Posted on 09/05/2004 10:30:40 AM PDT by wagglebee
Media wags will say it was the successful GOP convention that catapulted President Bush to a double-digit lead over John Kerry in Time magazine and Newsweek polls released this weekend.
But insiders know that even before Republicans gathered in New York to re-nominate Bush, the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth had turned George Bush into a frontrunner for the first time since John Kerry locked up the nomination in January.
The proof that the Swifvets had scored a direct hit against the SS Kerry came Thursday night, when the top Democrat staged an emergency rally to accuse Dick Cheney of dodging Vietnam and complain that George Bush had "attacked my fitness to serve as commander in chief."
But it wasn't Bush or Cheney who challenged Kerry's fitness to lead. It was the Swiftees, whose book "Unfit for Command" now sits atop the New York Times bestseller list for the second week in a row.
For the mainstream press, the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth didn't appear on the radar screen until late July, when the group began running TV ads in key battleground states attacking Kerry's Vietnam story.
But way back in April, when no one had heard of the Swiftees, NewsMax readers knew that the men who served with Kerry in Vietnam were preparing the bombshell revelations that would turn the 2004 presidential campaign upside down.
The story actually broke on talk radio on April 4, when NewsMax contributor and WABC radio host Steve Malzberg interviewed B.G. Burkett - author of the definitive book on false Vietnam War claims, "Stolen Valor."
Under the headline: "Navy Commanders to Cast Doubt on Kerry's War Record," NewsMax had the first print account of the bombshell to come:
Several Navy officers who supervised Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry when he commanded a swift boat in Vietnam are preparing to publicly question his war record - including the circumstances under which he was awarded three Purple Hearts - a noted Vietnam War historian revealed on Sunday.
Burkett, whose book, "Stolen Valor," is considered to be the definitive history of falsified Vietnam War claims, told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg that Kerry's former commanders would allege that the top Democrat's Purple Hearts were awarded for "self-reported injuries that were virtually nonexistent."
"He never got a day of treatment, he never spent a day in a medical facility," Burkett said. "These were all self-reported wounds, which you're going to hear from some swift boat guys in the future as to the nature of those wounds."
Burkett said he had personally spoken to the Navy commanders who were preparing to go public about Kerry's decorations.
"You're going to get quite a showing [of those speaking out]," Burkett told Malzberg. "I don't know [the number] yet. They're trying to get it to be unanimous of every swift boat guy who ever served."
As to the timetable for the upcoming revelations, Burkett said that Kerry's superior officers "were still discussing that."
Burkett's book was the first to expose Kerry's false claims made in the early 1970s about U.S. war atrocities, as well as Kerry's claim -- later found to be untrue -- that he trashed his war medals.
"You've got some major rallys being planned against John Kerry by Vietnam veterans on the mall, at the convention - this type of thing," he said. "And we're going to make America aware of John Kerry's military record."
Less than a month later on April 26 - and a full week before the Swiftees staged their debut press conference in Washington, D.C. to announce their group's plans - Malzberg interviewed the group's spokesman John O'Neill.
Again, NewsMax was first with exclusive coverage of one of O'Neill's first 2004 media appearances under the headline: "Kerry Boatmate: Vietnam Troubles Just Beginning":
Sen. John Kerry's Monday morning meltdown on "Good Morning America" may be just the beginning of his troubles, according to one of his Vietnam boatmates, who is warning that more of the men who served alongside the Massachusetts Democrat are preparing to go public with their accounts.
Texas lawyer John O'Neill, who served on Kerry's Swift Boat after he left Vietnam just four months into his tour, told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg on Sunday: "I was in exactly the same unit. There were many people who were there simultaneously with him who are all about to speak."
O'Neill gained brief fame in 1971 when he debated Kerry on "The Dick Cavett Show" and forced him to admit he never personally witnessed the war crimes he'd been accusing U.S. troops of committing.
Though he's been contacted by Kerry's opponents every time the Massachusetts Democrat has run for office in the 33 years since, O'Neill has refused to speak out.
Until now. Referring to reports this week in the Boston Globe questioning whether Kerry may have exaggerated his combat record, O'Neill told Malzberg: "This is just the first opening. They'll be many different people. But I'd prefer to let the people who were actually there speak directly."
