Gardner was on Kerry's boat at this time, so what does he say about this?
Kaplan is an idiot. The Kerry people already said he wasn't in Cambodia on X-Mas .
On more than one occasion, I like Martin Sheen in "Apocalypse Now," took my patrol boat into Cambodia. In fact I remember spending Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. 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.
Why does this matter? Because Kerry has used the Christmas in Cambodia story for years to illustrate how this affected his view of politics, war and foreign policy. It loses it's most important meaning if Nixon wasn't lying about him being there.