After receiving endless grief in the blogosphere, the LA Times, Washington Post and New York Times all have weighed in with stories on the Swift Boats controversy. Sorry, I'm too lazy to track down the links for you, but it all strikes me as good work. The LA Times gave the best overall summary of the controversy I have seen, and the Post and NY Times both advanced the story with new information I had not seen elsewhere.
Are the anti-Kerry bloggers happy? Of course not. Pure spin, as they see it. I don't know. If I had to choose between what I have been able to find in the blogosphere and what has appeared in the big media, I'll take the big media.
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You and me both David. You didn't; mention that even Bill O'Reilly came out with that outlook last Monday morning. I had one conservative blogger complain that they couldn't trust the "liberal" media (the ones you named among others) and now they can't even trust O'Reilly. When will they ever learn?
Go pick up a copy of the book 'Unfit for Command' and then comment on it. It's now #3 on the Best Sellers list.
This is Kerry's own fault. He served in Vietnam for 4 1/2 months, came home, lead the anti-war effort, threw his medals away publicly, and spent the next 30 years voting against the military.
Now, he's trying to reinvent himself, and act like he was proud to serve, and some of the GI's he badmouthed when he got home are repaying him. He should have left the issue alone.
It may be, Eric, but the men who are badmouthing him are also badmouthing and lying about the men who served on his boats or with him on patrol. The Chicago Tribune is not noted for being "liberal media" and it carried an article from one of its own people who commanded one of the other boats with Kerry and earned a bronze star for the mission in which Kerry served as leader and won a silver star. He says the admiral who is now condemning Kerry as a grandstander sent them all notices praising the work right after the mission. Despite what the book says and the ads, Kerry actually spent a year with the navy in Vietnamese waters and then the four months in the Swift Boats. And he actually served four years in the navy when many of those condemning him were draftees who served only two years. I don't think the LA Times would leave itself open to suit by saying that only one of the 19 men who served on Kerry's two boats is not supporting him. And that means he was a good commander with concern of his men. And he didn't get fragged.
Being how I was 6 years old in 1968, I wasn't there to judge Kerry for myself, so obviously I have to look at Kerry's record.
He was the poster-child for the anti-war movement, so why not campaign on it? Why try to make himself pro-military? A man is what he is, and should be proud of it.
I still maintain Kerry put himself in this position. These swift-boat vets are causing him some real damage, and that's got to be the reason he's losing his composure.
Actually, Eric, the Swift Boat thing goes back to March or April, before Kerry really got into the war thing. I was told about it on a web site when I first started doing this stuff. But the big question I have is why hasn't this surfaced before? Kerry has run for the senate several times and as a senator he is more than qualified to be President, I think, than the current occupant of the seat who has a mythical belief in his right to occupy it and was a mediocre governor of a state in which a lot of brains have had the smarts baked out (not yours David—it really survived well so don't hit me—whimper). I think that rather than get all befuddled by the Swift Boat issue, we really need to be concerned about the abridgement of our rights that I talk about in the most recent post on Just Thoughts (sorry about the plug).
Nobody's saying a Senator isn't qualified to be President, what they're saying is that if Kerry wants his formerly loathed military service to be the centerpiece of his campaign that they want their opinion heard. I for one am not so quick to condemn the opinions of 200+ decorated veterans who actually were there.
And if there's footage of Kerry throwing his medals over the wall, or testifying before Congress about his own un-charged misconduct, it should be on the nightly news, and let the voters decide who's credible, right?
Two guys were called to service. One stayed home. One went to war. Now the stay at home guy is the hero, and the veteran is the lying coward? Yeah, if that makes sense to you, then you simply have no sense.
You mean that everybody who serves in the National Guard is somehow less?
The whole John Kerry/Vietnam situation is fascinating to me.
The Democrats hated Vietnam, and considered it a war not worth fighting, and are trying to compare Iraq to Vietnam, hoping to take another shot at the Bush administration.
But, at the same time, John Kerry doesn't want to talk about his 20 years in the Senate, and wants to only talk about Vietnam. This is the same man who disgraced himself in the eyes of most of the Vietnam vets when he led the anti-war effort, and testified to Congress about war crimes, and even his own un-charged misconduct.
Then, most of Kerry's peers, other swift-boat commanders tell their story, and now Kerry is calling them all a part of a Republican smear campaign. But their story isn't changing, and Kerry's is. First he was in Cambodia, then he wasn't, and today his campaign admitted that Kerry's first purple heart 'may' have been inadvertantly self-inflicted.
Kerry has made a major mistake, and is going to be in serious trouble because of it. If his voting record in the Senate is ever scrutinized, he's done.
Seems Max Cleland showed up at the Bush "Ranch" yesterday to deliver a message to Ol' Blood and Guts himself. The Commander in Chief (sic) didnt have the balls to meet with Max Cleland personally. He sent some local lackey to talk to him. Much to Max's credit he declinded to meet with the man.
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