DOUGLAS BRINKLEY: "My reputation! My reputation!"
Posted on 08/27/2004 9:10:17 AM PDT by dennisw
August 27, 2004
DID DOUGLAS BRINKLEY single-handedly create John Kerry's Swift Boat nightmare? It appears so. First Douglas Brinkley inspired the founding of "Swift Boat Vets for Truth" with his book "Tour of Duty". Quotable:Retired since 1978 as a two-star rear admiral, [Roy] Hoffmann comes under particular criticism in the Kerry biography. Brinkley wrote that Kerry saw him as approving cowboy tactics and holding a cavalier attitude toward civilian casualties. Hoffmann said was stunned to find what he termed "gross exaggerations" and "distortions of fact" attributed to Kerry in the Brinkley book. That motivated him to contact other veterans and ask if they'd seen the book. Before long, he said, he had "80 to 100 people solidly lined up" to cooperate in the production of a new book - "Unfit for Command" by John E. O'Neill and Jerome R. Corsi - that outlines their challenge to Kerry.Then he provoked John Kerry's most potent Swift Boat accuser -- shipmate Steve Gardner -- with a viciously unfair hit piece in TIME magazine. Quotable:[Steve Gardner's] first public statement came unintentionally, he said, when Douglas Brinkley, author of the authorized Kerry war biography "Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War" talked to him in a phone conversation he thought was off the record.Good work Doug. Can't wait to read your New Yorker piece.Brinkley put Gardner's thoughts in a March 9 article for Time magazine online, "The Tenth Brother" in which he got a story "sharply different from what the other nine crew members have had to say." Gardner said he thought Brinkley, who spoke with him for two hours, simply was checking facts he had gathered in compiling his book, which relied heavily on Kerry's personal war journals.
Brinkley claims he had tried hard to track down Gardner during his research for the book, but Gardner is skeptical, noting the Globe's Kranish was able to reach him easily. In the Time story, Brinkley writes: "A disappointed Wasser gave me Gardner's telephone numbers, reminding me that PCF-44 gunner's mate was nicknamed 'The Wild Man' by his crewmates for his hair-trigger penchant for firing M-60s into the mangrove thicket. 'Let me know what you find out,' Wasser told me. 'I'm having trouble understanding where he's coming from."
After that article, Gardner said he felt "trashed" and vulnerable, until he got a call from Adm. Roy Hoffman, the organizer of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ..
Now Gardner appears in the new swiftboat vets' television ad, accusing Kerry of falsely claiming to have spent Christmas in Cambodia in 1968. "If I had been by my lonesome, I would have been history six months ago," he said. "Nobody would have listened to me as a gunner's mates, until officers stepped forward and said, 'This has got to stop.'"
UPDATE: Here's some good advice for John Kerry:
First, admit the fallibility of wartime memory: He was not in Cambodia in 1968 when he said he remembers "President Nixon" (who did not take office until Jan. 20, 1969) lying to the American people.Does John Kerry want to be "right" -- or does he want to be President?Second, clarify that he never saw any war crimes committed by Swift Boat units he served with or in. Apologize to vets offended by the aspersions in his postwar remarks ..
Such modesty and magnanimity would be great qualities to reveal in a man who would be commander in chief ..
Arrogantly, righteously, duplicitously superior or humbly, honestly, openly conciliatory. What shall it be?
Anti-Kerry veterans: Biography spurred TV ads
By TOM INFIELD and RON HUTCHESON
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - Leaders of the Swift boat veterans group criticizing presidential candidate John Kerry's Vietnam War record said Thursday they were motivated to attack in part by a book published earlier this year in which Kerry revealed the high opinion he held of himself - and the low opinion he held of some of them.
Kerry's former commanding officer and two other officers who were above Kerry in the chain of command said the book "Tour of Duty" made it seem as if Kerry, as a junior lieutenant in the Navy, had been the only hero in a war that later, as a war protester, he labeled as wrong-headed and immoral. The book, by historian Douglas Brinkley, was based in large part on Kerry's previously private war diaries.........
MORE: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/politics/9506417.htm?1c
Uh, no.... Thirty years of distorting, mischaracterizing, double-crossing, and general lying by one John Forbes Kerry created it. Deal with it.
Kerry created Kerry's problems.
> Anti-Kerry veterans: Biography spurred TV ads
But not just that.
Kerry's use of that unit photo (SBVFT front page), without
the consent of all depicted, also enraged them.
They probably would have acted against Kerry regardless,
but that incriminating bio got them going early enough to
prepare a solid campaign (and even write their own book).
"Tour of Duty" - the lies begin with word one of the title.
You F'd up, you trusted Kerry!
Brinkley released his book in January 2004. For the first time the Swiftees saw Kerry's accounts of events they were familiar with as well as what awards he won and for what. When they started comparing notes among one another, it was obvious that Kerry was lying. Moreover, Brinkley's book was also in conflict with official records. The SBVFT were formed in March and the battle joined. Brinkley did us a favor, something Kerry didn't plan on.
Is this article a trial balloon to see if Kerry can blame yet another staffer for his own failures?
bump -_ Good post.
he'll follow the typical liberal path....deny attack delay
Doogle
Many FReepers are requesting this EXPOSE KERRY'S FRAUD SWIFT BOAT VETERANS FOR TRUTH sticker.
They are being made by a disabled vet FReeper who has a bone to pick with Kerry, like we all do!
Large $20 (24" Wide 12" Tall) like mine
Small $10 (12" Wide 6" Tall)
Profits go to SwiftVets.com
FReep mail for details.
No way. What is the first word in "authorized biography?"
Brinkley. What a sad sack he's become.
Gee, I hate to be right, but on Sunday I predicted ("Will Douglas Brinkley Be the Next Casualty of Kerry's War?") that they would try to make Brinkley the fall guy.
Good... Brinkley can be this years recipient of the Besschlos(sp) Biased Authors Award for Bad History with Ambros and Miller Oak Leave Clusters for Bad Journalism.
Did Brinkley mention Kerry's nickname was "Boston Strangler?"
Being a "presidential historian" is rather a racket. With all the opportunities for getting on television and turning out opinion pieces, these guys and girls get pretty sloppy in their research and writing.
And in comparison to the other TV historians, Brinkley always looked young, unpolished, and inexperienced to begin with. With less wisdom, experience, or restraint, he was likely to stumble into such a mess.
Today, the media get in the way on these things. In old days campaign biographers were more or less lackeys -- even when, like Franklin Pierce's biographer, Nathanael Hawthorne, they were quite talented. Today, though, the campaign biographer can get on television and in the way of the story the candidate wants to put out.
It's doubtful that earlier presidential candidates would have ever risked letting their biographers take the initiative and go on the attack like this. It was also a miscalculation for Kerry to let so much ride on his experiences 35 years ago, but then, what else does he have going for him?
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