No ad runs forever. Once it’s had its effect, an ad is always pulled.

But this charade that there’s no contact between the SBVT and the Bush campaign is nonsense.

Posted by: Don at August 23, 2004 02:39 PM

Prove it.

Posted by: TL at August 23, 2004 02:42 PM

Prove It.

That is the extent of your argument? That ties can’t be proved?

I give them enough credit to believe that they’ve operated within the legal rules. But anybody who doesn’t think this was coordinated all the way back to when they set up the PAC is being intellectually dishonest or just plain stupid.

Posted by: kis at August 23, 2004 03:11 PM

and while you are at it, Don, let’s talk about Moveon.org and the Kerry Campaign. Let’s talk about your buddy Michael Moore sitting with President Carter at the DNC. Let’s talk about all of it.

Don…hate to tell you this brother…but I think Kerry’s boat has just sailed and he ain’t on it. Truth hurts don’t it! Oh…it’s not true? Then why doesn’t the good Senator Kerry sign the F180 and get his paperwork out in the open? Think of it…Kerry releases all his records and can then demand the President “find” the rest of his records. Win Win…*IF* Kerry was the saint he makes himself out to be during his time in Vietnam.

Posted by: Wayne Fielder at August 23, 2004 03:14 PM

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth will not pull television ads attacking John Kerry’s service despite President Bush’s wishes, sources said Monday.

Sources close to the Swift Boat Veterans said the issue of Kerry’s military service is too important to drop.

“It is not a Republican or Democratic issue. If John Kerry was a Republican, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth would still run this ad.”

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040823-024302-9750r.htm

Funny how these “nonpartisan” groups keep popping up in election years . . . Four years ago, a veteran’s group made a lot of headlines blasting McCain. Anyone even remember what they said?

Posted by: Forrest at August 23, 2004 03:15 PM

Can we get him to denounce those hip-hop JC Penney ads next?

Not only is the song annoying, but the kids are wearing some butt-ugly clothes.

Posted by: Laurence Simon at August 23, 2004 03:17 PM

OK. Enlighten us stupid folk.

And while you’re at it, why don’t you explain why such contact matters in this case, but doesn’t matter when it comes to the virtual inseperability between liberal 527’s and the Kerry campaign.

Thanks Don. You know we all appreciate your creative approach to the facts.

Posted by: TL at August 23, 2004 03:20 PM

..crying towel anyone;pleeezz at least get out of sight …

Posted by: Rob_NC at August 23, 2004 03:44 PM

O’Neil has kerry by the balls and he knows it. Kerry has tried everything to shut him up, everything except prove the charges wrong.

Sign the 180 Kerry, what are you afriad of? John Kerry’s Book, “the new soldier” is also making it’s way around the net. You know, the one he doesn’t want anyone to see.
Now, the veterans of the guided missle ship (USS GRIDLEY) he first served on are pointing out Kerry’s lies as well.

http://home.nycap.rr.com/pwcarter/the%20kerry%20page.html

There are simply too many lies for kerry to “fix”.

Posted by: Grand Ayatollah Nathan at August 23, 2004 03:45 PM

Anyone remember how Democrats tried to attack Bob Dole’s war record in 96? Here’s a refresher…

http://www.tedellis.net/dole-article.htm

Posted by: KH at August 23, 2004 03:51 PM

If Bush could actually stop the ads that would prove prima facie that they were illegal. So obviously it is Kerry’s strategy to force the vets to keep airing the ads.

Fookin’ brilliant. I says.

—==—

What is the War Hero Afraid of?
Form 180. Release ALL the records.

Video link

Posted by: M. Simon at August 23, 2004 03:54 PM

The call from Bush could open him up to charges that the Bush-Cheney campaign is coordinating with an unregulated political organization.

But only if the ads stop, right?

What I don’t get is this: why does Edwards express disappointment, if Bush did call the ads to be pulled of? Wasn’t that what the Dems had been asking for?

Rhetorical question, of course.

Posted by: Franco Aleman (Barcelona, Spain) at August 23, 2004 03:55 PM

M. Simon, you beat me to it :-)

Posted by: Franco Aleman (Barcelona, Spain) at August 23, 2004 03:56 PM

Anyone remember how Democrats tried to attack Bob Dole’s war record in 96?

Yeah. One statement in one article is morally equivalent to the SBVT attack. Right.

Posted by: kis at August 23, 2004 03:57 PM

I like the way Bush has handled this. He’s saying that 527’s are the problem and basically calling on Kerry to adopt the same position. I really like it on two levels:

by invoking his signing of McCain-Feingold he points out that he’s used his presidency in a positive way.

by lamenting ALL 527’s he paints Kerry into a corner. Kerry either has to denounce all 527’s or continue to use a “selective approach” the hypocracy of which then becomes the next RNC campaign ad.

To me, this is a good tactic for dealing with the entire issue. Kerry can no longer call on Bush to denounce these ads because he already has. Not that this will stop the ads, as the swifties have already said, as long as there’s money, they’ll be ads.

I’m loving it.

Posted by: skip at August 23, 2004 03:58 PM

Franco Aleman (Barcelona, Spain),

Luck of the draw. Great minds etc. ;-)

Within a minute of each other too. I say we share the prize. My name comes first though. :-)

—==—

What is the War Hero Afraid of?
Form 180. Release ALL the records.