O'Neill cited a Jan. 29, 1969, firefight that Kerry claims on his campaign Web site he and his boatmates were in.
"But according to the Boston Globe," said the Swift Boat veteran: "Kerry was not even on the boat that night. The guy that was really on the boat was a fellow officer of ours named Ted Peck. He remembers well that fight because he was terribly wounded in three places."
"There was no Kerry anywhere around," O'Neill said. "And yet it appears on his Web site as some pitched battle that Kerry was involved in."
Noting that the Democratic presidential candidate has made his Vietnam war experience the centerpiece of every campaign for office, O'Neill complained: "It's [Kerry's] self-promotion that infuriates most of the people from his unit, who actually know what he did."
"He would be a terrible commander in chief of U.S. forces in the world at a time of crisis," the Kerry boatmate warned.
Check out the John F. Kerry Timeline. Email it to your friends.
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The Swiftvets are awesome. They saved our lives!
You are right when you say that the mainstream media has gotten more openly leftist. However, it is in response to the internet. The liberal press realizes that it no longer has to make any pretense of appealing to conservatives, so they have simply adopted an openly socialist agenda. However, the people that Atwater and others played to in the 80's are still getting news from the internet.
Yes, in fact, I think Kerry's speech was longer. The only reason the Bush speech lasted as long as it did was because of all the applause interrupting him.
Kerry just likes to hear himself talk.
[F'n made the snide remark about W's acceptance speech finally being over. Since then, I have heard Dim lackeys parroting the same thing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't F'n's speech last about the same amount of time?'
..............
That's really funny. To stay w/in the network's hour, Kerry raced breathlessly through a 120 min. speech in 55 minutes, interrupted by applause 56 times. Bush's speech was clocked at 40 minutes; it was the 108 applause interruptions that pushed it to 62 min.
Let's look at the irony here.
Inadvertently Richard Nixon is part of the demise of the Kerry campaign.
The media in it's arrogance advises Kerry to ignore the Swift Boat Vet for Truth because they will ignore them. They did, the internet had other ideas. You know that wonderful internet invented by albore!
The irony that the man would be such a strong leader has sent out his wife, his daughters, wounded grievously Max Cleland, and now Mary Beth Cahill to take the blame for all his mistakes.
And our Dubya wasn't sweating profusely or rushing thru the applause lines. Our Dubya knew the media would not cut away....and they didn't!
They now seem intent on keeping up their self-delusion.
I certainly agree that the entire country has move to the left in the past 20 years. I think this is largely the effect of the entertainment industry and their portrayal of how "normal" people conduct themselves.
[The Swiftvets are awesome. They saved our lives!]
................
What exquisite symmetry: Kerry cost them a war & they're returning the favor.
First I checked the computer to see the status of the book. Only three of the 10 public libraries in our county were listed as eventually getting copies of it. (Only one had a copy on hand.)
Here is the kicker, it was listed under adult fiction. When I complained to the one of the librarian, her comment was, "Well some consider it fiction." I told her that many do not including the Library of Congress. The head librarian must have known they were on shaky ground because he then told me, "Don't worry about how it is listed, when we get a copy, we will evaluate it ourselves."
Some other freepers might want to check their public libraries to see if it is happening there.
More and more Americans now see the blatant bias of the main stream media.
The big three tv networks are losing millions of viewers because cable, especially FNC, offers an objective discussion of important issues that haven't been visible in the likes of the NYT and CBS for over 40 years.
For the millions that died by his actions, it's called justice. Or at least the first steps of justice.
CSPAN will replay the drunken sailor rally tonight at 7pm Eastern.
He may be unfit to serve as CIC, but I think he would do quite well as the skipper of the Exxon Valdez.
I would like to know when taxpayer-funded departments of government were given the authorization to engage in politics. It used to be that libraries got books that they thought would be popular with the readers, then they shelved them in the manner prescribed by the Library of Congress (either in fiction, biography or under the Dewey decimal system). I guess public libraries have figured out that with the advent of the internet and places like Barnes & Noble and Border's, that their days of usefullness and necessity are numbered.
I like that better, nice ring to it.
The Swiftee's are true American Hero's ... TWICE !!
Kerry '04 flip flop sandle hanging from my bumper
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