Thousands contribute to swiftboat vets: Les Kinsolving chronicles support for anti-Kerry TV ads

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | August 21, 2004 | Les Kinsolving

[JohnHuang2]

Saturday, August 21, 2004

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Thousands contribute to swiftboat vets

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Posted: August 21, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Les Kinsolving

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© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

Was former Navy Seal officer and Medal of Honor recipient Bob Kerrey, the former U.S. senator from Nebraska, ever anywhere as near to John Kerry in Vietnam as 257 of Kerry's fellow officers and crewman of the swiftboats?

All these navy veterans have signed a statement that Kerry is unfit for command. And that is the title of a new book written and extensively documented by Naval Academy graduate John O'Neill. This officer took over Kerry's swiftboat when Kerry returned home after four and a half months, rather than the customary one year of service.

Former Democratic Sen. Kerrey disagrees with all these Navy men who served with John Kerry. He even writes in the Washington Post:

"They have done a better job at damaging the reputations of the U.S. Navy than they have of damaging John Kerry. … [A]t the top of my list of reasons for believing Kerry can and will do this most difficult of jobs is that he has the requisite sympathy for the men and women who give up many of their rights as citizens in order to defend ours. My confidence also comes from knowing that he knows what it's like to have served under leaders who lacked the moral clarity or the political backbone to sustain an effort from beginning to end."

Why doesn't former Sen. Kerrey list any names of his allegedly immoral and bad-backboned leaders?

And did Kerrey really believe that John Kerry's testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – where he denounced his former Vietnam comrades as war criminals – was "the requisite sympathy for the men and women who give up many of their rights as citizens to defend ours"?

What if Bob Kerrey's Medal of Honor had been put around his neck by a president who, years before, had attracted national attention by throwing United States medals and medal ribbons over a fence in Washington?

Former Democratic Sen. Kerrey, who is now president of the New School University in New York, concludes his article in the Post by writing:

"Tellingly, the attacks on Kerry's war record have been orchestrated in large part by the same Texas publicity firm involved with notorious television advertisements meant to derail the last veteran of the Vietnam War who ran for president, John McCain. Kerry's service in Vietnam was extensively documented by the U.S. Navy, especially in connection with his awards, and has been reviewed numerous times by historians and news organizations."

Is this accurate? Has John Kerry ever signed the authorization that would allow a full examination of his Navy records?

According to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, he has not.

And as for Sen. John McCain, didn't he write in U.S. News and World Report's edition of May 14, 1973, that John Kerry's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was: "The most effective propaganda (my North Vietnamese captors) had to use on us"?

Tom Infield of Knight-Ridder, one of the nation's largest newspaper chains, reports:

"A group of Vietnam veterans that is challenging Sen. John Kerry's record of heroic war services says it received a flood of donations in recent days after advertising its contentions on television in three states.

"The group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, said it hoped to use the money to monitor Kerry's campaign travels and run ads in cities where he appears.

"'That's our goal,' said John E. O'Neill, a Houston attorney who's one of the group's leaders and co-author of Unfit to Command, a 251-page book being distributed this week by the conservative Regnery Publishing house. The book quotes Navy veterans as saying Kerry distorted his record as a river boat commander in Vietnam's Mekong Delta in 1968 to 1969.

"Democrats have said the group is nothing but a Republican hit squad determined to besmirch their candidate.

"Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is registered with the Federal Election Commission as a so-called 527 organization, not affiliated with any party. It got off the ground with a $100,000 donation from Texas homebuilder Bob J. Perry, a prominent Republican donor.

"Roy F. Hoffman, a retired admiral and chairman of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, said the first TV ad, which ran for one week in Ohio, Wisconsin and West Virginia at a cost of $550,000, got so much national news attention that it generated an additional $400,000 from 8,000 donors around the country.

"'We are putting together the second ad,' said Hoffman, 78, of Richmond, Va. As a Navy captain in 1968 and 1969, Hoffman commanded a unit of 1,650 sailors that included Kerry as a lieutenant.

"Hoffman said the unit, known as Task Force 115, included about 16 swiftboats and their crews, which patrolled the delta for Viet Cong and other enemy fighters.

"'I knew Kerry pretty well,' he said. 'I did not ride his boat, but we operated very close together. ... I can't say I was a personal friend or buddy-buddy, but I sure knew him ... and I never felt he had the qualifications.'

"Kerry has made his war service the centerpiece of his campaign to become president. His supporters include men who served on his boat, including a former Green Beret who said Kerry rescued him from the water while under fire.

"Swift Boat Veterans for Truth first gained public attention in May when its leaders – including men who served on boats near Kerry's – called a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington.

"Hoffman denied that the group is connected to the Republican Party. He said he hasn't been politically involved since leaving the Navy in 1978. Yes, he said, the group had taken cash donations from Republicans. But that became necessary, he said, because the news conference received little attention on network television and in national newspapers.

"The group concluded that it needed to buy its own TV ad, he said. And that required money.