Video link

Posted by: M. Simon at August 23, 2004 03:59 PM

Rove must be laughing his @ss off right now.

Bush gets the opportunity to denounce 527s, which Kerry can’t do, because he is in a self-imposed media blackout right now to conserve his cash. The 527s are keeping Kerry alive. Kerry can’t bring himself to denounce Soros; yet Bush can denounce all 527s. This inoculates Bush from criticism of what the Swifties are doing while still benefiting from the Swifties bashing Kerry.

God, does it get better than this?

Posted by: DWC at August 23, 2004 04:00 PM

As I recall, about a year ago the Washington Post ran a major article on the 527s and their apparent loop whole process. In that article, they described how major DNC operatives, activists and financial sponsors such as George Soros were all meeting to plot how best to run these. I doubt if any current DNC leaders or their folks were present, but the article described how committed they all were and how overll strategy and coordination between various 527s was going to be carried out to ensure no duplication of effort and help focus funds on critical messages.

I could be wrong, but I have to give the Dems credit for exploiting this one to the maximum and taking the lead in “how to…”

While it is easy to try and dismiss this as merely one in a series of Karly Rove’s majic hat tricks, it is not so easily to dismiss 250+ vets who have signed up to tell a different story about Kerry. The Dems have some serious voter frustration out there with their man that needs attention STAT. Threatening law suits against TV and radio stations and book publishiers and retailers does not really create a wondeful freedom of speech picture.

Posted by: steve at August 23, 2004 04:00 PM

Liberals and Demoncrats despise the Truth.

This is a well written article. It explains why

many of the 2.5 Million Vietnam vets believe Hanoi

John Kerry owes them a real apology.

Why Kerry will NEVER BE PRESIDENT?

Posted by: leaddog2 at August 23, 2004 04:01 PM

…hey I guess one things for shure McCain-Finegold aint working…
even on drugs “Rush” was right

Posted by: Rob_NC at August 23, 2004 04:12 PM

Yes, this is so far so good. What’s also nice is how little money was spent to get the publicity.

I wonder how many more news cycles this will last? O’neil seems to be the hot guest right now. he just did an hour, an hour, on Rush which is I think the most time Rush has ever let anybody else speak on his show! (including the callers, right?)

So this is not likely to die down too quickly. It will be interesting to watch how this issue plays out and what will replace it in the news.

What I am frustrated by is the fact that the media is going to get by with what amounts to an embargo on this story in the early going. I think that needs more attention.

Posted by: skip at August 23, 2004 04:13 PM

The fact that Kerry won’t release all of his medical records is what’s killing him. He obviously has something to hide. Sooo… Let’s DISH!

jackson zed’s theory on why Kerry won’t sign the 180 release:

You know how Kerry supposedly “carries metal in his body” from one of the injuries he received in Vietnam? My theory is that he has no such shrapnel in his ass, and if his military medical records were released it would blow his story, and Kerry knows that if that were to happen, his campaign would never be able spin it’s way out from under such a whopper.

That would be the first scandal. The rest of the scandal would show that essentially Kerry didn’t deserve any of the Purple Hearts that got him out of Vietnam.

Stick a fork in him,
:jackson

Posted by: jackson zed at August 23, 2004 04:14 PM

Hmm, come to find out, the people who slandered McCain four years ago are still at it:

While serving as a POW, McCain was one of the captives who agreed to be used for propaganda purposes by the enemy. In fact, some argue that an interview he gave to a communist publication – detailing an accident aboard his ship, problems with low morale among U.S. servicemen, the chain of command in the U.S. Navy and other pertinent information – went far beyond mere propaganda and crossed the line into disclosing military intelligence secrets.

On June 5, 1969, the Washington Post carried a story titled, “Reds Say PW Songbird is Pilot Son of Admiral.” The article states that, “Hanoi has aired a broadcast in which the pilot son of United States Commander in the Pacific, Adm. John McCain, purportedly admits to having bombed civilian targets in North Vietnam and praises medical treatment he has received since being taken prisoner.”

Worse yet, many years later, when both John McCain and John Kerry were serving in the U.S. Senate, they teamed up to betray the families of the POWs and MIAs in favor of sucking up to the murderous Communist Vietnamese regime.

More than any other two men in America, McCain and Kerry orchestrated the cover-up of what became of our Vietnam POWs and MIAs.

As chairman of the Select Senate Committee on POW-MIA Affairs, Kerry gave Hanoi a clean bill of health with regard to credible claims Vietnam was still holding U.S. prisoners of war. Kerry ensured the committee voted that no U.S. servicemen remained there, angering many families of missing servicemen.

McCain served along with Kerry on that committee. According to Ted Samply, writing in the January 1997 issue of U.S. Veteran Dispatch, McCain enjoyed dismal relations with many POW-MIA families and activists. McCain said some harsh words about those who accused the U.S. government of knowingly leaving POWs behind. In fact, he called such people “the most craven, most cynical and most despicable human beings to ever run a scam.” McCain’s presence on the committee and his willingness to go along with Kerry ensured that the final report would be politically bulletproof.

