Separated at birth?
Posted on 02/18/2005 3:32:05 AM PST by johnny7
The recent resignation of CNN's news director, Eason Jordan, after his outrageous remarks about our military at an international forum were reported on the Internet, is only the latest in a series of media scandals, of which Dan Rather's forged documents were just one. Media bias does not consist in having liberal or conservative opinions but in how you do your job -- or don't do it.
One document whose authenticity is not likely to be questioned by the mainstream media is the honorable discharge on Senator John Kerry's web site. Yet who in the major media has investigated why that honorable discharge is dated during the Carter administration, when Kerry's military service ended years earlier? This is the same media that spent months investigating George W. Bush's military record and, even after key allegations were revealed to be based on forgeries, continued publicizing rumors and innuendoes. They didn't stop even after the President signed Form 180, opening all his military records to the public. But who in the major media has asked why John Kerry would need to be issued an honorable discharge during the Carter administration, years after leaving the navy, unless his original discharge was less than honorable?
One of Jimmy Carter's first acts as President was to issue an order granting amnesties to draft dodgers who had fled the country during the Vietnam war and also allowing an upgrading of military discharges that had been less than honorable. There is more to this than simply a strange date on an honorable discharge. The covering memo refers to U.S. Code Title 10, sections 1162 and 1163. Anyone who bothers to read those sections will discover that they are about unusual circumstances for issuing discharges from the military services. Senator Kerry never signed Form 180 to make all his military records public, as President Bush had done -- and the media didn't press him to do so. Even after Kerry's widely publicized role as a war hero was challenged by numerous men who had served with him in Vietnam, the media remained totally uninterested in checking out his record.
This gross double standard is the real media scandal, even more than the forged documents, which were after all the responsibility of just one network and one program. Maybe there is a perfectly innocent explanation for Senator Kerry's late-dated honorable discharge during the Carter administration. But no explanation has been asked or given, even though there may also be a not so innocent explanation.
What is well known is that, during the Vietnam war, John Kerry went to Paris on his own and engaged in discussions or negotiations with representatives of the country with whom we were at war, even though he was still an officer in the naval reserve. That raises legal questions about unauthorized personal diplomacy which naval authorities may not have overlooked as generously as the media did, and which could have affected the kind of discharge that Kerry received. One of the few people in the media who has shown any interest at all in Kerry's military records has been Tim Russert of "Meet the Press." He asked Senator Kerry on April 18, 2004 if he would "make all your records public." Kerry indicated that his records were already public, that people "can come and see them" at his headquarters.
But recently, on January 30, 2005, when Tim Russert again raised that question and asked "Would you sign Form 180?" -- the form that Bush had signed to open all his military records -- Kerry started off on a tangent before Russert interrupted him to repeat that same question. This time Kerry said, "Yes, I will." He will? He had already done so last year, if you believe what he said then. But will the media call him on it if he doesn't follow through now? Don't bet on it. This is not about the past or ultimately even about Kerry or Bush. It is about the future of this country. A gullible public learning only what is filtered to them by a biased media is not a hopeful sign for the future of a democracy.
Some of the public have begun to wake up but more need to do so. Many in the media also need to wake up to what they are doing, or failing to do, when their politics taints their work.
I do wish that Tim Russert would get his butt out of that chair, grab a cameraman and go down to the John Kerry HQ, and ask to see the records. While he is there, he could ask, with camera rolling, where the copy of John Kerry's original discharge is. Surely Kerry does not maintain that he was not discharged from the Navy until 1980.
It would be great television. Russert could edit it down to a 2 minute lede on the next week's MTP. Unless he calls people out when they openly lie to his face, he will not be able to get them to tell the truth on MTP.
Russert has to decide. Does he want to be the conduit for whatever lie his guest wants to tell, or does he want to get at the truth? Right now, Donks can come on his program and just bald-faced lie, and there are no consequences.
You can bet that the next time somebody holds Kerry down and asks him about the Form 180 and his original discharge, he will reference his answer on MTP, as if to say that if he said it to Russert and Russert did not call him on it, it must be true. If Russert allows his reputation to be exploited in this way, he will not have much of a reputation left after a short time.
To me and many others, Russert has no reputation to corrupt.
I just want the truth out! Sunshine please!
(I think Gannongate will turn out to be a dud..it just isn't sexy enough..even with the pictures. He was a nobody)
Mr. Teresa won't be investigated anytime before 2017, after Shrillary's two terms expires. Actually, the story would make a great movie... oh, we're talking Hollywood, never mind.
Change it to reflect courage... not timidity and a lack of conviction.
"They might (but won't) also ask why Kerry's Silver Star citation was signed by John Lehmen, who wasn't Secretary of the Navy until 8 years later, rather than John Chafee."
