sam, lets’ go over some of this one more time just for the fuck of it.
- We have five documented accounts and something like a half-dozen eywitnesses who say that Kerry’s flotilla was under fire that day. The one guy who says there wasn’t has a medal citation saying there was fore and a Bronze Star with a V that can only be awarded for valor under fire. We also have a third Bronze Medal winner based on account that was definitely no written by Kerry and two documents which confirm enemy fire which were authored independently of John Kerry. Do you still maintain, in the face of all this contray evidence, that there was no enemy fire that day?
If your answer is yes, then is it your position that every single witness is lying for Kerry and that they wrote false accounts of what happened?
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Schachte was not on the fucking boat during Kerry’s first PH incident. All three guys who were on the boat say he wasn’t there. None of them have any reason to lie. Enough said. Schachte is fucking liar, end of story.
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The doctor who claims to have examined John Krerry’s first wound is not the doctor of record and he cannot support any part of his story with documentation. It is also highly improbable that he would remember examining one Lieutenant, out of hundreds or thousands of examinations he would have performed in Vietnam, for a minor wound 35 years later. His story is also based partially on the testimony of the afore-mentioned and already discredicted Lying sack of Schachte. Schachte is the one that Doctor Who told him the wound was self-inflicted. Schachte only told him this within the past few months. The Good Doctor Who did not even remember Schachte until Scahchte called him, at the urging of the Swifties, to coach him on his story and “remind” him of the “facts.”
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Kerry was eligible for his third PH simply for getting wounded in the arm. The ass wound is irrelevant.
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I find it extremely offensive that you, a civilian, and a fucking Canadian at that, apparently sees nothing wrong with mocking the wounds of an American Vietnam veteran. Fuck you.
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What do you have to say about John O’Neill telling Nixon he was in Cambodia in a swift boat?
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What do you think about GWB once claiming that he had served in the Air Force when he hadn’t?
Hmm. Kerry’s acolytes sure don’t know how to be consistent.
John O’Neill said, thirty years ago, that he was in Cambodia. Dems say: “He’s a liar, you can’t trust him!”
John Kerry says, now, that he was in Cambodia. Dems say: “Why do you care so much what happened thirty years ago?!?”
Kerry’s slime, and so are his blind supporters.
Sure, I agree. I think Sam agrees too. It is in fact the point we’re trying to make. I can see a mindless twat like Desmostylus or someone like that, automatically presuming that Sam has merely swallowed the hook without thinking anything through. What I don’t understand is why people like you and Diogenes think so. There is no reason that Sam cannot see the exact same evidence you see, agree on what the facts are, and decide for himself whom he believes to be telling the truth — even if it is not the same decision you made. Right?