Kerry got his reward. A year later, Hanoi announced it was awarding Colliers International, a Boston-based real estate company, an exclusive deal to develop its commercial real estate potentially worth billions. Stuart Forbes, the chief executive officer of Colliers, was Kerry’s cousin.

One wonders what McCain’s reward might be? What was in the cover-up for him? Why has he become an apologist for John Kerry’s despicable and dishonorable record in Vietnam and, worse, his actions afterward?

Maybe it’s just something about the character of John McCain. Maybe birds of a feather just flock together. Maybe this is why you should take anything McCain says about Kerry with a grain of salt.

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39892

“Maybe birds of a feather just flock together.” That was written before McCains campaign swing with Bush . . . hmm. . .

Posted by: Forrest at August 23, 2004 04:30 PM

Forrest,

I can’t imagine a more offensive post, congratulations.

Let’s wrap your nuts in phone wire and use them to place a call to Ho Chi Minh and see what you sing about.

Creep.

:jackson

Posted by: jackson zed at August 23, 2004 04:33 PM

>>I can’t imagine a more offensive post, congratulations.

You can’t? Let me try again:

Bush’s Betrayal

Chester Mierzejewski, an old war buddy of Bush, who said he was angered by the “false assertions” made by candidate Bush when describing the incident, gave a different account.

After 44 years of silence, Mierzejewski, who also was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, told the New York Post that Bush had abandoned his crew to death when there was another choice.

He said he was approximately 100 feet in front of Bush’s plane as the turret gunner for Squadron Commander Douglas Melvin’s plane, “so close he could see in the cockpit” of Bush’s bomber. Mierzejewski’s close wartime buddy was one of the two crew members in Bush’s plane.

According to Mierzejewski, the squadron was in a tight-formation bombing raid against a Japanese radio installation on an island reported to be heavily fortified. He saw “a puff of smoke” come from Bush’s plane which quickly disappeared and was certain only one man parachuted from the plane and that it was Bush, the pilot.

Mierzejewski said the Avenger torpedo bomber was engineered so that it could successfully crash land on water and that Bush doomed his own crew by bailing out and leaving the bomber out of control.

Other World War II veterans also expressed concern about Bush parachuting out of the aircraft. “He had a moral obligation to put that plane in the water in an emergency landing,” Robert Flood, a former B-17 bombardier told the press. “He violated the primary rule for a captain of a multi-crew aircraft: The pilot never leaves the airplane with anybody in it.”

Pete Brandon, a Marine Corps Avenger pilot, who also served in the South Pacific, said an Avenger pilot had two choices: Set the plane down in the water or hold it steady until the two crewmen could prepare to jump.

“In an Avenger, only the pilot wore a parachute,” Brandon said. “The two crewmen wore harnesses. If the order came to bail out, they had to take chest parachutes from a shelf and strap them on - and bail out. The Avenger was very unstable. The pilot had to be at the controls the whole time or it would go right over on its back.”

http://www.usvetdsp.com/story46.htm

There may be an honest debate as to whether John McCain is a lying traitor, and perhaps some differences on the subject of John McCain being a Communist stooge, but surely we can all agree that George Bush Sr. was a coward who didn’t deserve his Navy Cross?

Posted by: Forrest at August 23, 2004 04:56 PM

You know there is easy proof of who had ties to these off campaign slammers. Is it not common knowledge that the dems had Michael Moore sitting next to Jimmy ‘the cricket’ Carter on stage at the convention. I think there are direct ties!! SHEESH!
Libs brains are so mushed up they need meds. Keep on disowning the ads Mr President….and Swift Boaters keep up the charge, I’ll support you with my own money if needs be….and then to the Dems i’ll say ‘Bring it on you girlie men!!”…..If Arnold touches this saying at the convention America will rock with laugher….yes, laughter at the liberals!!!!

Posted by: dickmr at August 23, 2004 05:01 PM

>>Let’s wrap your nuts in phone wire and use them to place a call to Ho Chi Minh and see what you sing about.

You seem to be suggesting that John McCain was tortured. However, “Veterans Against McCain” disputed this:

McCain was never tortured.
Patty: “There are a lot of little nuances, dealing with John McCain. He claims that he was tortured . . . or he implies it. That’s a lie.”

The Hoppers have located two former POWs who claim they were senior ranking officers at the time McCain says he was tortured in solitary confinement. Ted Guy and Gordon “Swede” Larson both tell New Times that while they could not guarantee that McCain was not physically harmed, they doubted it.

“Between the two of us, it’s our belief, and to the best of our knowledge, that no prisoner was beaten or harmed physically in that camp [known as “The Plantation”],” Larson says. “. . . My only contention with the McCain deal is that while he was at The Plantation, to the best of my knowledge and Ted’s knowledge, he was not physically abused in any way. No one was in that camp. It was the camp that people were released from.”

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/issues/1999-03-25/feature.html

Posted by: Forrest at August 23, 2004 05:05 PM

This is just crazy. How did we get to McCain’s POW experiences?

i think what the left is now trying to do is obvious: if Kerry misspoke, well he wasn’t the only one, others have “embellished” their records as well.

