Posted on 10/17/2004 6:55:32 AM PDT by pookie18
Last week Ted Koppel's "Nightline" aired a report using the testimony of three Viet Cong communist veterans, who detailed their version of John Kerry's actions that won him his Silver Star.
To oppose them, Koppel had Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's leader, John O'Neill, as a guest.
Interestingly, the program ignored the fact that Kerry's own recollections, noted in previous books, directly contradicted the stories told by the Viet Cong terrorists, who were on the program to help Kerry.
The accounts also differed from the recollections of other Swift Boat veterans.
ABC's "Nightline" feature was so slanted in Kerry's favor that it seemingly proved accusations made against a top ABC official who wrote a memorandum arguing that it was OK for the network to favor Kerry over the president in its reporting.
On Thursday, radio host Rush Limbaugh reminded his listeners of that ABC memo.
"Remember the ABC Mark Halperin memo one week ago today?" Rush asked. "The now famous town hall debate in St. Louis at Washington University? The political director, Mark Halperin of ABC, wrote a memo that revealed itself perfectly in last night's 'Nightline' program. As he noted, the situation is now grave for John Kerry and ABC has a public responsibility to set the record straight on John Kerry's Vietnam service. You have Kerry's version of events as it relates to his service, specifically as 'Nightline' addressed it last night - his Silver Star - and then you have Vietnam vets, Americans who have been decorated. They are heroes. They have their own medals. They have their version. ABC has talked - I don't know how much; very little, probably - to them. No, they are not the correct source to go to.
"ABC went back to the allies. ABC went over to Vietnam. ABC went to the village where this Silver Star event took place and they talked to John Kerry's, they talked to three Viet Cong people, three former Viet Cong communist soldiers and residents of the village. This is in Vietnam."
Rush recalled that John Kerry is in the North Vietnamese War Museum as a hero, and noted that "this is where 'Nightline' goes to solve the crisis, to solve the question, to answer once and for all the questions about Kerry's truth and service in Vietnam. If this doesn't spell out what the ABC memo said. You might say what are we going back to Vietnam two weeks before the election for? Because it's time to pull out all the stops. As the memo said, the situation's grave. ..."
Yesterday, John O'Neill released this statement on the "Nightline" show giving the other side of the story:
"While I have a tremendous amount of respect for Ted Koppel and ABC News I was appalled to learn that ABC News would go to the lengths of traveling to Vietnam to interview three Viet Cong communists in yet a third attempt by ABC to corroborate John Kerry's version of the events that took place on February 28th, 1969.
"I would only ask the American people: 'Who do you trust more, three members of a communist regime that tortured and killed our American troops or a group of more than 280 highly decorated American veterans, who proudly served their country and are now responsible members of their respective communities?'
"The number of veterans who support John Kerry's accounts of his military service would not fill one Swift Boat. But instead of sitting down to interview some of the 280 plus members of our Swift Boat organization, ABC News chose to travel to Vietnam taking extraordinary and highly suspect steps to find someone to corroborate John Kerry's story.
"ABC News Nightline has now dedicated three separate programs to this one incident while ignoring John Kerry's now discredited Senate testimony that he spent Christmas in Cambodia, his receiving a purple heart after all three of the officers required to approve such an issuance rejected his application, or his constantly changing account of the circumstances surrounding his remaining medal, a bronze star.
"Further, one has to wonder why ABC News will not address the serious questions as to why John Kerry only received an honorable discharge through the act of then President Carter, seven years after his discharge, and had to have all of his military citations reissued, on the same day, when he became a United States Senator in 1985. And, finally, why has Nightline found it of no interest to permit any POWs to come on their program to explain why they believe John Kerry betrayed their nation, caused them to be incarcerated for an additional two years and caused them tremendous additional hardship and suffering."
During the "Nightline" show, O'Neill pounced on the testimony of the Viet Cong veterans that there was a large force of Viet Cong soldiers present and firing at Kerry and his crew.
Said Koppel, "From the recollections of the Vietnamese who were on hand at the time, they recall a superior enemy force, 12 soldiers. ..."
