[rolling_stone]

I disn't find this particularly damaging to Swiftvets, but it is a call for Kerry to release his records along with eveyone else...interesting....what will Kerry do?

[Howlin]

I agree with you; it was very informative and I thought it was fair.

[WOSG]

It was annoying in this respect: The take an event, like the swift vets, as an excuse to simply RERUN that same script from the Kerry convention. They do a 'rowback' like explain how Rassman was on Kerry's boat all along, even though Kerry campaign accounts had him on another boat, and explain how Rassman fell overboard *somewhere else*. When there is a dispute, the article assumes everything in Kerry's favor.
There is still something that doesnt fit. Kerry's boat was hit? how did it manage to speed up then?

So the usual bias. the 'meme' the media will play is: Oh, they just hate the war hero for coming back and telling America about Vietnam.

A few telling points:

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KERRY RAN OFF:

At first, nobody noticed what had happened to Rassmann. But then Medeiros, who was standing at the stern, saw him bobbing up and down in the water and shouted, "Man overboard." Around this time, crew members said, Kerry decided to go back to help the crippled 3 boat. It is unclear how far down the river Kerry's boat was when he turned around. It could have been anywhere from a few hundred yards to a mile.

---

KERRY'S BIO IS WHAT MADE THIS HAPPEN:

Hoffmann, who was already angry with Kerry for his antiwar activities on his return from Vietnam, said in an interview that he was "appalled" to find out from reading "Tour of Duty" that Kerry was "considered to be a Navy hero." "I thought there was a tremendous amount of gross exaggeration in the book and, in some places, downright lies. So I started contacting some of my former shipmates," he said.

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WP MEME- IT S ABOUT THE ANTI-WAR ACTIVISM:

"I think that Kerry's behavior was abominable," said Pees, the commander of the boat that hit the mine. "His actions after the war were particularly disgusting. He distorted the truth when he talked about atrocities. We went out of our way to protect civilians. To suggest otherwise is a grotesque lie. As far as I am concerned, he did not speak the truth about how we conducted operations in Vietnam."