Kerry Set Vietnam Trap for Himself (by Rush Limbaugh)

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_080504/content/this_is_no_dirty_trick.guest.html ^ | August 5, 2004 | Rush Limbaugh and swift vets

[dennisw]

Kerry Set Vietnam Trap for Himself

August 5, 2004

Listen to Rush…

(...roll the ad by fellow Vietnam Vets revealing the truth about Kerry's service)

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: The new swift boat veterans who have come out against John Kerry, this book is due out I guess the middle of August. Drudge has somehow, as he always does, got a copy of it, been leaking certain elements of it, chapters. Human Events also has a chapter of the book that they're offering on their website free, and there's an ad now that has been produced, and it's interesting the reaction to the ad that's starting to take place in the media, and in the Kerry campaign. What you're going to have here, folks, as this story unfolds is a further, greater illustration of the line that exists in the media today. You're going to have the pro-Kerry, anti-Kerry media on this just like you have the pro-Kerry and anti-Kerry voters on this, or should I say -- There aren't any pro-Kerry voters -- anti-Bush and pro-Bush categories.

There aren't any pro-Kerry voters out there. There is a pro-Kerry media. I think the first thing to do is to play this ad. This is a devastating ad. This is a number of guys that were in Vietnam with John Kerry who have finally decided to come forward. Now, you have to ask yourself, and I'm going to say this in front of the ad before playing the ad before playing the ad. One of the questions I have: "Where have these guys been for 30 years? Why come forward now?" And I think there's a logical reason for it, and in fact they have an answer on their website as to why they're only coming out now, and basically it is that Kerry, he's running for president now. That's the biggest and most powerful office in the land and he is using... You know, for those of you who think that this is little dirty trick, it is not a dirty trick at all and I'll explain why in just a second. For those of you that may even be upset about this yourself, you have to understand that John Kerry invited this.

He is focusing on those four months of his life that he was in Vietnam, and he is recommending himself as president based on those four months. He doesn't tell us about his 19 or 20 years in the Senate. He brushes that aside, acts like it didn't happen. He's the one bringing out all these Vietnam vets on stage at the convention. Well, if there's some Vietnam vets out there that are watching this and saying, "Wait a minute, this is all a bunch of poppycock!" and if he's not done this during any of his Senate campaigns, there's no reason to come forward. If he's doing it now running for president, there's some people saying, "Wait a minute, this is all BS," and they want to set the record straight, you can understand it. I certainly can -- and then, of course, when you have John Edwards out there recommending Kerry's character on the basis of what these Vietnam vets standing behind Kerry at the convention have to say about him, and if there are people with an alternative story...

My question is not, "Why is there an ad?" My question is not, "Who did the ad?" and my question is not, "Who is the PR firm that's promoting the ad?" My question is: "Why didn't the mainstream media find these guys? Why did these guys have to surface themselves?" and this is not new, by the way. John O'Neill is part of the group. He's been out there for a number of years trying to tell the other side of the Kerry story, but if this situation were reversed, you know damn well the New York Times would have found these guys on their own, if they were trying to discredit Bush, and there would be heroic profiles of them all over the newspaper for weeks. But what are we going to get now? Are we going to get the New York Times trashing these heroes in this ad? Are we going to get the mainstream, pro-Kerry media trashing the guys in this ad? You know, it's one thing for the media and the left to go after the so-called "chicken hawks."

These are pro-military people that didn't serve in Vietnam -- like me. It's one thing to come after us and claim that because we didn't serve we've got no right to criticize Kerry. We've heard this for years and years and years. We didn't serve; we have no right to criticize what Clinton did. We didn't serve, we "didn't go kill commies" we don't have any right to talk about the defense budget. I've heard this my whole career. Well, you can't say this about these guys. How we going to discredit these guys? How is the New York Times, how is the mainstream press, going to discredit these guys? Are they going to try to discredit these guys by, "Weeeell, they're being funded by some rich Republican in Texas." Well, do we try? Does the mainstream press try to discredit anything George Soros, a rich guy from Hungary, is trying to do for Kerry? You know, this

rock concert, this series of long-haired, dope smoking, maggot-invested FM-types out there? Guess who's sponsoring this musical tour. We found this out. MoveOn.org and George Soros is sponsoring this thing! Is anybody out there questioning Soros on the mainstream press side? Noooooo. We're supposed to sit here and just accept it when Michael Moore goes tells lies. When Joe Wilson goes tells lies.

