[sandbar]

You know I'm getting tired of this "you have no right to question anything regarding John Kerry, cause he was in Vietnam!" crap. I am 31, couldn't have gone to Vietnam, but that doesn't mean I don't have the right to question him if he wants to be my leader!!

It's not like he didn't bring it up either.

[Ann Archy]

Maybe if John McCain asked Cleland he would answer the question!!!

I actually can not believe Cleland has no Purple Heart....he must have really blown himself up like people have been saying.

[southernnorthcarolina]

I can't imagine (nor I suspect, can most on this forum) what it would be like to live without three limbs. Max Cleland bore his affliction with a great deal of grace, and had a notable and accomplished (if wrong-headed, from a conservative point of view) career, including Cabinet and Senate seats. But after his loss to Saxby Chambliss in 2002, he became bitter. He has made statements and insinuations about our Commander in Chief which go far beyond political hyperbole, and cross the line to premeditated falsehoods uttered for political gain, and to outright maliciousness.

Senator Cleland said that he quoted Shakespeare: "Those who jest at scars never felt a wound." I recall no such line by Shakespeare, and failed to find one in a brief search. I'll take Cleland at his word, and assume that the quote is genuine. But how is it appropriate to Senator Kerry's situation? We can't jest at scars we've never seen -- or scars which may never have existed.

With respect to Senator Cleland's scars, they are very real. And nobody, to my knowledge, has jested about them. But they were self-inflicted, an inconvenient fact which was rarely broached until the Senator began his unfounded assault on President Bush's integrity and honor. Cleland was quite literally "hoist with his own petard"*, and now he has been in the figurative sense, as well.

_________________
* "For 'tis the sport to have the enginer / Hoist with his owne petar" -- Shakespeare, Hamlet III iv. "Hoist" was in Shakespeare's time the past participles of a verb "to hoise", which meant what "to hoist" does now: to lift. A petard (see under "peter out" for the etymology) was an explosive charge detonated by a slowly burning fuse. If the petard went off prematurely, then the sapper (military engineer; Shakespeare's "enginer") who planted it would be hurled into the air by the explosion. (Compare "up" in "to blow up".) A modern rendition might be: "It's fun to see the engineer blown up with his own bomb."

[leprechaun9]

CLELAND: I got out five weeks early because I got blown up.
It would be more accurate to say you blew yourself up.

Maybe Cleland's wounds are similar to John Freakin' Kerry's. Now let's see, Cleland picked up a greande on his way to the beer hall, while Kerry?????

[End_Clintonism_Now]

Target Practice!!!

[RichInOC]

Why? Did he forget to sit on his helmet once, and get his nads blown off?

[kellynla]

whoa, whoa, whoa...wait just a frigging minute here!!! This clown Kerry has been in office for thirty frigging years and he hasn't released his medical records yet??? And he wants to be POUS? I DON'T THINK SO????... The American people may have been hoodwinked by the last "hero" JFK but this JFK is going to have to pony up or forgetaboutit!!! I've got dollars to donuts that those 3 Purple Hearts are suspect to say the least. We already know the guy is a bald faced liar and a traitor. And I agree with my brother Viet Nam vets, Cleland was a moron to pick up a grenade that had fallen to the floor. That whole deal didn't pass the smell test either! He got blown up because of his stupidity! Semper Fi, Kelly

[river rat]

"That might be the height of hypocrisy, for people who never went to Vietnam [to ask for Kerry's wartime medical file]," Cleland, a leading Kerry backer, told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg.

Don't talk to me of hypocrisy - you insulting bastards..

I'll ask in the name of my brothers, whose names are inscribed on that wall in Washington..

I'll ask in the name of my brothers whose worse wounds were to their minds - where they continue to fight the horrors and ghosts of that war - and still live in a continuous nightmare...

I'll ask in the name of the widows and orphans - whose love ones couldn't manage a trip back to the world after receiving three or more REAL wounds --- they refused to leave us behind.

I'll ask in the name of all my brothers, that were treated like animals and cursed when we returned - because of the lies spread by assholes like you, Fonda and the VVAW...

I'll ask in the name of loyal ethnic tribes - that stood by us up until the time we deserted them to be murdered and pursued for DECADES after we left....

Perhaps you can hear their voices -- they should haunt you as they haunt me...

For myself - I couldn't care less what you do..
I learned long ago how to distinguish friend from foe......and I've known you as my enemy for decades now...

Semper Fi

[Mo1]

If Kerry is soooooooooooo proud of his military record .. One would think he'd want to release them so he could brag some more

[Intolerant in NJ]

MALZBERG: Well sir, Kerry got out early, also - Kerry got out six months early as well...the more I read about Kerry, the more I think he was a loose cannon (beaching his boat and jumping ashore to go after a wounded cong, refusing to fire on an enemy village and asking instead to send in psychological warfare specialists, etc) whom his superiors were probably more than happy to endorse for purple heart awards for the least mosquito bite kind of wound just to get him out of their command - and eventually out of the military upon his request for early separation so he could run for political office (really bizarre - how many times has it happened that someone asking to be let go early for any reason - except hardship excuses - actually get to leave, especially in time of war?) - had his family not been well-connected, he just might have been courtmartialled and sent to the brig instead......

[Krodg]

I will not use foul language... I will not curse... I will not cuss...

Too late, God knows my every thought and I am so busted.

[SevenDaysInMay]

3 political band-aid Purple Hearts and very early out?

What were his heroics for the Bronze and Silver?

[TexasCajun]

Cleland didn't recieved a Purple Heart because the idiot picked up a live hand grenade he found on the ground and guess what? The moron blew himself up!

[ambrose]

What is the scumbag hiding?

[Fury]

"That might be the height of hypocrisy, for people who never went to Vietnam [to ask for Kerry's wartime medical file]," Cleland, a leading Kerry backer, told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg.

Wrong, sir. The fact that someone did not go in Vietnam is in no way a reason to request Kerry's wartime records. Oes that mean that a vet who served for 26 years is not able to ask, or someone who served in the Iraq war?

"I mean - I felt a wound. John Kerry felt a wound," he added.

Max, IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU. Get that through your head.

This is really a pretty interesting strategy by the Dems. Get a guy who lost limbs to go after anyone who wants to see Kerry's records, in an attempt to try and make them "feel bad" about making the request.

Using the Dems logic, would the Republicans need someone who served in Vietnam who had NO arms and NO legs make the request for it to be legit? Geesh...

[hosepipe]

[ Sen. Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam but never received a Purple Heart, said Kerry's physical sacrifice had been just as great as his own, telling Malzberg, "I don't see any difference." ]

Well DUH!.. of course not..
You're a democrat, MAX.....