[68skylark]

Usually I feel little more than scorn for most big-time reporters, who are basically pushing a pre-determined story line about how bad the U. S. really is.

But this guy is just the opposite -- I've been following the work of Tom Bowman in the Baltimore Sun for months, and my opinion of him keeps getting higher and higher. I have no idea if he's a liberal or conservative -- he's just a damn great report IMHO.

This ia a well-balanced story about Kerry's anti-war record.

Wish I could post more of the work of this writer.

[foreverfree]

bump

[foreverfree]

bump

[martin_fierro]

Journalism Ping

[ASA Vet]

Kerry went from soldier sailor to anti-war protester

[mware]

I was listening to someone on WABC radio this morning. Not sure if it was Brinkley. He was saying that while Kerry was still in the military he flew anti war activistist to different events. The question is if he flew them around while on duty???

[claudiustg]

It would be a lot easier for Kerry to defend his anti-war stance if he'd testified to specific incidents that he personally saw. As it is all he did was lend credence to the baby-killer talk that was in vogue with the hardcore anti-Vietnam war crowd back then.

I think Kerry went to Vietnam with the idea of establishing a name for himself to start a career in politics. When he came back he found himself just another vet with a lot of medals that no one wanted to hear from. Then he had the Vets against the war revelation and saw a way to salvage his ambitions.

His is potentially a good story for the aging anti-Vietnam war crowd, but that's about it. They can imagine how noble and brave they were for protesting for a short while. But most people don't want to be reminded of Nam one way or another. It's just so unpleasant. There's a reason we celebrate all our old wars all together and only once a year!

[wretchard]

Kerry was denouncing a war essentially started and actually managed by Lyndon B. Johnson. There was bound to be something wrong with it. We had American pilots unable to engage hostile MIGs; we had the 101st Airborne taking hills and giving it back to the NVA. But Kerry put the blame, not on the war's architects, but on America. On the very guys who were giving back the hills they took.

This logic is wrong, whoever utters it. His medals or lack thereof, are irrelevant to the truth or falsity of the proposition.

[kabar]

Mackubin Thomas Owens, a Naval War College professor who led a Marine rifle platoon in Vietnam, also remains angered by Kerry's words, which he believes painted all Vietnam veterans as war criminals. While noting Kerry's "immense courage under fire,"

Mr. Kerry, please give us the citations for your medals and explain why you requested reassignment to the US after less than four months in-country.

For his part, Kerry left the Vietnam Veterans Against the War in November 1971, after 10 months with the organization, increasingly worried that it "was becoming too radical,"

According to the official VVAW website, http://www.vvaw.org/commentary/?id=397,

Since Vietnam Veterans Against the War's inception in 1967, tens of thousands of vets, GIs and supporters have participated in and supported the actions of VVAW. One of those members in the early 1970s was John Kerry. VVAW national leader Al Hubbard appointed Kerry to the VVAW Executive Committee to assist in preparing Dewey Canyon III, VVAW's limited incursion into the land of Congress in 1971. By 1972, John Kerry had moved on from VVAW. He was not one of the original founding members of VVAW in 1967.

So the spin begins. It appears that Kerry claims, according to Brinkley, only a 10 month association with VVAW, but it appears the association was longer than that. I would also question why donations to the VVAW are tax deductible currently despite the virulent anti-Bush political stance.

If Kerry left in 1972 because he felt the group was too radical, it might explain why he decided to join the naval reserve in 1972, i.e., to get on the other side of the issue to counterbalance his antiwar activities.

[NYCVirago]

Wow, this really is a great find. Here's my favorite part:

"Guilty as Lieutenant Calley may have been of the actual act of murder, the verdict does not single out the real criminal ... the United States of America," Kerry told a noontime crowd of about 100, according to a New York Times account.

Former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, an Army captain with the 1st Air Cavalry Division in Vietnam who lost both legs and his right arm when a grenade exploded near him, said Kerry was part of "the moderating force" within the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

That's a devastating juxtaposition there.

[VOA]

IIRC, The Baltimore Sun produced a really positive article about one a scientist
(immigrant from Vietnam) who helped rush forward the work on some of the
bunker-buster type bombs for going after OBL in Afghanistan.

[Salvation]

What You Don't Know about John Kerry

[CyberAnt]

What's amazing to me .. the very same period that the dems are persecuting the President over, is the very same period when Kerry WAS BACK FROM THE WAR AND HAD JOINED THE PROTESTORS.

While President Bush was flying 3 a.m. sorties looking for Russian infiltrators, Kerry was out there protesting the war.

Too bad the Newsweak cover doesn't show that contract .. but then why would they want to expose themselves to the truth. Instead they show a color picture of an entry into the military picture of Kerry, and a black and white picture of the President. Pathetic.

[XEHRpa]

An amazing article coming from the Baltimore Sun, which is usually slightly to the left of Marx.