When Sandy Berger steals little documents out of the National Archives, "Oh, it's no big deal. Sandy's a slob. Just get used to it, Limbaugh," and we're supposed to sit here and not react when Richard Clarke comes out and the 9/11 Commission. All of a sudden we've got some guys that are hearing a story told by John Kerry that they think is not true. They surface and tell their story, and all of the sudden all hell is breaking loose about how mean-spirited and dirty rotten politics has become? Come on, folks -- and McCain has joined the chorus here and he's doing this because he's decrying the dirty politics. He thinks, and he's mistaken about this, McCain thinks that the people that did this ad are the same people that worked against him in the 2000 primaries, and it's not the same group.

Now, the same group, they were involved originally, but they got out of it, and the people that produced the ad are not the people that worked against McCain in 2000, and the PR people that are circulating this ad had nothing to do with working against McCain in 2000. McCain's urged the White House to denounce this. I don't know what the White House is going to do. If the White House does denounce it, it might be nice if they... Well, no, they can't. See, I was going to say, "Maybe if the White House denounces it, go ahead and denounce it as being in the same category as Michael Moore and all," but you can't do that because Michael Moore and his cronies are telling lies and these guys aren't. So you can't be ask them to be place in the same category. Let's take a break, set this all up for you. We'll come back, give you some details, and play the ad, which is devastating, folks. It is just sheer, sheer devastation for the Kerry campaign.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here's the new

60-second ad by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. It's called "Any Questions?" We took the audio here from the Internet, but it's still not bad. You ought to be able to hear this plain as day.

Johnny Edwards: If you have any question about what John Kerry is made of, just spend three minutes with the men who served with him.

Ensign Al French (2 Bronze Stars): I served with John Kerry.

Lt. Bob Elder (Bronze Star): I served with John Kerry.

Lt. Commander George Elliot (2 Bronze Stars): John Kerry has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam.

Ensign Al French (2 Bronze Stars): He is lying about his record.

Lt. Commander Lewis Letson (Medical Officer): I know John Kerry is lying about his first Purple Heart, because I treated him for that injury.

Gunners Mate 2nd Class Van Odell: John Kerry lied to get his Bronze Star. I know. I was there. I saw what happened.

Lt. J.G. Jack Chenoweth (Bronze Star): His account of what happened and what actually happened are the difference between night and day.

Rear Admiral Roy Hoffman (Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star): John Kerry has not been honest.

Commander Adrian Lonsdale (Legion of Merit, Bronze Star): And he lacks the capacity to lead.

Lt. J.G. Larry Thurlow (Bronze Star): When the chips were down, you could not count on John Kerry.

Lt. Bob Elder (Bronze Star): John Kerry is no war hero.

Lt. Commander Grant Hibbard (2 Bronze Stars): He betrayed all his shipmates. He lied before the Senate.

Lt. Shelton White (2 Bronze Stars): John Kerry betrayed the men and women he served with in Vietnam.

Gunner's Mate 3rd class Joe Ponder (Purple Heart): He dishonored his country. He most certainly did.

Lt. Bob Hildreth (Bronze Star, Purple Heart): I served with John Kerry. John Kerry cannot be trusted.

ANNOUNCER: Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is responsible for the content of this advertisement.

