[cyncooper]

Kerry said across then (the media said he said "in" which is less damaging than across, but whatever), but now the Kerryites say he meant "near." So a lot of those little words are in play.

He starts off with:

five miles across the Cambodian border

And then he proceeds to confirm the apparent meaning:

The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real."

There's the "in" and he clearly meant "Cambodia".

Carl Cameron with Fox went to the Kerry campaign yesterday asking about Kerry's saying he had been in Cambodia and they denied he said it and meant "near". Then Cameron confronted them with the letter I am referring to from 1979 and the Congressional Record of 1986 in which the context seems clear, if more parsable, that Kerry was telling the same tale.

I contend the 1979 Boston Herald missive is pretty darn plain in its meaning. The Kerry camp has still not gotten back to Cameron on an explanation.

[Torie]

Well Kerry said then he was illegally/clandestinely in, when he meant to say he was illegally/clandestinely near, The only problem with that is that being merely "near" (well halfway to the coast, but heck that is as near as one end of the Los Angeles metro area is to the other end, so let's not quibble), wasn't "illegal/clandestine." Oops. Is it possible Kerry was trying to make a tendentious point via a noisome little lie? Is that conceivably possible? I think John Kerry needs to hire a lawyer to help him parse through all this. Oh I forgot, he already has. Whatever.