August 20, 2004

KERRY CAMP FRETS OVER CAMBODIA TALE

THERE'S now some real angst in Democratic circles because of the growing evidence that Democrat John Kerry's claim to have a memory "seared in me" of spending Christmas 1968 in Cambodia was false — and just didn't happen.

But what worries some pro-Kerry Democrats is the fear that Kerry has, as one put it, "an Al Gore problem" — that he's a serial exaggerator.
[This is Liberal-speak for "liar," a unequivocal term that's not "mainstream" enough for them to use.--Jen]
(Remember how Gore claimed to have invented the Internet and inspired the novel "Love Story"?)

Remember Kerry's claim that "I've met foreign leaders" who told him he had to beat Bush? Turned out he hadn't met any foreign leaders in years.

Kerry's campaign Web site claimed credit for Vietnam missions when another man, Tedd Peck, was the skipper (that was removed when he protested) and last week was claiming credit for former Sen. Bob Kerrey's service as Senate Intelligence Committee vice chairman.

"John Kerry, Bob Kerrey — similar names," blithely explained Kerry campaign spokesman Michael Meehan, as if Kerry didn't know his own bio.
[For everyone playing along at home, John Kerry's the guy who didn't cry on camera about Vietnam "war atrocities;" that was Bob Kerrey.
These Dim Senators. Sheesh!]

Not one of Kerry's Swift boat crewmates, even the ones backing his candidacy, recalls being in Cambodia in Christmas 1968 — and anti-Kerry Swift boat veterans cite a host of evidence that he was 50 miles away in Vietnam.

Why does it matter? Because Kerry has said the Cambodia incident — of being sent on a covert mission to "a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops" was "seared" in his mind and changed his view of America.

Team Kerry's excuse is that maybe he accidentally crossed the border or his time frame was fuzzy, but that just won't square with his passionate 1986 claim, on the Senate floor, that the Christmas memory was "seared — seared — in me."
[Apparently, this was one of the few times that Kerry bothered to show up in the Senate, much less take the floor for an issue he cared about.--J.T.]

Unlike the conflicts over Kerry's medals, this isn't a he said/he said dispute — Kerry either was or wasn't in Cambodia. Eventually a reporter will ask him point-blank if he still claims he was in Cambodia that Christmas — yes or no.

For sure, as the anti-Kerry Swift vets pointed out — thus embarrassing every reporter who missed it for over a decade — Kerry's statements were clearly false, since Nixon wasn't yet president in Christmas 1968. But adding Nixon sure embellishes the tale.

The story has unraveled so badly that Kerry's court biographer, Douglas Brinkley, is said to be preparing a new account in which Cambodia is said to come post-Christmas. So why did Brinkley leave it out of his campaign bio?

The other fascinating part of this story is the key role that bloggers on the Internet have played in pointing out the holes in Kerry's story — even as much of the press tries to ignore them.

For instance, when Team Kerry held a press conference featuring his crewmates this week, one was conspicuously missing — David Alston — after the Internet-fueled revelation that he may have only served on Kerry's boat for one week.

A Web blogger, captainsquartersblog, began questioning whether Alston (who has spoken emotionally about how they "bled together") ever served with Kerry. National Review examined the records and concluded maybe — for just one week.

This whole story could be a test of the Internet's impact in this campaign. While most papers have been ignoring the story — until Kerry went ballistic at the Swift vets yesterday — bloggers have been examining it in detail.

On Web sites like Instapundit.com, captainsquartersblog.com, HughHewitt.com and rogerlsimon.com, skeptical veterans are trading details on Kerry's service and raising intricate questions about his veracity based on their own experience.

Their online dialogue is punctuated with questions about why the "mainstream media" have been mostly ignoring this story — and why the 13 pro-Kerry vets are automatically assumed to have more credibility than 264 anti-Kerry vets.

Just imagine the coverage if 264 vets who served with Bush in the Texas Air National Guard made similar charges. For those bloggers, this story has become a test of the mainstream media's credibility — and its liberal anti-Bush bias.