It’s a valiant effort but it will come to naught in the end. Others who may have embellished their records have not engaged in a systematic pattern of lies aimed at insulting thier fellow service men. Kerry angered a lot of people, people who haven’t forgotten his anti war behavior.

bush Sr might have “embellished” ditto Dole or McCain, but they didn’t slam everybody they served with after they returned from thier tour did they?

that’s the part that will keep this thing going: absolute disgust at Kerry’s opportunistic behavior, the Vet’s haven’t forgotten.

Posted by: skip at August 23, 2004 05:26 PM

Forrest and his scorched Earth strategy. What’s your point? Everybody sucks, not just the guy I like? Who’s next? FDR?

I can’t imagine why you aren’t looking to have Kerry respond to all this stuff on the merits and authorize the release of all his records. He’s your candidate, that you bought on the basis of his WAR HERO credentials. Wouldn’t you like to know if you bought a dressed up pig? Or is winning everything?

Posted by: TL at August 23, 2004 05:49 PM

>>Forrest and his scorched Earth strategy. What’s your point? Everybody sucks, not just the guy I like? Who’s next? FDR?Forrest and his scorched Earth strategy. What’s your point? Everybody sucks, not just the guy I like? Who’s next? FDR?

FDR wasn’t a veteran. This is all about slandering veterans right? But if you want some bi-partisan slander, I’ve got that too:

“JFK was pond scum.” NEWSWEEK, August 19, 1996. . . As a WWII commander of a patrol boat PT-109 off Western Australia, he managed through simply unbelievable incompetence to get it run over by a Japanese destroyer. He then fabricated a story. His men called him “Shafty” and complained he spent more time chasing women than Japanese.

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/jfk.html

If you want my point, it is that I’m sick of seeing veterans slandered for the poltical advantage of people who were never in combat. I suspect that the slander on George Bush Sr. was managed by Pat Robertson. Pat was a Marine during the Korean War, but his daddy, the Senator, made sure he never saw combat:

http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/religion/televangelists/pat-robertson/

I’m still steamed about the slander against McCain. Here’s what was said in the GOP primary debate of Feb. 16, 2000:

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Well, let me tell you what happened. There was an ad run against me. We ran a counter-ad in New Hampshire. Governor Bush took the ad down. But let me tell you what really went over the line. Governor Bush had an event and he paid for it, and stood next to a spokesman for a fringe veterans group. That fringe veteran said that John McCain had abandoned the veterans. Now, I don’t know how, if you can understand this, George, but that really hurts.

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH: Yeah.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: That really hurts. And so five United States Senators, Vietnam veterans, heroes, some of them really incredible heroes, wrote George a letter and said, “apologize.”

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH: Let me…

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: You should be ashamed.

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH: Yeah, let me speak to that.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: You should be ashamed. Now, if you want to hear…

LARRY KING: Is he responsible for what someone else says?

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Well, this same man… He stood next to him, it was his event… This same man had attacked his father viciously.

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH: John, I believe that you served our country nobly, and I’ve said it over and over again. That man wasn’t speaking for me. He may have a dispute with you…

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: He was at your event.

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH: Let me finish, please. Please.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: He’s listed as your—

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH: let me finish. Let me finish. (Laughter)

LARRY KING: Let him finish.

GOV. GEORGE W. BUSH: The man was not speaking for me. If you want to know my opinion about you, John, you served our country admirably and strongly, and I am proud of your record just like you are. And I don’t appreciate what he said about my dad either.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: You paid for an event… (Applause) …You paid for an event and stood next to a person. And when you were asked if you would repudiate him, you said, “no.”

(End Quote)

When Wesley Clark was running for President, Bush again found some people who were willing to slander him . . . too bad.

Look at any military organization, and you find a great variety of people, just like anywhere. Most are just ordinary guys. Some are going to be drunks or goldbrickers or chronically stupid thieves. Some will be from rich and well-connected families, and some will be hicks. Do they all like each other? Hell no!

Put all these people together in combat, and some will perform heroically, and some less so. You line up the survivors at the end of the day and give one a Silver Star and a couple Bronze Stars and pass out some Purple Hearts, and the rest may get Unit Citations.

Think there won’t be any grumbling about who got the shiny medals? Of course, there will be. There may be a dozen guys convinced that they should have gotten the Silver Star, or one of their buddies should have. (My father still thinks they owe him a medal for Iwo Jima, and maybe they do.) Some will go to their graves believing the other guy got it, and they didn’t, because of some kind of privilege or favoritism.

Usually, nothing comes of such talk. But let a decorated veteran run for President, and it isn’t too hard to find people to say he doesn’t deserve his medals, and say it with conviction. If you want to send the snoops around asking questions, you’ll find the only guys with clean records are the ones who didn’t serve.

Posted by: Forrest at August 23, 2004 06:49 PM

related cartoon here

Posted by: CERDIP at August 23, 2004 06:51 PM

You know, Forrest, I don’t care about Kerry’s “medals.” As with any event … if you have five eyewitnesses, you’re going to get at least five different versions of the event.

I’m also sure that today if you asked how many people attended Woodstock, you’d get about 1 million or so affirmatives.

What I do know, is that Kerry has spent over 20 years talking about one particular event he claims was his political awakening, his raison d’etre for going into politics and an event so monumentous for him he used it as street creds in a Senate floor debate in 1986 (and thus his testimony is recorded in the Congressional record.) I don’t need any eyewitnesses, no he said/she said accounts. I have Kerry himself giving a time, place and date of an event seared into his memory and giving him a public moral purpose for the rest of his life.