RUSH: All right. So these men are all officers, enlisted men in Vietnam. They served. Some of them served with Kerry. Many of them are Democrats. Many of them are independents. By no means are all of them Republicans. It is devastating. I am eager to see how these men are discredited. I want to see the attacks on these men. I want to see how the Kerry team and the media try to pull this one off. I suspect that it's going to be very difficult to attack these men. I think what they'll do is attack the "dirty trick." "The sheer horror! Who could possibly think to do something like this?" They'll go after some "rich Republican in Texas" who paid for this, and they'll go after the PR team that is spreading this around. Now, here's the thing about this, ladies and gentlemen, that gives some of all of this interesting credibility to me. The latest excerpt from this book, these same Vietnam veterans are charging that John Kerry "killed a lone fleeing teenage foe, lied to superiors to gain his medal, slaughters animals, burns down tiny village."

(Drudge:) "A veterans group seeking to deeply discredit Kerry's military service will charge in this new book, Unfit for Command, that Kerry earned his Silver Star by killing a lone, fleeing, teenaged Vietcong in a loincloth. If Kerry's superiors had known the truth at the time they would have never recommended him for the medal. The book also claims that Kerry personally ordered the slaughter of small animals in a small hamlet along the Song Bo De River. The book, set for release next week, is already at #1 on the Amazon hit parade. This is a book the Kerry campaign believes is the dirtiest of all dirty tricks ever played on a candidate for the presidency. They are planning to vigorously counter the charges and will accuse the veterans group of being well financed by a top Bush donor from Texas."

In the first place, this is not a dirty trick. If this was a dirty trick, all of this would be coming out -- like the NAACP ad did: closer to the election -- for maximum impact. If it were a dirty trick it would have been announced the weekend before the election like this DUI allegation was against George W. Bush. This is not a dirty trick. This is something that people want in the mix of the campaign so it can be discussed and digested and learned and discovered.

Now, obviously Kerry is going to deny this, as will his mouthpieces, but we played a

sound bite for you, oh, this week, earlier this week. In his testimony, having gotten back from Vietnam, where he admits to torching a village, and he says (paraphrasing), "Yeah, well, I did it, but when I found out that it was a violation of Geneva Conventions and the Hague and so forth, I didn't know it was, at the time I did it." He's admitted committing atrocities. They're going to say these guys are funded by a Texas Republican millionaire.

They're going to say, "These guys are politically motivated." The question I have: "Will they say that these heroes, these Vietnam veteran heroes, many of whom earned their own Bronze and Silver Stars and Purple Hearts, are they going to say these guys have been bought off? Is Kerry and his team and the media going to say these guys have been bought off?" The point is, folks, Kerry has admitted that he committed atrocities while in Vietnam. He said he participated in "free fire (zones) and burning villages." Isn't that exactly what's being charged in this latest excerpt? And if he didn't commit the atrocities mentioned here then what atrocities did he commit? He's been able to skate on this issue for years. I think it's time to pin him down. You know, we sit here and we're told that we ought to elect him president based on four months of his life. He campaigns, he parades his own Vietnam vets out to the Democrat convention to stand there during the whole week, stand behind him as he's introduced to give his big speech.
These guys are out doing commercials themselves for him, and we don't question those people. We don't question whether they've been bought off. Can we ask that question? Is Kerry paying some of those guys? We're not supposed to ask that question. But if he's going to ignore the last 20 years of his life and go back... I've always thought this was a trap, and I'm going to go back, that Kerry had set for himself. I've never understood this, and I mentioned this also late last week. Here you have a war that John Kerry and his whole party despised. All of a sudden they're trying to resurrect that war as something worthy because they're producing a war hero from this war as a candidate, and they're touting his service in that war as his primary qualification to be president.

At the same time, they're trying to rewrite history about how horrible Vietnam was and now make it way worthy endeavor, a noble effort so they can produce a genuine hero. They're trying at the same time to make everybody think that Iraq is just another Vietnam. Now, I've never understood what in the world was the point about going back and dredging up Vietnam and forcing this country to go through it again, all for the purposes... Because if you have to go back there to find something stellar in the candidate's past, it's a weak, weak candidacy. Since they've done it, they've opened all this up. Everybody knows when you run for president you're going to get a media anal. Everybody knows this. (ear-splitting tone) If you're going to claim that those four months are the reason why we should elect you, we're going to find out what you did in them.