I deeply bow to my 4 blogging colleagues who were cited--they are superb and have been all over this story like white on rice!
If you haven't discovered their blogs yet, you must.
What's glaringly obvious--other than the fact that Kerry is lying and that his lies go deep to the character issue--is that the Media has a Leftist, pro-Dimocrat agenda and will say and do quite a bit of lying themselves to promote their ideology and their candidates.
Job One for them is to get rid of President Bush and his team and to get the Dims, Kerry being the most prominent among them, back in power or to keep "their people" in power who already are there (as we can see in the awful McGreevey case where the whole political machine of New Jersey seems to be a cesspool, yet the media runs interference for him, too).
Actually, if the Kerry Swift Boat affair is how you discovered the blogosphere, then you're a little late to the party, but better late than never, of course.
We've been blogging on the Leftist, Bush-hating, America-hating lies for years now so try and catch up!
Not only has the media covered up for Kerry and tried their best not to let this story become a story, in spite of spilling copious ink over President Bush's service records for months and making it an issue for the second time when he was up for (re)election, but the Media's skewed, lied about, chosen to ignore and slanted all of the news about the war, too.
The Kerry Cambodian Christmas is just the latest example of their perfidy and deception.
Let's hope that the way this story has broken has gotten the mojo working for our blogs, but I'll tell you this: something has got to give with the Lame Stream Media and soon!
I don't get my news from TV anymore at all, but rely solely on the 'Net and blogs and I listen to Conservative talk radio all day, too, but I can't bear to watch cable or network news (even Fox's most of the time) and haven't been able to for months--it's just too terrible.
What the media calls "news" is nothing but their agenda masquerading as news.
Virtually every "story" they report becomes mere padding for a cautionary tale if you're a wrong-headed (in their minds) Conservative and another triumph of the Left which calls for the implementation of more Socialist "Progressive" policies.
Everyone's a victim who needs Big Government to save them.
Who needs it?
John Kerry is an awful candidate and I think I'd think so even I were an Independent voter.
He married for Big Money twice.
He fabricated a brief career of military service including probably self-awarded medals that he didn't earn or deserve and then came home to throw those medals over the White House fence in some bizarre war protest.
(Why should that be an effective anti-war statement? It would just be more for the White House groundskeeper to clean up.)
He made a name for himself--a name that thousands of Vietnam vets who served honorably have remembered for 30 years--by testi-lying to Congress in 1971 that all of our military were regularly engaging in "war crimes" in Vietnam and that the abuse was sanctioned up and down the chain of command.
Instead of coming home to a grateful nation and big parades, these men were met with being spat upon and called "babykillers" for their service when they got back.
They have Kerry and his friend Jane Fonda to thank.
I saw the first Swift Boat Veterans for Truth news conference back in early June and some of the 250+ men who are opposed to a Kerry as Commander-in-Chief had to hold back sobs when talking about what Kerry's public anti-war work had done to their own images in the eyes of their family and friends.
(I must confess, even though I was still in high school and not very politically engaged, I heard many of the Kerry/Fonda crowd's lies repeated as truths such as the "fact" that most GIs were drug addicts and that incidents like the My Lai massacre were probably not all that uncommon.
The current Kerry truth problem about us being in Cambodia (and Laos) "illegally" was another of the hippies' favorites talking points.
Maybe we did have Special Forces in Cambodia in the late '60's and early 70's.
Given the fact of the Communist Khmer Rouge regime, which slaughtered and tyrannized millions, and the placement of the Ho Chi Minh Trail there, we should have been there.
What's the peaceniks point, except that the US and her soldiers are "sneaky" and "evil?")
I imagine that in our Global War on Islamist Terrorism, our Special Forces will have to go to places where they're not "supposed" to be "legally" and fight small, quiet battles with our IslamoFacist enemies where the bad guys are, not where the UN declares them "legally" to be after much deliberation--Will Kerry have a problem authorizing this as Commander-in-Chief?
You can bet he will!
In fact, if he were to become President [shudder], I don't think he'd do anything at all to wage this war except pontificate at the UN and on TV a lot...just like his Dimocrat compadre Clinton.
Yes, he'll try to kick the can of American history down the road to ruin except that this time, I don't think our country will be able to get away with it like we thought we did with Clintoon.
The man is a whackjob and a schizophrenic to run on his "I was for the war/fought in the war before I was against it." platform!
Why can't he just choose?
Either be a warmonger Donkey like Joe Lieberman or be the peacenik candidate like Eugene McCarthy but FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PICK!
And no matter what he says, he'll be lying because isn't it becoming clear that the man is a chronic liar and has no honor or truth in him?
Kerry's had an abysmal career in the Senate, sponsoring no key bills or important legislation, another fact of his bio he doesn't want the media or the public to look at too closely, either.
Why the people of Massachusetts keep electing him (and Teddy the Murderer Kennedy) is beyond me!
Must be something in the water in that state.
This man is SCUM and I think is campaign is an insult to the American people.
Good thing I love President Bush and think he's been a remarkable President and has done much for America in the past 3 and 1/2 years.
Frankly, I think President Bush should get a medal for having to run against a dirt bag like Kerry.
But I do know this, media lies and spin aside, President Bush deserves to be reelected, even if his opponent wasn't so dreadful!
As the posted story pointed out, when Bush wins, it won't be because he got *any* help from the media--quite the contrary.
On November 2, the American people will speak and all the world will be listening.
Let's hope and pray that most of us don't form our opinions on who to vote for based on what can be found in the Main Stream Media (because we're doomed if that's the case!).
If the "New Media" blogosphere helped to get the truth out and inform our fellow Americans of the real news, then I'm honored and proud to have been a small part of that as a (Right Wing Conservative warmongering chickenhawk) blogger!
With any luck, this Kerry Unfit for Command scandal will sound the deathknell for both his candidacy and for Old, Big Media..Fingers crossed and prayers going up!
One thing's for sure, blogs are here to stay and more and more people are noticing that we bloggers have got something substantive to say because every blog is a "No Spin Zone" as that blogger understands it.
We are hundreds, if not thousands, of Bill O' Reillys and we don't have to rely on sponsors or lobbies or soft money but only on what our hearts, minds and souls compel us to say!
Our great country and the Internet (most of it invented by Americans) make this possible and we should all give great thanks!