Well, since you want to know the answer it will be your responsibility to hunt out the cite. It’s somewhere in Townhall, I think.
Strictly off the top of my head, the answer is that Pat Buchanan convinced Nixon that persecuting Kerry would make a martyr of him.
Coming from Scylla I have to go :dubious:
The point here was this: you were saying:
We concentrated on Gardner, and I could say you lied when you said that we did not “got down to brass tacks on the subject”, but maybe I am exaggerating here. 
As for Gardner, I noticed that you left this item out of your “careful” research:
Gardner, in a radio interview:
Now, it may be that in planet swifter no action will happen when one is shot at, so I guess they were happy to be sitting ducks….
…really pathetic (that, and putting words on the mouth of your commanders, qualifies to me as hearsay).
I rather realize Gardner is the one “exaggerating” here.
I’ll need a cite for that interview for context, so I’ll know what event is being referred to and what you mean.
If Gardner said he heard the commander wasn’t giving Kerry a medal, that would be hearsay.
Gardner is reporting that the commander directly told him that we would not give Kerry a medal. That is not hearsay.
Hearsay basically means a rumor.
Is.
Well, I now truly see that you don’t remember the last discussion, better leave it as that. Seeing someone mixing and matching first and second medals and not finding the swifter positions, on the medal cases, contradictory is sad. There is a lesson here, but this is not the time to discuss that.
Well, I really can’t see a commander telling him that there was no action at all when the Vietcong was shooting at the group, also: there is no record of the commander complaining about this.
If not hearsay, we then have the most likely explanation: he is lying.
That might explain why Nixon did not pursue the matter further, if one needed a further explanation beyond the simpler one that there was nothing to pursue.
And it does not explain why any of the other political enemies of Sen Kerry should be so strangely reticent, seeing as how the facts are so easily available to them now. If they could find it now, thirty years after the fact, why not then, when the memories and documents were fresher?
If O’Neill and his hench-cronies had an inkling that they could discredit Kerry’s record, is there any reason at all to doubt that they would have leapt at the chance? Unless, of course, they had no such inkling, because no such facts existed.
Scylla:
I’ve only read through one chapter of Unfit. Leaving aside the misleading, rhetorical innuendo which seems to fill it completely, there were passages which were probably false and or misleading, and there were other passages which were undeniably false and misleading. In the latter category, for example, we find this claim:
Apparently, (and rather mysteriously, given O’Neill’s record as a Swift Boat commander) the authors know nothing about Operation Sealord. As this history of YRMB 16 replete with photographs, details:
In fact, the employment of Swift Boats up the rivers to, or even beyond, the Cambodian border was the tactical cornerstone of the Sealord’s operation:
Need I mention that Costal Division 11, Kerry’s division, was part of TF (Task Force) 115?
Or consider this, from Sam’s first post in this thread:
Horsepucky, I assure you, of the highest order. The Kerry campaign has not conceded that Kerry might have wounded himself with his own grenade. Kerry flatly denies that Schacte was present in the boat on the night of the incident, as do both of the enlisted men present, Paul Runyon and Bill Zaladonis, whose stories have been fully consistent over time:
In addition, there is some doubt as to whether the three even had an M-79, but no doubt that if so, it was never fired:
Alas, I regret not being able to locate another interview in which Runyon was quoted as say, approximately, ”You know, Bill and I might not be too bright, but at least we can count to three.”
Finally, Sam knows as well as I do that the two men who accompanied Kerry on the Boston whaler that night were not regular members of his Swift Boat crew, thus making Kerry’s subsequent diary entry completely irrelevant to the case at hand.
As for Hibbard, upon whose testimony Sam bases his entire version of events (as if that version was the unvarnished truth), well, he seems to have some selective amnesia problems. To begin with, in contrast to Sam’s claims, Hibbert has also conceded that he did recommend Kerry for the Purple Heart. Interviewed by the Boston Globe in April of 2004, Hibbard stated, ”I do remember some questions on it. . .I finally said, OK if that’s what happened. . . do whatever you want.”