END TRANSCRIPT

[agincourt1415]

Hey, I can take a little Michael Savage.

[G Larry]

Savage is not convincing that he believes his own tripe.
He sounds more like someone trying to create his own nitch with his "neither can be trusted" nonsense.

[thathamiltonwoman]

Rush is okay but Savage... gives me the creeps.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Best scenario (IMHO)...Bush and his campaign distance themselves from the ads. But, they're out there and will register with Vietnam Vets. And, that's a good thing.

Personally, I'd much prefer not to refight the Vietnam War...but fight the WOT. And, GWB is the right man to lead this fight for our lives.

Hopefully, the majority of Americans will agree.

[chaosagent]

Ping

[snarkytart]

Sorry but Savage has written many books and most were before he was on the radio. He believes what he says.

He is an intellectual who has traveled the world and studied in many areas. I know he has a PHD from the left wing Berkeley and I do think that Savage is anti Establishment. He use to be good friends with the infamous pro communist beatnik poet Allen Ginsburg however, they did wind up hating one another.

I hear his contradictions at times, but I absolutely think he believes in what he says and is not just trying to create a "niche".

[tame]

This is undoubtedly one of the best monologues I've ever heard Rush give. He spoke my heart and passion on the rank hypocritical left.

O'Reilly, Dick Morris, Brit Humes "all-star" panel, and the rest would have done well to tune into to Rush today before shooting your mouths off...but wait...These were also some of the same talking heads who thought Kerry gave a terrific convention speech.

EXCELLENT JOB, RUSH! ABSOLUTELY EXCELLENT!!!

[Kryptonite]

This is undoubtedly one of the best monologues I've ever heard Rush give.Me too. The whole piece deserves a repost. O'Reilly, Dick Morris, Brit Humes "all-star" panel, and the rest would have done well to tune into to Rush today before shooting your mouths off.

These *pundits* were rattlin' knees over all the spin, but the bottom line is, ultimately, a matter of which candidate inspires the most confidence among Americans to keep all of us safe from terrorism. This ad does not set Bush up for a loss on that count - the only one that matters to the most Americans - and in fact serves to seriously puncture the canard Kerry focused on during the DNC convention. Striking at the heart of Kerry's *reporting for duty* remark weakens his confidence factor. So he showed up? What did he do? Yet, more than anything, the ad questions what he did after showing up, which is exactly where the Bush campaign has a huge advantage.

I don't think there are many Freepers incapable of seeing a thing of beauty about to unfold.

[jimt]

I love the "dope smoking, maggot infested" line coming from a guy who fried his hearing with Oxycontin.

[Taliesan]

I am convinced they are on the payroll or beholden (not because of war loyalty) to Kerry in some way.

He gave them all medals. If they were to question his judgment as an officer, they would have to return their own medals.

Oldest game in the book. He bought credibility for his own medals by giving medals away.

[RS]

"Let the Vets fight him on this. We want him to stand up to his record the last 35 years! "

You may be right - Kerry picked this as the place to fight.

It's a he said/she said type of thing - based on old memories.

His Senate record he cannot weasel out of - he would have to explain everything.

[Osage Orange]

Actually I don't listen to him all that much....

I think he's kinda like the weird Uncle you had when you were a kid. You know the guy, that pissed off half the relatives...by telling them what he really thought of them...But you as a kid...kinda thought he was cool, cuz he would talk to you, and mess around with the old'sters.

I dunno...the guy serves some purpose..i suppose. LOL!!!

[dano1]

"but if this situation were reversed, you know damn well the New York Times would have found these guys on their own, if they were trying to discredit Bush, and there would be heroic profiles of them all over the newspaper for weeks."