Mark Steyn: Kerry’s quagmire

The Spectator (U.K.) ^ | 08/28/04 | Mark Steyn

[Pokey78]

[Mr. K]

Kerry was in Viet Nam? For how long? 100 days or so...

Wasn't he in the Senate or something for 20 YEARS

[MaryFromMichigan]

Steyn is great.
The title says it all.

[AmericanMade1776]

[Kenton]

If the 527s got yanked from the air, Kerry would be clobbered far worse than Bush, which is all the more reason not to be a big whiny ninny about one lousy ad running in a couple of states.

Three states, to be exact. And if Kerry and Company have promoted them by trying to "fight back" against them, so that now they are familiar to people in every state.

BIG mistake. Kerry has run the most inept campaign I've seen since...well, since "Crazy Howard" Dean.

[Republican Red]

Kerry had a plan to deal wwith the Swifties. His plan was to let the media bury the story.

Any one remember this piece from "The Prowler":

COMMAND CONFIDENCE
According to a Kerry campaign source, senior campaign advisers tasked two Washington-based campaign staffers to vet the recently published Unfit for Command.

"The purpose was to compare what that book had with what we had on file from Senator Kerry," says the campaign source, who said that the research project developed more than 75 instances where Kerry's recollections, previous remarks, or writings conflicted with the book's reporting.

"We took some of the most glaring examples, like the Christmas in Cambodia story, and presented them to senior staff, and we assume that those things were put in front of Senator Kerry," says the source. "We haven't heard a word about it. All we were told is that it was being taken care of."

The campaign source said that the book was not considered a "serious" problem for the campaign, because, "the media wouldn't have the nerve to come at us with this kind of stuff," says the source. "The senior staff believes the media is committed to seeing us win this thing, and that the convention inoculated us from these kinds of stories. The senior guys really think we don't have a problem here."

Prowler link

[Piquaboy]

I said from the get go that his bringing up Vietnam might come back to bite him. As a vet I really resent his peace protesting.I became a beneficary of being called names myself as result of his actions.

[wideawake]

By my calculation, using the dates in Brinkley's book, he spent somewhere from 103-107 days in a forward area.

[ravingnutter]

As a poster said here the other day...it WAS enemy fire, Kerry is his own worst enemy!

[Always Right]

It is funny how BRING — IT — ON!’ has become ‘stop these ads’. You could say Kerry planned for a war but had no plan for peace.

[kenth]

The Democrats may not know how to run a school district or a highway department, but they’re supposed to be able to run scandals.

Ouch.

Ya gotta love Mark Steyn.

[baraboolaw]

Kerry is keeping this story alive. He knows whatever damage was to be done has been done. Now he will keep fanning the flames and luring the Swift Boat Vets into additional attacks. He wants everyone to focus on Vietnam. He does not want anybody talking about his 20 years in the Senate! Very Clintonesque. Very dangerous. We are being played.

[IrishGOP]

"The senior staff believes the media is committed to seeing us win this thing, and that the convention inoculated us from these kinds of stories. The senior guys really think we don't have a problem here."

Well, the senior guys are definitely out of touch with reality. The media tried to save you but a little thing called the internet and cable news did you in.

[Bahbah]

"Especially when your opponent is a guy who’s never complained about anything – not the ‘Bush is Hitler’ stuff, not the ‘Bush knew about 9/11 in advance’ stuff, not even the comparatively mild Michael Moore slur that he’s a moron so paralysed without his minders that he continued reading My Pet Goat to Florida grade-schoolers for a full seven minutes on September 11. Kerry himself made sneering cracks about the pet goat business, and Bush didn’t whine about it."

This is the man I want for President of the U.S.

[Galtoid]

Not only is Steyn always worth reading, he has to be one of the most prolific writers out there. Always fresh and insightful. Love him.

[BigDaddyTX]

Kerry was in the Senate?

[Mayflower Sister]

I don't know but he WAS in Vietnam.

[Mercat]

It's absolutely true that Kerry could have defused this whole thing if he hadn't fought back. He could have said, "I respect these vets and they have the right to their opinion and to their memories. My memories and opinions are different." and as he has said earlier, "I was a young man in 1971 and I was quoting other vets and went overboard, I was caught up in the moment and I apologize."

That would have ended the story but he made it a battle of who lied.

[blanknoone]

0.58% of his life in Vietnam, 33% of his life in the Senate. And yet he talks all Vietnam all the time.

I think even the LSM's Kerry Kamp is Kracking. Sooner or later, some reporter somewhere is going to do a compliation of Kerry 'Stretchers' VC the Flying Dog, Christmas in Cambodia, his Vivid memory of MLK's assissination in Vietnam...when he wasn't in Vietnam etc etc &c.