In addition, Hibbert has apparently no real memory of Kerry’s wound. He has stated on numerous occasions that this would consisted of ”a little scratch on the forearm,” hardly more than what one would receive from, say, a rose thorn. By contrast, Kerry’s own medical records state categorically “Shrapnel in left arm above elbow. Shrapnel removed and appl bacitracin dressing. Ret to Duty.” Could it be that Hibbert has confused the wound Kerry received with one of the doubtless hundreds of other wounds he treated 30 years ago? Or that he’s simply making it up as he goes along?
The list goes on. When the claims made by the Swiftvets are inspected critically they fall apart like so much wet toilet paper. And if an openly partisan organization like the Swiftees were to launch a similar attack against Bush, I have no doubt whatsoever anymore that Sam would be leading the charge to discredit them, given that he obviously cares nothing about the truth.
But let me just paraphrase from you, Scylla:
*I think that after thirty-odd years of investigation it is reasonable of me to ask:
What exactly is Kerry being accused of, and where is the proof?
After thirty years I would expect those who are willing to make accusations against Kerry’s combat service to have a firm case, defining the accusation and demonstrating guilt.
If such a case is extant I would like to hear it. If such a case is not, I conclude that it is simply accusation for political value, and the worst form of irresponsible derogatory muckraking.*
Sound familiar?
If you’re going to keep your sources secret so that I can’t see the context than your conclusions are worthless.
This is really bad false logic. First off, O’neil did go after Kerry on the Dick Cavett show, and attempted to get into the Fulbright hearing. Secondly, Kerry hadn’t written Tour of Duty until last year, so the Swiftvets did not know to what extent Kerry was misrepresenting them and his own record. Kerry’s files were not public. Nobody knew what his record was until he put it out there. Thirdly Kerry didn’t go massively public with his war stories until the campaign started.
So, in short the reason they didn’t try to correct Kerry’s falsified record 30 years ago is that wasn’t falsified yet, and there wasn’t much out there. They can’t correct Tour of Duty thirty years before it’s written.
Svin:
You have posted nothing to contradict your original quote from the book which goes into detail about Sealords. Your statement:
is flat out wrong. I saw nothing to back your statement that incursions into Cambodia were the cornerstone of Sealords.
I also see it as background. None of this really does anything to resolve Kerry’s XMas day contradiction when he’s in two places at once.
http://swift4.he.net/~swift4/article.php?story=20040824130358175
There is indeed contradictory statements. More backing Shacte can be seen here:
http://66.235.198.251/~jeffsieg/archives/000197.html
To summarize:
The boston whaler tactic was Schacte’s tactic.
Kerry would not be given command of a vessel while in training
Schacte was on all the Skimmer missions.
I would not equate Zaladonis’ statement as there being “no doubt.” He doesn’t remember whether they had one, or even if they were fired on. How can he be so certain that an M-79 wasn’t fired?
I agree with this. It’s not clear whether he’s referring to himself personally or his new command when he makes his statement. It’s a weak argument from the Swiftees.
Yes it does, Svin. I’ve said something several times here that you seem to be missing. I beleive that John Kerry served honorably while in Vietnam. I do not think there should be an inquiry into his medals.
I arrive at the same conclusion that you do, concerning Kerry’s service, specifically because the Swiftees fail to prove their case to the contrary.
They have however, made a case.
I don’t remember his name…something like Scott Gardner, perhaps? I think he spoke in one of the Swifties ads. Said it was a lie that Kerry was in Cambodia. Also said he spent more time on a boat with Kerry than anyone else. If anyone really, really needs a cite on this I’ll dig it up. Shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes to find.
Boy, this is a fun election year! 2000 was a boring election year! Wasn’t 2000 boring? Until they had to count the votes, that is. This, now, all this argument and nastiness and backbiting and slanders and machinations and demonstrations . . . this is fun! This is civic life!
H.L. Mencken once said that democracy is the one truly amusing form of government humanity has ever devised. I say that’s one of the things that make it worthwhile!
Scylla:
Sorry if some of my frustration with Sam is spilling over into my responses to you. Not intentional.
Having said that, I’m not sure I understand your position. You yourself do not believe the arguments forwarded by the Swiftvets, but still require someone to debunk them? Sorry, does not compute.
This confuses me as well:
Let me clarify.
