Posted on 08/05/2004 4:08:05 AM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
Don't look now, but the Kerry campaign is about to start attacking a group of Vietnam War veterans. After making Kerry's service as a swift-boat captain a cornerstone of the Democratic National Convention last week, the campaign's new goal will be to discredit some of Kerry's fellow soldiers as (shudder) politically motivated.
Specifically, the trouble comes in the form of a band of veterans who served with Kerry during his glory tour in Vietnam and who will publish a book of their own memories of the young skipper called "Unfit for Command" in coming weeks.
As a chronicle and anticipated exposé of the young soldier's actual leadership in the jungles, the book will cast a decidedly less-flattering light on the candidate as soldier. Among the charges are that Kerry exaggerated his injuries and was inept at capturing the respect of his men, who saw him as overweening and ambitious.
With the military nuzzling of the Boston convention receding into the past, the Kerry campaign will come at his former comrades with hell's fury. The soldiers — by one count the vast majority of Kerry's boatmates — will soon be cast as a bunch of demented old men, out to make a quick buck in the service of partisanship.
For a preview of the talking points, Democrats might be directed to the recent writings of New York Observer columnist Joe Conason in the online diary, Salon. Over the past few months, he has written three pieces on the nefarious connections of the anti-Kerry Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, remarking, among other things, that the group, classified as a 527 organization, has connections with well-known Republican operatives in Texas.
He calls the Swift Boat Veterans "conservative Republicans embittered over Kerry's later antiwar activism" and describes the group's founder, retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, as having "gained notoriety in Vietnam as a strutting, cigar-chewing Navy captain... whose obsession with body counts and 'scorekeeping' may have provoked the February 1969 massacre of Vietnamese civilians at Thanh Phong."
Of course, we wouldn't dare to imagine a political bone in the bodies of those swift-boat veterans who have hugged up to Kerry. But picking apart the service of any veteran is always an ugly business: In war, some men will naturally be more impressive than others and that fact of temperament shouldn't denigrate the service by others. If Kerry wasn't the best and the bravest in the service, it should be no disparagement to his participation.
But veterans, broadly speaking, have long been considered a natural constituency of Republicans. And in none of this do we wish to discourage the Democrats from their conversion. It did the heart good to see the party, formerly inclined to bumper-sticker sentiment that looked forward to the day when the military had to "hold a bake sale to buy a bomber," now awash in admirals and generals and other manly men.
The problem isn't a hawkish Democratic Party but a historically dishonest one. As one swift boat commander put it to The Boston Globe, though Kerry was a "great American fighting man," when he returned home, he was equally ambitious to make his mark in the antiwar movement. "I think he was saying whatever he needed to say," the veteran, Michael Bernique, explained.
It's an unhappy impression of unrivaled opportunism that continues to define Kerry now as it did then, and which strikes many voters as the most legitimate and adhesive charge against his qualification to be commander in chief.
The designers and producers of last week's Democratic National Convention in Boston are likely a bit down in the mouth this week following Kerry's post-convention non-bounce. All the klieg lights, hors d'oeuvres and cumulative weight of the biggest hippos in the party added up to a big zilch in the polls. We can speculate why, but there's no doubt the rich mother lode of GOP ads accusing him of being a congenital flip-flopper (a critique pioneered long ago by Kerry's Democratic opponents) has acted as a drag on his ratings.
The fundamental problem with Kerry's campaign is that it presumes the worst thing possible about American elections: that the voters are too dumb to see through the holograms. An alien watching the convention might have reasonably assumed that the Democrats had nominated a 28-year-old for the presidency, so absent was any mention of the candidate's other career in the U.S. Senate.
If Kerry wants the leadership campaign to be about his time in Vietnam, he and his emissaries should be careful about impugning the motives of his veteran detractors. As one of them said, "We didn't lose the war on the ground in Vietnam, we lost it at home, and at home John Kerry was the field general."
I was just thinking that it's about the length of basic training.
LOL! -- Flattering picture, though!
It's his Ice Station Zebra. Hopefully, he's clothed, though.
"Right! It doesn't change the fact that out of 23 of his "brothers", 19 say he is unfit for command, and only 2 actually support him."
Its even better than that. The 19 were his peers, all swift boat commanders of officer rank.