And that event is a proven, and now admitted, lie.

That’s enough for me.

Posted by: Darleen at August 23, 2004 09:14 PM

Hey Forrest….one of your cohorts, a woman from the Kerry campaign tonight said that ‘Bush betrayed his country by not serving in Vietnam!’…. ha ha ha Liberals have gone nuts!! This is too much fun to watch them squirm and twist; just before the Swift Vets drop the next shoe. Don’t you and Kerry just wonder what that is going to make him TOAST? huh Maybe negotiating as a civilian (not a reservist as the dems say) with the enemy Vietnamese in Paris….Maybe that there is no shrapnel in his ass….or maybe it just could be that Teresa goes off like a bomb and blows up and tells how the military will be punished under HER administration!!! This is just too much fun….

Posted by: dickmr at August 23, 2004 09:55 PM

The “Rich Texas Republican” accusation is a moot point. The vast majority of contributions, and they are in the millions since Kerry and Co. did the SwiftVets the pleasure of opening their mouths, are 25 & 50 dollar gifts from Joe Dude from down the Bayou types.(ET included)
George Bush may want the SwiftVets to cease but thats not going to happen, and he knows it. This is not a Republican or Democrat thing. It’s personal. You might want to factor in a rumor that may have some truth to it. A Navy Captain, not part of the SwiftVet group, may have located ALL the communication documentation from Coastal Division 11 during Kerrys period there, including all radio logs and all original copies of communications from all vessels and shore stations. If so, it should ALL be available under FOIA. The SwiftVet story is not over yet.

Posted by: ET at August 23, 2004 10:52 PM

>>And that event is a proven, and now admitted, lie.

Gosh, there are so many lies here . . . which is the one that bothers you?

Posted by: Forrest at August 23, 2004 11:08 PM

Forrest, I am again impressed by the depth of your research. I think your point very clearly demonstrates how easy mud is to fling by those who Were Not There, and that vitriol is no basis for anything positive.

I admit that I do not fully understand the animal hatred that is expressed toward Kerry in this case, or “liberals” in general (Jimmy “the cricket” Carter…what the hell is that?), but history shows again and again just how pointless that kind of blindness is. J Zed suggestion that you be tortured, tl’s inability to see the irony of your presentation, the blanket zealotry I read here again and again…it’s not just pointless but sad to read. Some of these people…I just hope they’re not cruel to their pets. As et says, it’s personal. And whenever mrdick chimes in…well, it would just be funny if it wasn’t so worrying that these guys are out driving cars in public.

Posted by: Jatsby at August 23, 2004 11:16 PM

>>I admit that I do not fully understand the animal hatred that is expressed toward Kerry in this case . . .

My theory is, it’s the same “patriots” who were calling McCain a Communist stooge four years ago. This is only a small minority of American veterans, but definitely the part that makes the most headlines.

Posted by: Forrest at August 23, 2004 11:59 PM

Now who’s easily impressed, Jatsby old bean?

Regurgitating transcripts from Kerry campaign and moveon.org ads and talking points isn’t research. I’ll give Forrest this much, he certainly can type a lot.

If Forrest’s only point was that vets take it unfairly on the chin, I’d have to say I agree, to a point. But that isn’t his only point, and he’s using this dispute to wail about the injustice of it all. I don’t recall Forrest being all that worked up when the President of the U.S. was being called a deserter and AWOL. How about turning that research skill into a factual critique of Farenheit 911?

Also, most vets don’t make their service the centerpiece of their qualifications for office and very few vets have come home and accused their brethren of being war criminals and undisciplined murderers. Kerry has done both, and has basically dared people to call him on it. If you are surprised that this has resulted in some bitter vets that want to remind Kerry of what he’s done to them and how they remember what happened, you are out of touch with human nature.

Posted by: TL at August 24, 2004 01:05 AM

Forrest,

We DO NOT REALLY care about your reliance on or regurgitation of insane mouthings. (What else could it be)?

If you are actually sane, then Read what is True and NOT Fantasy stuff from Moveon.org and Crazy Moore, among other fruitcakes.

Real Heros are telling the world about Hanoi John Kerry.

POW’s View of Hanoi Kerry

Democrat like Kerry and Moore say things like this

The FIRST EVER Newsweek coverage of Kerry’s lies now includes the Video of the 2 POW’s who were tortured because of Hanoi John.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5783805/site/newsweek

Newsweek Shows POW’s Talking About Torture

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14743

Why does John Kerry have a “V” for valor on his Silver Star when it is apparently against the law? Is it documenr forgery?

Posted by: leaddog2 at August 24, 2004 06:31 AM

recon does not post here, but you need to see this.

www.qando.net

ART. 104. AIDING THE ENEMY
Any person who—

(1) aids, or attempts to aid, the enemy with arms, ammunition, supplies, money, or other things; or

(2) without proper authority, knowingly harbors or protects or gives intelligence to or communicates or corresponds with or holds any intercourse with the enemy, either directly or indirectly;

shall suffer death or such other punishment as a court-martial or military commission may direct.