Recalling for Koppel that in a a biography of Kerry, published by the Boston Globe with Kerry's assistance, O'Neill said that "they describe, on Page 101, a single teenager in a loincloth, Ted. They weren't trying to make it up. This is John Kerry's own approved biography, "Tour of Duty." On Page 296 of that book, John Kerry says, boy, he's glad there was only a single person there and not more.
"Ted, this is the biography by the hometown newspaper of John Kerry. It says there was a single Viet Cong teenager in a loincloth."
Asked Rush Limbaugh: "Why go over to Vietnam, talk to people who made heroes of John Kerry and then hold up what they say as the barometer that needs to be reacted to and responded to? John Kerry's not being asked to respond to the Swift Boats, but the Swift Boat vets and John O'Neill are being asked to respond to the communist North Vietnamese who have placed Mr. Kerry as a war hero in their country. So if you have Mark Halperin's memo and you have the context of that memo and you juxtapose it with this report last night, it's fine and dandy to say you report what you find, but what if what you report and what you find is not the truth?
"I mean, after all, you're talking to communists and people in a controlled, closed society. It is an encompassed communist country. And they still live their lives in fear in those places. The record isn't set straight. I know, the record's still not set straight. This muddies it up even more. Or depending on your view, I mean, this could clarify it a little more because it does appear that this is another one of these last-gap efforts to try to get Kerry out of a jam over all this that he doesn't seem to be able to extricate himself from on his own."
Move over, Dan Rather, make room for Ted Koppel and ABC on the John Kerry bandwagon.
Thanks Pookie.. good read. good, but sorry info
You be sure to let me know when you hear Kerry or his staff having to address the issue of his alleged Less Than Honorable Discharge status and upgrade.
Koppel has always been an artful hatchetman. I remember when he dismissed Reed Irvine regarding the Vince Foster situation. He planned to do the same to the democrat John Oneal. But Mr. Oneal was quicker, smarter, better prepared, and had the truth on his side. His years as a trial attorney did not hurt in his advocacy capability. Oneal disembowelled Koppel and twisted his guts on a stick. I like that.
Well let me just offer, that those who give a damn about character will know, and have known, all they need to know about scum bag Kerry.
Joe Lieberman (remember that idiot?) is now looked upon as a right wing lunatic by the Dimocrat Party, though he himself is a socialist. As for the rest of the "nine dwarves" presented for consideration as presidential timber, I defy you to name one you wouldn't run from if he came next to you.
I guess my long winded attempt at a point is this; There are 35% of the American people who are out and out ANTI-I AM RESPONSIBLE-AMERICANS. There are another 10% that couldn't wipe their behinds without instructions.
That leaves you and me. And we know about Kerry.
GWB & Co., for reasons best known to them, are taking the high road for those 10%.
Face it, It has been a long and winding path we have been on these last few years. We are all a bit worn down, and we all (including me) know how best to run the Republican campaign.
We'll all meet at the polls and crush this Dimocrat Party. ;)
Amen!
BTW ... think I'll start using the term "old media" also. They certainly are losing that "main stream media" moniker. ;)
It isn't your fathers news paper anymore!
I did too and I am glad I'm not the only one who saw it that way. We probably won't get the movie our way (Pacific N.W.) unless someone takes pity on us! It would be wonderful if cable, or satellite (Direct TV) would show it and let us know when!! I think even left America would change overnight if they knew what their Kerryman is all about.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if ABC never even left the country to go to Vietnam. It was probably all staged on a hollywood back lot somewhere with Micheal the lying Pig Moore directing it!
Rush is rightly deriding the Dem's use of the Galileo effect on stem cell research.
Does anyone have the link to the Nightline show. I had it yesterday and now can't find it...
I would never have believed this possible if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. It's like some kind of nightmare. How on earth can this be a close race? We have to work 24/7 over the next 15 days to make sure all Americans see as clearly about this louse Kerry as do we.
pookie18...many thanks for your graciousness...
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