"He said of Perry: 'We had our hand out, and he put money in it. ... As far as I'm concerned, he's a wealthy construction person. If he owns the money legally, I'm all for it.'"

President Bush has neither joined Sen. McCain in denouncing these hundreds of Swift Boat Veterans, nor has he joined in the expressed concerns about Kerry as being unfit to become commander in chief.

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[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

Mommy Heinz!
Help!
Look! What the Harvard Crimson wrote about me in 1970

Published on Wednesday, February 18, 1970
John Kerry: A Navy Dove Runs for Congress
By SAMUEL Z. GOLDHABER
Crimson Staff Writer

"...One time Kerry was ordered to destroy a Viet Cong village
but disobeyed orders and suggested that the Navy Command
simply send in a Psychological Warfare team to be
friend the villagers with food, hospital supplies,
and better educational facilities."


Now my shipmates on the
USS GRIDLEY CG-21
are attacking me.

Click Here Mommy
and see what
the USS GRIDLEY crew say.

They say I told lies in Tour of Duty
GRIDLEY CREW ARE LIKE
SWIFT BOAT VETS MEANIES!

Mommy : Can I please sell MY real book?
The New Soldier,
By John Kerry
and Vietnam Veterans Against the War


Mommy : Please don't be mad
about my hero Al Hubbard.

Head of Kerry's Vietnam Vets Against the War was Vietnam Vet phony
"Many of the stories were later shown to be fictional. Other so-called Vietnam veterans, such as the executive secretary of VVAW, Al Hubbard, a self-styled poet ("See what you've become, Amerika," ends one of his Vietnam odes),
turned out to have no record of service in Vietnam."


OOPS! I POOPED in my diaper again.

Mommy : Don't take my allowance away.
Mommy : Why does McCain
still campaign with Bush?
Mommy : Why doesn't Al Gore defend me?
He is a Vietnam Vet.

Mommy : OOPS I Pooped again.

Mommy : Why did Hillary
"leak" FBI Files on me?
I even used her famous slogan?

"Kerry entered and abandoned Vietnamese village and slaughtered domestic animals
owned by the civilians and burned down their homes with his Zippo lighter."



It only takes one idiot to raze a village!
(My original response!)

Mommy : Where is Ted Kennedy?

[GeronL]

BIG BUMP

[Riley]

Gen'l Barksdale Bump.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

And a Mommy Bump!

[JohnHuang2]

Thanks for bumping the thread and G'morning to ya.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thank you, and I am closing up here.

Thanks for your posting and writing for our enjoyment!

Got to donate some money to the Swifties tomorrow!

They are doing a great service for our Republic!

[JohnHuang2]

You're more than welcome, amigo.

[samtheman]

So who gave money to the liberal 527s? A bunch of non-partisans?

Everybody in this country is a partisan right now.

So if you're saying it's wrong for republicans to give to sbvt, but ok for dems to give to moveon.org, what you're saying is that it's wrong for republicans to have free speech and ok for dems to have it.

That is what they're saying.

Coulter said it a couple of months ago: The liberal version of free speech is everybody else must shut up.

[backhoe]

To read the latest on the Franchurian Candidate's bizzare exploits, click the picture, goto "last," and work backwards:

If you would like to help the Swift Boat Vets ( as I have, and I urge all to do-- even a few dollars will help ) kindly click on this logo:

To read the latest on the Franchurian Candidate's bizzare exploits, click the picture, goto "last," and work backwards:

If you would like to help the Swift Boat Vets ( as I have, and I urge all to do-- even a few dollars will help ) kindly click on this logo:

[YankeeinOkieville]

(Bob Kerrey) "My confidence also comes from knowing that he [J. F'n Kerry]knows what it's like to have served under leaders who lacked the moral clarity or the political backbone to sustain an effort from beginning to end."

Nothing wrong with this statement... if what he means is F'n served [in the Senate] under Clinton.

[Casloy]

"the United Nations should have control over most of our foreign military operations. "I'm an internationalist. I'd like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations."

"On other issues, Kerry wants "to almost eliminate CIA activity. The CIA is fighting its own war in Laos and nobody seems to care." He also favors a negative income tax and keeping unemployment at a very low level, "even if it means selective economic controls."


And in 30 years he hasn't changed one bit.

[rrrod]

Only down side to this I can see is only 8,000 sent any money to these Vets...come on FR...give a few bucks.

[MagnoliaMS]

Well, it's at least 8,001 now. ;)

[MonroeDNA]

Sent them $250 last week. And I'm a Libertarian, not a Republican.

[rrrod]

Way to go!...I sent them $100, all I could for now.
I fully expect the RATS to come after these guys in every way possible...Ill do all I can to stand with the swifties and all Vets against RATS/Keryy/Edwards!

[Chieftain]

Freeper N. Theknow says:
"It’s faster than a checkbook, more powerful than a Democratic demagogue, able to lay waste to a liar Kerry with the single click of a mouse. It's a little bird of truth, it's plain to see Kerry's unfit... it's... it's...SuperFReep!

Want to join in the fun? Click the logo to donate to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth!

[Repub Bub]

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