Let us not forget to mention Kerry’s Silver Star’s mysterious combat V appearing on his DD-214 discharge, strongly indicated that it’s a forged instrument publicly displayed on his website, which would make it a clear violation of Title 18, USC § 498 - Military or naval discharge certificates [altered or counterfeit]. Maybe he should get acquainted 2B1.1 of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. People get charged with it. People go to jail for it.

Posted by: recon at August 24, 2004 11:00 AM

We have 4 people checking files back to the beginning of the Silver Star.

So far, John Kerry is the ONLY ONE with such a addition, but we are still checking files.

Posted by: leaddog2 at August 24, 2004 01:19 PM

>>I don’t recall Forrest being all that worked up when the President of the U.S. was being called a deserter and AWOL.

As for “deserter,” would say absolutely not. “AWOL,” is a bit more plausible, but it is for the accusers to prove, not the accused to disprove. If you are interested in the subject, I suggest you examine the evidence:

http://www.awolbush.com/kerry-vs-bush.asp

>>Also, most vets don’t make their service the centerpiece of their qualifications for office . . .

Such a short memory you have. It was only 8 years ago that Bob Dole was doing the veterans’ halls. At that time, his war record also came into question (ordinarily, I wouldn’t repeat this, but since Dole has gone on the record saying that Kerry never shed blood for his country, his claims aout his own record are fair game):

Dole’s first wound, in the night patrol, was self-inflicted (a story the candidate once told himself), but that fact does not appear in an extremely laudatory profile the G.O.P. distributes with a cover letter by Dole. And the factoid that Dole got two Bronze Stars for heroism is circulated without evidence of dates and citations. All this is not to suggest that Dole failed to perform his duties honorably, or that he does not deserve respect and sympathy for the terrible wounds he suffered and his courage in living a productive life in spite of the resultant damage. But as a veteran of the 10th Mountain Division and the 85th Mountain Infantry Regiment in which Dole served, I have grown increasingly uncomfortable with efforts to cast him as a wartime hero. Let’s examine the Dole military myth piece by piece:
· Dole rushed to the colors. As David Corn and Paul Schemm report, Dole put off being sent to the combat zone until 1945. His reason for joining the Army’s Enlisted Reserve Corps was in all probability the same as mine and other college students’: to defer induction into the military.
· Dole’s unit was constantly under fire. In Senator for Sale, Stanley Hilton quotes Dev Jennings, one of the sergeants in Dole’s platoon, as saying that I Company was “pretty much under fire all the time” from the day Dole joined the unit to April 14, the day he was wounded. Hilton goes on to say that “I Company served as the spearhead of attack [the forward troops who always push ahead of the rest of the army], often encountering Germans ensconced in dugouts on the sides of the rugged mountains.”

What does Dole say? He writes that he arrived to take up his assignment on “the morning of February 25.” But he never mentions that the 10th Mountain Division went on a second offensive March 3-6, suffering 549 casualties, among them the famed U.S. ski-jump champion Torger Tokle. I/85 played only a reserve role in this advance, which may explain Dole’s failure to mention it. Dole’s 3rd Battalion suffered virtually no casualties.
At any rate, the 10th, which had been badly bloodied in the major February 19-25 offensive that dislodged German troops entrenched on Monte Belvedere, was gearing up for another attack on the still formidable German lines. Dole writes in his autobiography that his “chief task was finding ways to keep everyone busy: cleaning weapons, doing calisthenics, going on patrol.” For the next month and a half we were hunkered down in foxholes and bunkers, rarely seeing anyone, even good friends, outside our own platoon or squad (one reason I never met Dole). During this time, I Company was subjected to shelling and machine-gun fire while on front-line duty, but it was not under constant fire, any more than were the other companies in the division. The commanding general instituted a policy of rotating one battalion at a time to a rest area; individual soldiers were also given one-week leaves to cities like Rome. As for Sergeant Jennings’s description of I Company as the “spearhead of attack,” during March and early April of 1945, the division was in defensive positions and hardly “spearheading” anything.

· Dole’s company was known as a “suicide squad.” Citing Dole as a source, Hilton writes that I Company was known as a suicide squad because of the high rate of casualties it suffered. Recently, The Dallas Morning News passed along this legend, describing Dole as “a young lieutenant with a crack combat division…known as the ‘suicide squad.’… [He was] a particularly brave and even reckless officer.” But Capt. John Woodruff, in his official history of the 85th Regiment, writes that in the fighting up to this point it was the 2nd Battalion of that regiment that suffered the heaviest casualties. In the April 14-15 offensive in which Dole participated, L Company of the 3rd Battalion took the worst beating, experiencing “more casualties than any other Company in the Division from the time the Division arrived in Italy until the surrender,” though I Company was certainly hard hit. Both Frank Carafa and Al Nencioni, sergeants in Dole’s company, deny that it was ever referred to by others in the 10th as a suicide squad, though both were shocked by the casualties suffered in the April offensive.

