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Fast Swift boat U-turn
Washington Times ^ | 8/25/04 | Jack Kelly

Posted on 08/24/2004 10:55:34 PM PDT by kattracks

When John Kerry went postal last week, the major media's preferred strategy for dealing with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth -- to ignore them -- went down the toilet.
    Mr. Kerry melted down because the Swifties' exposure of Kerry's "Christmas in Cambodia" fantasy has struck a nerve, and is gaining traction, despite the major media's refusal to report on it.
    Mr. Kerry has claimed on dozens of occasions -- most notably in a speech on the Senate floor in 1986 -- to have spent Christmas eve, 1968, five miles inside of Cambodia on a mission in violation of international law. Mr. Kerry said that incident was "seared" into his memory, and was the catalyst that turned him against the Vietnam war.
    The Swifties have provided evidence that Mr. Kerry spent Christmas eve 55 miles from Cambodia. None of the sailors who served with Mr. Kerry on the two Swift boats he commanded, PCF-44 and PCF-94, have supported his claim, though Mike Medeiros, a crewmate on PCF-94, said they may have strayed into Cambodian waters inadvertently.
    But this was impossible, according to Doug Regelin, a Swift boat commander in 1969, but who is not a member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. PCF-94 was part of Coastal Division 11, which was stationed at An Thoi.
    "There is no way to enter Cambodia from the An Thoi patrol area," Mr. Regelin wrote in the Augusta (Ga.) Free Press. "That patrol area started at the coastal fishing village of Ha Tien and ran parallel to the Cambodian border, but there was no way into Cambodia. Any good map will show this to be true."

(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: cambodia; christmasncambodia; kerry; kerrycambodia; sbv; swiftboatvets

1 posted on 08/24/2004 10:55:34 PM PDT by kattracks
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To: kattracks
It's a triumph also for the blogosphere which reported on a story the major media were trying to bury. Congratulations to Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit), Ed Morrissey (Captains Quarters), John Hindraker and Scott Johnson (Power Line), Hugh Hewitt and many others for doing the job "mainstream" journalists are supposed to do, but would not.
BTTT
2 posted on 08/24/2004 11:00:25 PM PDT by philman_36
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To: kattracks

Open Letter to Senator Kerry

Dear Senator Kerry,

You initially said that you were secretly in Cambodia during Christmas 1968. You said that America's S.Vietnamese allies got drunk and shot at you. You said
the Kmer Rouge shot at you. You said that President Nixon denied you were in Cambodia. You said all this is "seared...seared" into your memory. These are your own sniffles--not the "smears" of those "bitter drunks" the Swift Vets.

When it was pointed out that Nixon wasn't even innaugurated until January 1969, you flip-flopped and said you meant Christmas 1969. So you can dry your tears, big boy, and blow your nose. "Tricky Dickey" couldn't have been hiding your light under a bushel because the intrusion into Cambodia was no secret: the New York Times tattled in May. http://www.vietnamwar.com/Timeline69-75.htm

Stop blaming a dead President for slighting you by failing to announce that Mr. John Kerry of Harvard was serving in Cambodia because, as it happens, you weren't actually there. According to a 1970 interview you gave the Harvard Crimson, you seem not to have been in Vietnam at Christmas 1969:

"When he approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in Paris, the draft board refused and Kerry decided to enlist in the Navy. The
Navy assigned him to the USS Gridley which between December 1966 and July 1968 saw four months of action off the Vietnam coast. In August through November, 1968, Kerry was trained to be the skipper of a patrol boat for
Vietnamese rivers. For the next five months, until April of 1969, Kerry was the commanding Lieutenant of a patrol boat in the Mekong Delta."
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=352185

You were a skipper of a patrol boat "until April 1969" and seem to have been serving overseas for less than a year. People forget a lot of things, but they know when they attended high school; and they know when they served abroad in the armed forces. In any case, you have your records and your diary, don't you? You were writing up reports for the Navy, weren't you?

I started college near Chicago in Fall 1968. I remember the radical agitators, the bully-boys, and communists on the campuses. I remember the rioters at the Democratic convention. I remember Vietnam. I remember you, too; and thirty years ago I also was drawn into some of the anti-war activities and drank the Kool-Aid with most other college kids.

I believed your defeatist communist propaganda: our allies were corrupt and unworthy; they didn't understand democracy; our boys were routinely committing war crimes. I remember you before the Senate and on Dick Cavett. I believed that there "wouldn't be a bloodbath" when we left.

However, that was thirty years ago, and I have sobered up; while you are still drunk on your lies and still spewing the same old slanders:

a. American presidents are liars
b. American soldiers are war criminals
c. American allies are stooges
d. American veterans are drunks, stooges, and members of
front organizations

I know you are sensitive, but don't you ever wonder what the bitter S. Vietnamese soldier-drunks who didn't understand democracy and can't sass you on-line say about you? Probably not much, so you lucked out on that score.

My cousin Burton died in that war; yet you play the martyr and say "bring it on" to President Bush.

"Bring it on?" Don't you really mean "call it off"? You're drafting the Dodging Dubya to fight your fight 'cause you got some Swiftboot up your butt?

Because if you can't even do battle with a few "bitter drunks" and "stooges" without running to President Bush to make the big boys stop picking on you, how are you going to handle the terrorists, the North Koreans, and the American people when they figure out what a total phoney you are?

Will you:

a. Blame it on the Internet?
b. Take our library cards?
c. Call us all drunks?
d. Republican stooges?
d. Ask our French "allies" to help you?
e. Sue us for slander?
f. Build more mental hospitals?
g. Prescribe drugs?
h. Blame President Nixon?
i. Blame President Bush?
j. Blame President Kerry?
k. All except j?

Oh, I am so scaaaaared! NOT !

I think the wounds you are licking are self-inflicted.You've brought them on yourself because you are always shooting from the lip.


3 posted on 08/24/2004 11:05:32 PM PDT by Snapple
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To: RonDog

See #2, crediting the blogs and HH.


4 posted on 08/24/2004 11:31:11 PM PDT by Travis McGee (----- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com -----)
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To: kattracks

Print out and wear as a Campaign Button or go HERE to print.

Feel free to reuse this anywhere you wish...

5 posted on 08/24/2004 11:32:38 PM PDT by sonofatpatcher2 (Texas, Love & a .45-- What more could you want, campers? };^)
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To: Snapple

Snapple,

Just noticed your name when I went to reply.
Snapple the drink used to sponsor Limbaugh.
As people say to Rush Limbaugh, Dittoes, Snapple!
(although admittedly, the use of the word in that context
has a slightly different meaning).

Kerry should have learned by now--
The best time to shoot yourself in the foot
is when it _isn't_ in your mouth!


6 posted on 08/24/2004 11:40:39 PM PDT by grey_whiskers
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