The original quote from the book doesn’t discuss Sealords. Rather, the passage I quoted seeks to argue that Kerry could not possibly have been in Cambodia during Christmas of 1968 because, essentially, no Swiftboats were allowed to travel north of Sa Dac: ”Areas closer than fifty-five miles to the Cambodian border in the area of the Mekong River were patrolled by PBRs, a small river patrol craft, and not by Swift Boats…. Tom Anderson, Commander of River Division 531, who was in charge of the PBRs, confirmed that there were no Swifts anywhere in the area and that they would have been stopped had they appeared.” That quote is taken directly from the text, and is one of the arguments presented to rebut Kerry’s claim that he was anywhere near Cambodia that Christmas.
However, the other two cites I present make it clear that Operation Sealords involved deploying Swiftboats deep into Vietcong territory, far to the north of Sa Dac. Sealords started literally in conjunction with Kerry’s arrival at Coastal Division 11. Thus, either these histories of Sealords that I’ve presented are false – TF 115 wasn’t used to penetrate into territory north of Sa Dac, for example – or else Tom Anderson’s claims are wrong (or lies).
No, as I actually wrote, incursions by Swiftboats up to the Cambodian border, and even beyond, were the backbone of the Sealords tactics. I added the ”and even beyond” in part because of this passage, found on the YRMB page:
Along with these statements from the Sealords webpage:
A quick glance at the map will show you that Chau Doc lies very close to the Cambodian border.
Anyway, not to babble on about this relatively minor point, but you did challenge someone to rebut a specific claim made by the Swiftvets. As part of their arguments against Kerry, they claim that Swiftboats weren’t allowed anywhere near the Cambodian border. This claim is demonstrably false.
Regarding the cite that allegedly substantiates the claim that the Kerry campaign had admitted that Kerry might have wounded himself with an M-79 in the incident that led to his first Purple Heart: well, that’s all very damning and everything, you know. Of course, Garrett is a spokesman for the Swiftvets, and I suppose there is the modicum of a sliver of a possibility that he got his facts wrong.
Perhaps you have a link to the actual admission, in the form of a statement or press release from the Kerry campaign, I might find Garrett’s claim more credible. Not to be picky or anything. I mean, I know how rigorously the Swiftvets folks adhere to basic standards of honesty, but I just feel like I have to ask.
Finally, regarding Schacte: well, two unidentified officers are quoted in Novak’s piece as claiming that Schacte would never have allowed anyone else to run such a mission. This is very thin soup indeed. But tell me, how do you explain the fact that the other three people that we know were there all deny that Schacte was present?
They must all have been “confused”, right, Sam?
Bwa HA HA HA HA HA HA!
[Looks at Scylla’s reply again]
Bwa HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!
Secret?
Do you force me to conclude that it is only 100% rhetoric what you say and in reality, you don’t even care what was said before?
It is hardly a secret when it was already discussed in the SDMB!
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=274553&page=1&pp=50
See shaynas 116th post and then yourself(!!!) replying to that on post 125, showing that you alredy saw where that came from!
Come to think of it, this selective memory could explain why extreme right wingers come repeating subjects that were discredited or already disscussed like if nothing happened before….
…Like our fearless misleader.
It is a cliche that you should never attribute to malice what can be blamed on stupidity, but this year’s events move me to doubt. Not to Godwinize here, but Josef Goebbels figured out decades ago that you can get a lot of people to believe any Big Lie if you just repeat it often enough and keep repeating it in the face of all contrary evidence. And the “movement conservatives” have adopted the same tactic.
I went there and found some “he said, she said stuff” but no single instance of a lie by the Swifties. Nothing along the lines of “I was in Cambodia during Christmas, 1968, when Richard Nixon was conducting an illegal war inCambodia.”
So I guess the Swifties are telling the truth.
Perhaps you all might be interested in this link which I came across while checking other venues:
http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/2004/09/a_challenge_to_.html
Okey dokey then.
The Swiftvets attempt to make the case that Kerry’s service in Vietnam was dishonorable.
My starting point on Kerry is that he’s a legitimate war hero and a combat veteran who served admirably.
In reading the Swiftvet account I read it in the context that these guys are trying to paint Kerry in the worst possible light. They make no bones about it. When I read Tour of Duty I realize that Kerry is trying to paint himself in the best possible light.
