A war mongering prick like Bush needed to come off as a military leader. He ran from Vietnam. I do not blame him for that. If I were in his position I would have too.
People of my age had to deal with getting drafted into a war that many were getting killed and wounded. in Many did not think we should have been involved in that war. Almost everybody had friends that were there . It was scary.
But man up. Bush had no war experience. So they attacked those who actually did. He found people who would say McCain blabbed and didn’t have it so bad. They found people who would diminish Kerrys war experiences. It was dishonest and shameful . That describes Bush and his neocons.
The Swift Boaters had numerous criticisms against Kerry - and in fairness each of them ought to be examined separately.
One criticism was over the Purple Hearts and the wounds - and I think we all can agree that whatever case the group wanted to make, they couldn’t prove it to the satisfaction of almost anybody.
The second was over extravagant claims like Christmas in Cambodia - and these charges led to retraction and clarification of many of these by Kerry.
The charge that Kerry aided the enemy and demoralized POWs still in Vietnam with his 1971 testimony in the Fulbright Hearings was more problematic for Kerry, as were the other details of Kerry’s antiwar activity. These, however, weren’t because the Swift Boats were making outlandish claims on that particular front - they weren’t - but because Kerry had a conflict in his personal history between his service and this very vigorous advocacy, and he never addressed throughout his political life the contradictions they presented.
So on balance, the Swift Boats overreached on the claims of wounds and medals. Everything else not only was fair game, but areas where Kerry had some explaining to do, to say the very least.
Care to explain what those “contradictions” are? Something along the lines of “not supporting the troops in a time of war”, perhaps? :dubious:
Or is that just more smokescreen?
What explaining? Kerry’s war service was honorable and his anti-war service more honorable still.
On balance .Kerry and McCain went and fought for the country. Repubs usually like that. They disparaged their service for purely political reasons. They scrounged for every possible trash dump looking for something to hang their hats on. It was shameful and trying to find a justification just compounds the crime.
Mr. Moto you are a republican like the rest. You will leap on any scrap and present it like it is meaningful. I think you know who went and who did not.
Its just you have your head so far up the republicans asses that the only light you see comes from Dick Cheneys nostril holes.
There’s a very wide gulf between honorable and beyond question or reproach, and John Kerry isn’t on the far side of that one. Not many men are.
If a POW hears his 1971 testimony from behind bars in the Hanoi Hilton, and gets irritated by that, who am I to tell him his opinion is wrong? Who am I to tell him he can’t put that opinion on the air?
Now, that opinion can be countered, refuted, placed in context of other actions, but all of that would be, well, explaining. Which is what I said above.
Kerry never in his public life addressed these concerns some people had with him. He went into that race actually thinking he’d appeal to veterans and antiwar voters both - a terribly naive view probably borne of never having much opposition in races in Massachusetts. Thus he had to face this in a campaign - and the results weren’t pretty.
Compare that to Bob Kerrey, who faced media exposes of his Vietnam service with far more openness and candor. Plus Bob Kerrey’s past never caused veterans to oppose him in any kind of organized way.
That’s true, anyone can be swiftboated if you’re willing to do a little lying and little deliberate obtuseing. Well, maybe a LOT of deliberate obtuseing.
Fact is, John Kerry went to Veitnam, led a Swiftboat, got his ass shot at in combat. George Bush protected the skies over Texas from, uh, stuff. It was a huge lie from beginning to end, and everybody knows it.
Everybody?
I missed John Kerry’s inaugural address. Bet it was just swell.
I have a question for you.
Why would you accept Kerry’s accounts of his service and his activism afterward at face value and dismiss the criticism of veterans who, by and large, had service records just as heroic as his?
I said above which of the Swift Boat charges I was inclined to believe and which I wasn’t - but you would dismiss all of them. These men weren’t serving in Texas, were they?
And how do you account for the fact that Kerry changed his story concerning the Cambodia missions?
So your final “clever” thought is that a victory justifies everything? Going to keep that feeling in 2009?
-Joe
Yes. Including you.
“This is no movie, this is real!”
“Which reel?”
So, has Kerry released his information yet?
If only he’d won, it wouldn’t have mattered what he did!
-Joe
The best way for a public figure to address a lie or a smear is often not to address it at all - by doing so, one gives it credence.
As a man of honor, no, he wasn’t used to having it questioned so baselessly, no. That may well have been naive - but then which type of behavior ought we citizens to reward?
Cite that John Kerry’s discussion of his own service lacked candor? If it’s just your opinion, upon what do you base it? The SVBT lies themselves?
True, he did not take quite as public a stance in support of what the solid and growing majority at the time had already come to know. But why do you count an act of honor and courage *against * a man?
Because he was there, and the men who were there with him concur, and because the accounts you choose to accept instead are from men who were in fact not there, and suddenly changed their views at a most convenient time, and for pretty transparent reasons, too.
You bought into a partisan smear campaign, buddy. It’s okay, we’re all human, we all get fooled sometimes. What’s *not * okay is to deny it once it’s been shown to you - as it has, many times. Then you’re not only acting foolishly but dishonorably as well.
Algher, has Pickens manned up yet to what he was actually offering to wager, or is he still weaseling? :dubious:
And there the matter remains.
Your one-stop shopping source for swiftboat facts. For the Cambodia item specifically, since Mr. Moto insists on its importance:
I didn’t say it was terribly important - just that it was a claim made by the group that should be evaluated.
And the fact is that the campaign explicitly said that the senator’s memory was faulty - he had probably gone to Cambodia in early 1969, not Christmas of 1968. Which probably would have been fine had Kerry not made several public comments about the former claim.
Again, it was something he had to explain.
The care with which you word that leads me to suspect that’s all you got, which is to say bupkis. You appear to be trying to squeeze some implication out of “had to explain, clarify”. Is having to explain some reliable indication of dishonesty? Or are you merely hoping to imply something you cannot prove? Trial by innuendo?
One candidate went to Nam and fought. One went went to Texas and the Nat. Guard due to power of his father. The one that went and fought needs to explain. to your slanted satisfaction that he fought hard enough to meet your standards. The one that stayed home is a patriot.
Kerry owes you no explanation whatsoever. He was in the battle and fought. Who are you to demand he tell you where he was at any given time.