There is still the issue of the Combat V which he displays with his Silver Star. Which as I understand was never awarded with a Silver Star. Remember Navy Chief of Naval Operations Boorda who committed suicide over his incorrect display of the Combat V.
The MSM will not ask the question to which they already know the answer, and it does not fit their agenda.
together with Victor Davis Hanson & Mark Steyn, Thomas Sowell is one of our modern-day Paladins.
That bugs the heck out of me to this day. It's simply amazing that one of the great mysteries from the last campaign can be so off the radar of ALL the MSM.
There was some serious look the other way crap going on last election. Hopefully that was the last election where thats a factor. That one magazine editor said the press would deliver 15 points for Kerry, and I think they came pretty close. If there weren't so many Pro-Kerry and Con-Bush articles out there, the election would have been a landslide of McGovern (losing) proportions for Kerry.
It was without a doubt a fix, top to bottom for Kerry DD 180 story and others to be hands off. The lame stream media couldn't admit it now because they are so behind the 8 ball already it would crush them. They would never ever be beleived about anything.
The great thing was that in spite of it, and probably alot of votes came just because of it, that enough conservatives saw and recognized the Kerry whitewash and voted to let the lame stream media know weren't buying it.
The less than honorable discharge, especially considering his actions (treason), probably resulted in the revocation of the awards too.
When his discharge was upgraded, he probably pursued getting the awards reinstated so he could hang them on the wall of his office.
If Kerry had been arrested, charged with consorting with the enemy, court-martialed, and given a dishonorable discharge during the Nixon administration, he would have worn it as a badge of courage just as he did his phony Purple Hearts and Silver Star. The court-martial would have received more publicity than the OJ trial and he would have come out of it an even bigger hero with the liberal left than he is now.
So, in light of all the crimes that we know he committed, how is it that he was never court-martialed? Just for the sake of conjecture, let’s say maybe he was arrested, charged, court-martialed, and dishonorably discharged, but the proceedings were so embarrassing to him that he would never want the details to be made public. As I have just stated, being found guilty of consorting with the enemy would not be the reason, so what would be?
It has been made public that Kerry was under very close surveillance by law enforcement agencies and possibly the CIA for at least two years. (Yes, the CIA could target U.S. citizens before Jimmy Carter put a stop to it.) If a person with “bad habits” is under close surveillance for an extended period of time, their bad habits will be found out and documented. If Kerry was arrested, charged with treason, it was made clear to him that the evidence of his “bad habit” would come to light during his trial, and he was offered the opportunity to receive leniency if he cooperated, I think a coward like Kerry would have taken the bait.
If Kerry “flipped,” as they say in the law enforcement community, became an informant (rat, snitch, etc etc), informed on his leftist liberal associates, and this information was ever exposed to the public, he would be finished both politically and socially.
Kerry obviously fears the release of his record from this time frame, and it could not possibly have anything to do with his treasonous activity with the communists, so his fear must be based on something else. The only logical explanation as to why Kerry, a documented traitor, was never publicly court-martialed is that a Special Court-Martial was privately convened, Kerry was found guilty, given a less than honorable discharge, his phony medals were revoked, he cooperated with the government prosecutors, and the record of proceedings was never released.
I believe, if Kerry ever signs an SF-180, not only will his less than honorable discharge come to light, but possibly his status as a CIA or FBI informant, and, of course, his “bad habit.” I leave it to your imagination to ascertain what kind of bad habit could possibly embarrass a liberal Democrat like John F. Kerry, but if that bit of information is ever released, I guarantee you it will be enough to gag a maggot.
It's all a scam, dude... ain't no 'mystery' anymore.
"I leave it to your imagination to ascertain what kind of bad habit could possibly embarrass a liberal Democrat like John F. Kerry, but if that bit of information is ever released, I guarantee you it will be enough to gag a maggot."
Is there anything that would embarrass a liberal Democrat?
Hmmmm. Smoking? (cigarettes, not pot)
"Is it too late to charge Kerry with war crimes or has the statute of limitations already expired?"
There is no statute of limitations on war crimes.
John Kerry was NO war hero....that is another of the MSM and talking heads myth. John Kerry's time line shows the extent he went to he gathered those medals...he was only in the Vietnam theater 3 months + a few days...he spent a month training for the Swift Boats.
Like Ward Churchill, he falsified his record by word of mouth and the MSM, his rhetoric is very much like his testimony, lies and more lies. Ask your elected to vote against his latest cradle to grave entitlement for children – the United States Constitution does not provide any language for this.
Key sentence, and what we need to focus on in our activism.
Old media exposed their gate-keeping hypocrisy to too many people when they squashed the whole Kerry record, while trumpeting the false Bush military record.
More and more users of Old Media are waking up every day - a very good thing!
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