So, I read through the books. What have the swiftvets convinced me of concerning Kerry in Vietnam? Was he ambitious and opportunistic? Yeah, I think so? Was he a medal hunter? Yeah, I think so. Did he get his purple hearts for minor injuries? Yeah, I think so. Did he make some tactical mistakes? Yup. Was he trying to build credentials as a war hero for a political career? Yup. It looks that way.
The point is that none of these things is incompatible with good honorable service. None of these things mean he’s not a hero.
For example, If the Rasmussen incident happened exactly as described by the the Swiftvets, I think Kerry still behaved heroically.
I think the incident where he shot (didn’t shoot) the Viet Cong with the rocket launcher also indicates high service and possibly heroism.
So, after reading this through, I feel the Swiftvets have failed to demonstrate that Kerry’s service was dishonorable. It does not mean they are lying. It just doesn’t prove what they want it to prove.
I realize there’s going to be a fog of war and differing accounts here. So I read it to see what it demonstrates. It does not demonstrate that the Swiftvets are lying or making this stuff up. If they were, they should be shot, because this stuff really isn’t bad when you read it, carefully. If they were making it up, one would hope that they had made up better stuff.
So, in conclusion, I kind of find the whole thing about the Swiftvets story about Kerry in Vietnam to be kind of moot.
But that’s just one theme of the book.
The main theme of the book is that when Kerry came back he told a lot of lies about his service and impugned the people he served with falsely. To support this, they have direct quotes from Kerry or his authorized biographers wherein he contradicts himself.
For example, this whole thing about whether or not it would be possible for Kerry to get a Swiftboat into Cambodia from where he was on the day in question is kind of moot. Kerry places himself in more than one place at this time. His biographer has stated that the XMas in Cambodia story is obviously wrong. The Kerry campaing has conceded as much and said that he was actually in Cambodia at other times on secret missions (Y’know when the plotline gets stolen by Apocolypse now.)
So, we can play around and try to find minor contradictions, and I’ll do that. But, it’s kind of pointless. Nobody in the Kerry campaign is arguing that he was there on Christmas. Kerry told contradictory stories.
Well, it ain’t in the first chapter, which I thought was what you read. It’s in the third chapter.
“Close” is not “and even beyond.” 55 miles from Cambodia is “close” compared to say, New Jersey. What you are doing with your cites it appears to me is getting confused about two different things. Unfit For Command is giving the specific circumstances of Kerry’s unit at the time in question, December 25, 1968.
Your cite is giving an overview of Operation Sealord over its entire course. You are conflating the general and the specific. Additionally, I am under the impression that Sealords didn’t get in close to Cambodia until late Spring early summer of '69, but I might be wrong about that.
Finally, if you are right and there were Swiftboats operating on the border on that day, it doesn’t show a lie. They can make errors without being liars. What it appears to me, sitting here with the book right now, is that this is more background than an attempt to prove the point.
What the chapter does is give the three accounts Kerry has given of this incident.
March 27, 1986 in the Senate:
“I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting in a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shat at by the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the President of the United States telling the American People that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is Seared—Seared—in me.”
(Nixon, who he is referring to, was of course not President at the time.
Than to the Boston Herald:
“I remember spending Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Chrismas. The absurdity of being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed that there were no American troops was very real.”
The 2004 Boston Globe biography:
To top it off, Kerry said laer that he had gone to Cambodia despite President Nixon’s assurances to the American Public that there were no combat actions in this neutral territory. The young sailor began to develop a deep mistrust of the U.S. government pronouncements he later recalled.
Than you have the paragraph you quote. What you leave out though are the key earlier phrase specifically placing this paragraph in referance to Christmas 1968, and not as a general description of Kerry’s duties at all times.
“During Christmas 1968, Kerry was stationed at Coastal Division 13 in Cat Lo…”
Leaving out this part changes its meaning. With it in, it’s clear that it is in reference specifically to Christmas of 1968 rather than at all times which you seem to imply as the contradiction with your cite.
I don’t know if the cite you got the paragraph from left the first part out, or if you did it, but it does change the meaning, and is an unfair way to try to create a lie where none was made.