· Dole’s men considered him an aggressive, courageous leader. In talking to Hilton, Nencioni (who told me he was responsible for directing mortar squads in the 4th platoon — the weapons platoon) recalled Dole as an especially brave officer who showed no hesitation in going into combat. Jennings told Kansas City Star reporter Jake Thompson that “the lieutenant was brave. . . he’d walk out to men on post at the front line even though he did not have to.” Stan Kuschick, for a time the platoon’s senior sergeant, called Dole “the best combat leader the platoon had.” But at this point, Dole’s combat leadership qualities were still undemonstrated.

The only truly aggressive actions Dole is known to have engaged in after his arrival and before the April 14 attack were two night patrols for the purpose of taking prisoners. Neither accomplished its mission. According to regimental historian Woodruff’s account, “Co ‘I’ sent out an ambush patrol at 1900 17 March of 16 men, led by Lt. Dole. An ambush was set…with part of the patrol and the rest moved forward. Enemy MG [machine gun] and mortar fire suddenly opened up on the patrol, inflicting 4 light casualties. No prisoners were taken but one German was killed or badly wounded. The patrol was forced to withdraw because of mortar fire.” Two nights later, Woodruff states, Dole led another patrol but ran into a Company K patrol engaged in a firefight with the enemy and halted. “Later they were fired upon, and thinking it might be the Co ‘K’ patrol, Lt Dole withdrew to prevent a clash of friendly forces.”
The three men quoted above, along with Frank Carafa (who served for a time as Dole’s immediate subordinate), are the four people most often interviewed about Dole by biographers; all agreed that he was a good guy, unassuming, respectful of their advice, popular with his men. There is no reason to dispute this. Dole was evidently soft-spoken and willing to listen to those with greater combat experience. As a green replacement taking over a unit that had been through some severe fighting, listening to the veterans and learning from them was in his own interest.

· Dole’s first wound. It was in the first of these night patrols that Dole received the wound for which he was awarded his first Purple Heart. He ruefully confesses in his 1988 autobiography that his wound was self-inflicted: “As we approached the enemy, there was a brief exchange of gunfire. I took a grenade in hand, pulled the pin, and tossed it in the direction of the farmhouse. It wasn’t a very good pitch (remember, I was used to catching passes, not throwing them). In the darkness, the grenade must have struck a tree and bounced off. It exploded nearby, sending a sliver of metal into my leg — the sort of injury the Army patched up with Mercurochrome and a Purple Heart.” The wound was so minor that he led another patrol two nights later. He does not mention that others were also injured by his misguided throw — which Woodruff’s account attributes to an enemy machine gun.

Dole’s version seems to have gotten chewed up in the myth-making machinery. Richard Ben Cramer, in his book Bob Dole, is the only one of the biographers to give Dole’s account. Hilton says only that Dole “suffered a slight leg wound in March 1945, and earned a Purple Heart, but he went right on leading his platoon.” In his 1994 biography Bob Dole: The Republicans’ Man for All Seasons, Thompson, the Kansas CityStar reporter, who had interviewed Dole, says, “One of his group pulled the pin on a hand grenade and threw it…. A small grenade fragment cut into Dole’s leg and lightly injured several others. The men were patched up and each was awarded a Purple Heart.”
Most significant, in a 1982 Washingtonian article currently being distributed by the Dole campaign, which Dole praises in a cover letter as “events brilliantly captured in print by my friend Noel Koch,” Koch says nothing about Dole’s errant toss of the grenade. Rather, he quotes Dole as saying, “I think one of ours might have bounced off a tree and rolled back…. Sometimes it was like a shooting gallery in the dark. You didn’t know where the stuff was coming from or whose it was.” Apparently, Dole approved this revisionist version.

· In opposition to his company commander’s orders, Dole led an assault on a German machine-gun nest. There are conflicting versions of how Dole came to lead the April 14 assault in which he was wounded. First, there is strong disagreement over who was Dole’s platoon sergeant, his second in command. Dole, who should know, identifies him in his autobiography as “my second in command, Platoon Sergeant Stan Kuschick.” But Thompson and Cramer write that Dole took over from Sergeant Carafa, who has told various biographers and journalists that he had been acting platoon commander for sixteen months, which is difficult to believe since normal Army procedure would be to send in a replacement officer well before that time — particularly if the platoon was going into a major battle, as it did in the drive for Monte Belvedere. When I raised this with Carafa in a recent interview, he stuck to his story.

The reason the identity of Dole’s number two is important is that Carafa is the source of the oft-repeated story establishing Dole’s courage and fighting spirit. Carafa has told biographers that the company commander had ordered him to lead an attack on a machine-gun nest, with Dole providing covering fire, but that Dole volunteered to lead it instead. Carafa, now 74, recently gave a somewhat modified version of the circumstances under which Dole came to lead the attack. Carafa now says that the company commander merely suggested that he command the squad because he had been acting platoon leader before Dole arrived. When they returned to the platoon and explained the mission, “Dole said he would take the squad and I would give him covering fire.” Carafa agreed that it was Dole’s duty to lead the attack, since he was the platoon leader. Yet in an interview, another member of Dole’s company, who prefers to remain anonymous, characterized Carafa’s memory of the incident as containing inaccuracies.
Cramer makes no reference to Carafa’s story in his description of the same action. He says simply, “Dole could have stayed in the middle [of the platoon], too. But he knew his job, and he did it.” Out of modesty, perhaps, Dole is reticent about the incident in his autobiography, quoting Carafa’s account and then saying, “I don’t remember the exact sequence myself.”

