Posted on 09/05/2004 10:29:40 AM PDT by areafiftyone
Sen. John Kerry's campaign biographer Douglas Brinkley said Sunday that if an ongoing Navy investigation into Kerry's military decorations turns up evidence of "purposeful" deception, it could spell doom for the top Democrat's White House bid.
Praising reporter Thomas Lipscomb, who broke news of the Navy investigation on Friday, Brinkley told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg, "Journalists are going to have to see whether there's a discrepancy on [the citations posted to Kerry's] web site - whether there's something wrong that's said there or not."
"If so," said the "Tour of Duty" author, "Kerry would have to fix it immediately - and it does raise some questions as to why that would happen."
"Is it sloppiness, is it purposeful intent, is there an easy explanation for it?" Brinkley wondered.
He said that while questions raised by the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth about Kerry's war record have been very damaging, "so far they haven't been lethal." But Brinkley predicted that a discrepancy with Kerry's medals could seriously escalate his political problems.
Asked if inconsistencies uncovered by the Navy probe could be the "death knell" for Kerry's campaign, Brinkley told Malzberg, "It could."
In the next breath he hastened to add, however, "Right now it's unclear. So we have to just wait to see what all this adds up to."
The presidential historian called on Kerry to authorize the release of his full military file, saying, "Clearly some of these military records should be made available to the press."
Isn't Brinkley the guy who tailored F'n's biography to whatever F'n told him to put down?
Lets hope there is an ethical reporter in the MSM that will get to the bottom of this story. This could be huge.
Personal list.
Hmmm......little Dougie seems to be distancing himself from Kerry more and more as the weeks go by.
LOL!
Isnt Brinkley the guy who wrote Kerry's biography? If so he knows whats there, or he should know. If he says its career crippling it probably is.
In other words, Brinkley already has a pretty good idea what this probe will uncover.
BTTT!!!!!!
BUMP!
Yeah...
Kerry resigns the nomination
No way Dems are going to let Pretty Boy be the nominee
Hillary comes on her white horse...
Its all in the cards.
"In the next breath he hastened to add, however, "Right now it's unclear. So we have to just wait to see what all this adds up to."
Translation: kerrys record has been cleaned and Brinkley knows it!
Whew! What was that breeze? Oh yeah, it's Brinkley backpeddling away from Kerry.
Occam's Razor would be useful here, but don't let the Kerry campaign get a hold of it. They may try to slit their wrists.
Too damn late...Kerry's campaign is already doomed.
No, the partisan media won't touch this with a 10 foot pole. AP is still requesting President Bush's full National Guard service records.
Exactly. The question about the combat disinguishing device "V" on the Silver Star in Kerry's DD214 is a non-issue. It would only be redundant and not add any additional luster to the award. It would be a serious matter if the device were added to the Bronze Star or Navy Commendation Medal, if the citation did not specifially authorize it. No harm, no foul as far as the Silver Star is concerned.
What I want the Pentagon to investigate is the first PH, which was issued, to the best of our knowledge, without a casualty report and an after action report. We need to know the chronology of that award and who authorized it.
As far as the Lehman signatures are concerned (autopen), the Kerry camp claims that these were for replacement citations in 1986. Besides checking out why Kerry was just not issued copies of the original citations (Hyland for the Silver and Zumwalt for the Bronze)and why the last sentence of the SS was altered, we need to know if Kerry also received replacement medals. This would be the big story since Kerry claimed that he never threw them away after initially saying he did in 1971. Now we are told that they were someone else's medals and his ribbons. According to Kerry, medals and ribbons are interchangeable.
"Is it sloppiness, is it purposeful intent, is there an easy explanation for it?"
Sloppiness, innocent mistake, oversight, will be the words from Kerry's camp if he get's busted lying!!
I can see it all now...Bush/Rove are behind all this activity. Sure as day follows night. (HRK might be behind it as well...)
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