The Chapter than goes on to quote all the living commanders and superiors stating that Kerry was not in Cambodia in Christmas and was never ordered into Cambodia. It then cites Gardner saying the boat wasn’t in Cambodia on Christmas of '68. It says that Zaladonis and Hatch (who were crewmembers at the time) deny that they were ever in Cambodia.
It then cites Tour of Duty which says cites Kerry’s journal saying that they were involved in a mortar attack on Christmas Eve of 1968 in Sa Dec (55 miles from the border,) and that he spent Christmas day writing in his journal back at the base. Then later he attempted to take his boat and crew to Dom Tang Base to see the Bob Hope Christmas show there, but took a wrong turn in a canal, didn’t find it, ended up in a very dangerous canal (but encountered no action) and came back to base.
I appreciate your making the argument. That claim though was not made. You ommitted (by accident I’m sure, or perhaps the cite where you got that paragraph from ommitted it nefariously) the beginning of the paragraph which gives the remainder its context in time. It is not a general statement. It is a specific one referring specifically to Christmas of 1968 only.
I suppose. I remember seeing it on Fox news’ website as well, though. It’s not all that important though, so please don’t ask me to chase it.
We can hunt for the transcript if you really really want it. Personally, it’s a minor point either way, and I don’t feel like hunting. I just typed a whole bunch of shit here, quoting and everything, and the idea of searching Foxnews for a small point is kind of depressing. Your call.
Good question. It is three to one, and I can’t prove it either way. It seems logical to me that somebody has to be in command of the boat. Kerry, who is in training, seems an unlikely choice to be placed in charge. It seems more likely that he would go along for the ride with an experienced commander to gain experience and see how things are done. It also seem logical to me that Schacte, who originated the tactic and use of the whaler would be there. It would seem doubly so, since several sources say that he was always on it whenever it went out, that he was the only one who took it out on these missions.
I tend to think he was probably there, and the other two are mistaken. One additional piece of evidence that supports this is that Kerry as a Senator many years later, recognizes Shacte and call him “Batman.” Batman was Schacte’s call sign on the whaler. It’s possible that Kerry might have known this even if Schacte wasn’t on the boat that night, but it seems more likely that the recollection is founded from a shared time on the whaler.
I really don’t understand this. You take a quote from a radio interview, and get some kind of victory because I haven’t memorized the radio interview?
If you read the rest of the thread you link to, you’ll begin to see that what Shayna doesn’t realize is that there is more than one boat being talked about.
At some point it becomes pretty clear that there’s more than one boat and Gardner’s statement can only be construed as a lie by one who does not understand what Gardner is talking about.
At this point Shayna stops posting, for whatever reason.
This is your victory?
It’s kind of interesting to me how all this debunking of the Swiftees seems to inevitably entail misreading their statements or quoting them and leaving salient parts out to change their meaning.
And one more note. If you want me to respond to you, you need to can the histrionics and stop playing games. I don’t wish to go on a scavenger hunt to figure out what you’re talking about.
If you do this kind of thing again, I will ignore you.
You said that I kept that a secret, and the context of my small victory is the main beef I had with you on this: accusing and pretending that there was no “get down to brass tacks on the subjet” before.
Silly me, I thought it clearly showed that your research on the timeline the swifters had on what happened on medal 1 and medal 2 was contradictory.
He talks nonsense but that is ok, we have a great “traducer” here.
Small, but I have to tell it is targeted one: It was really insulting of you to say none had discussed this before, THAT is the only victory here, but of small victories I see the big picture of a debater that writes pretty, but doesn’t even research their insulting comments.
Like Gardner doing that to his commander’s words?
Wrong, a rhetorical bully coming claiming that there was nothing discussed before and expecting everyone to ignore even the recent past has no right claiming that others are playing games.
Too late, you actually did that by claiming that virtually nothing was discussed before.
In any case, seeing that going the ignore way is not kosher in this place, I however reaffirm my pledge I made when I became a member here: I would never ignore anyone, I am here to see what others think and were they get their ideas, no matter if you decide to ignore me, I will never do that to even you.
Otherwise, how can I bust someone else when they ignore even what they posted before?