· Dole was wounded while trying to drag his fallen radioman into a shell hole. Company I’s objective was to capture Hill 913, but as the men proceeded down a slope, they immediately ran into mine fields and intense enemy fire raking a clearing they had to cross. The time was about 10:30 A.M. on April 14. Dole writes that in the course of the attack various members of his platoon were hit, and he threw a grenade at the machine-gun nest, then dove into a shell hole for protection. “From where I crouched,” he continues, “I could see my platoon’s radio man go down…. After pulling his lifeless form into the foxhole, I scrambled back out again. As I did, I felt a sharp sting in my upper right back.” Thus, his wound came after he had pulled the radioman into the shell hole.

The “Bob Dole Story” on the Dole for President homepage on the Internet gives this account a slightly more heroic twist: “In the middle of heavy shelling, Lieutenant Dole saw his radioman go down. As he crawled out of his foxhole to try to rescue the wounded soldier, he was hit by Nazi machine gun fire.” Katharine Seelye, writing in The New York Times on the fifty-first anniversary of the incident, relates a similar version, only she says he was hit “by a shell or bullet or cannon fire — there was too much flying metal to know.” These versions make Dole’s commendable action more admirably sacrificial.
Since Dole says he does not remember what happened next, perhaps because he was given morphine, we must rely on the accounts of Nencioni, Kuschick, Carafa and Jennings. But the recollections of fifty years after the event must be approached with caution. Kuschick, for example, was quoted in a 1992 book, Soldiers on Skis, as saying the wound that crippled Dole occurred when their platoon was sent out on a night patrol to capture a prisoner. “It was dark, we took them by surprise, and then there was a firefight…. Bob, in what was a gutsy move, led the platoon up front with two scouts. Machine-gun fire killed the scouts and hit Bob. I went to him and saw he was barely alive. He looked gray.” Dole, who wrote the foreword to this book and presumably saw the galleys, for some reason failed to correct Kuschick’s story.

· Dole’s heroic leadership helped the 10th Division crack the German mountain defenses. Summing up Dole’s achievements, Hilton extravagantly claims, “Dole’s leadership qualities were an important ingredient in the 10th Mountain Division’s relentless drive to mop up the tail end of German troops still clinging desperately to the mountains of northern Italy.” The truth is that Dole’s company took heavy casualties from mines and enemy fire — without achieving its objective. Two of the four platoon lieutenants were killed in action. The regimental historian, Woodruff, mentions Dole was “seriously wounded during the attack” but gives no indication that he did anything remarkable in that combat. The battalion commander ordered Company K to pass through Company I and attack Hill 913 from another direction. Dole was put out of action so quickly that his contribution to the 10th Division’s smashing of the German Gothic line was tragically brief.

· Dole was awarded two medals for heroism. Dole’s homepage on the Internet and handouts from the Dole for President campaign credit him with two Bronze Stars without producing any citations. The Army’s Personnel Records Center says he received only one, and his separation notice confirms this. It appears that if Dole received two Bronze Stars, the second would have been awarded under a policy introduced in 1947 in which the medal was automatically given to all holders of the Combat Infantryman’s Badge. In other words, Dole’s second award was simply for being in combat — not, as with Bronze Stars awarded in wartime, for “heroic” or “meritorious” conduct.

In the April 14 attack Dole did his duty, but his actions were hardly the stuff of heroism. It was his job to lead his platoon, and dragging a wounded (or dead) comrade into one’s shell hole was a common occurrence in the heat of battle. Even the friendly chronicler Noel Koch wonders why a war wound invests the bearer with an aura of heroism. “Heroism,” he says, “involves choices, and Dole perceived no choice between leading his men and not leading them.” As a member of Dole’s platoon, Stanley Jones, put it in a recent interview, Dole “was a good soldier, but no more a hero than any other soldier.”
Dole was promoted to first lieutenant in April 1946 and to captain in February 1947 even though he had been undergoing operations and rehabilitation in hospitals for the past two years. Hilton says that Dole referred to the second of these advancements as a “bedpan promotion.”
And so the truth about Dole’s war record is considerably less than awe-inspiring. Yet the myth endures, and with the candidate running on the contrast between his and Clinton’s military record, his campaign isn’t eager to give a more accurate account. Dole, at the behest of his handlers, is less reticent about his service than in the past, but he mainly speaks about his wound and rehabilitation. He has passed up several opportunities to correct the exaggerated versions in biographies, and in the case of his self-wounding has even approved a sanitized account in which his maladroitly hurled grenade goes unnoted. Journalists continue to portray him as a hero, winner of two Bronze Stars. Joe Klein, for example, writes in Newseek that Dole knows “what guns do. He also knows what politicians do, which is rarely anything quite so dramatic as leading an army into battle.” Such attempts to make political capital out of Dole’s war service go beyond the respect due him for the role he played as a soldier with the 10th Mountain Division.

http://www.tedellis.net/dole-article.htm

Posted by: Forrest at August 24, 2004 06:48 PM

Attaboy, Forrest, regurgitate Sidney Blumenthal’s hit piece from 1996 — without attribution. So weak.

Posted by: TL at August 25, 2004 11:18 AM