The problem I have with this item is frankly, it has not been focus group tested. If the only result of this book is to harden the resolve of votes that are already going to be cast against Kerry, and probably also of votes that are going to be cast for him, then it will serve no purpose. He's not going to be court martialed. He's not going to have an attack of conscience and walk out in front of the cameras to announce he is guilty and resigns the nomination and his Senate seat.
Nothing good is going to come of this. What is its purpose? To make some people feel good?
This is about winning. Not feelings.
To avoid any confusion, which still seems to exist, we are talking about two Bands of Brothers. Kerry's Band of Brothers consists of the enlisted personnel who served under him on the two boats he commanded. Of the 10 or so enlisted (5 enlisted crew per boat), one is against Kerry and most of the others are for him. Rassman, a green beret who was on Kerry's boat when he fell overboard, is a new member of the group.
The second and much larger Band of Brothers are fellow officers who skippered other PCFs at the same time as Kerry as well as his superior offiers and enlisted personnel. The picture of Kerry and the other 19 officers is the one where only one officer, Skip Barker, supports Kerry. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is a much larger group of over 200 PCF sailors, officers and enlisted, who are against Kerry.
It should be noted that the PCFs did not operate independently but in groups of three or more depending on the mission. Despite Dem claims to the contrary, these Swift Boat personnel served with Kerry even if they were not on his boat. The PCFs operated within yards of one another.
I disagree. This is the kind of reasoning that has prevented Kerry's opponents from challenging his military service while he uses it as a club against them. Kerry will not let anyone forget that he served in Vietnam and Bush didn't no matter how much of a pass he is given on scrutiny of his military service. If Kerry wants to refute his fellow officers who did serve, let him authorize release of his records now. Let the Swifites go at him. At the very least, Kerry will be put on the defensive.
The Swift boat folks want their day in court. Kerry has impugned their service. Whether the GOP or anyone else like it or not, they will go forward. It is a matter of honor. As a Vietnam vet, I support them.
Sooooo, does that mean no one should believe what they saw and heard in Boston last week, Mikey?
"Its even better than that. The 19 were his peers, all swift boat commanders of officer rank."
It's even better than that: the second guy who supported Kerry now no longer does! It's down to just one in that photo of 23!!
My guess that the Terry Lenzer smear machine has already been digging into the backgrounds of these men who dare to tell the truth about John Kerry's Vietnam Service. The "war crimes" accusation against the retired admiral are not surprising at all. And this is just the tip of the ice berg. I hope these men have been well-vetted and are prepared for the hurricane that's about to hit their lives. History records that the Democrats are experts in "getting" anyone who stands in the way of their agenda. That makes the stand of these swift boat veterans even more commendable....
"What is its purpose?"
I think it's about the truth. Kerry should not get a pass and be able to play it both ways.
I applaud these guys for stating the facts and informing the American people about what really happened, as they see it.
If they do, Kerry will suffer. It will look hypocritical for Kerry and his supporters to view Kerry as akin to a saint because he served in Vietnam, then go bashing other Vietnam war heroes for relating their experiences.
MEMORIZE and then PASS AROUND to others. That's precisely the bogus 'rat "rebuttal" that's being attempted, as of this A.M.!
Over 100 Anti-Kerry Websites linked to one Page
Very useful site to Bookmark!!!
Click here:
I hope that they can manage to get some mirror sites up and running ASAP.
Yeah and the pro-kerry vets have connections with well-known democrap operatives, too. The point is, they both can't be telling the truth. One group is lying.
The press will try to bury this. We can't let that happen.
Re the Hannity/Scarborough airing of the ad.
There was supposed to be an "embargo" of the ad until midnight last night, according to Rush's comments on his show yesterday. Perhaps Hannity's producers were a bit more scrupulous in following the embargo.
These Swiftvets held a very emotional press conference at the National Press Club in DC last spring. Few reporters showed up, and fewer reported on the event. The hour-long briefing was shown on CSPAN and should still be available.
If the enabling media had publicized what these men had to say last spring, perhaps the power of their message would be deflected or dulled by now. But their calculated decision to ignore the information is going to hurt "their candidate" much more at this stage of the campaign.
Schadenfreude!
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