Posted on 08/29/2004 4:58:32 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Tet was reported as absolute proof that the war was hopeless. Walter Cronkite, North Vietnam Communists' "most trusted man in America," led the way on that false message that encouraged the enemy to keep fighting -- bringing death to tens of thousands more. Thanks, Walter.
Wall-to-wall TV coverage of My Lai "proved" absolutely that American forces were evil.
1968 was the year undergrounders like Berkeley Barb, Ramparts, and East Village Other became mainstream "reporting."
By the time Kerry got a warm welcome to Fulbright's committee the public had years of conditioning by the likes of Berkeley Barb, Ramparts, and East Village Other.
Read or watch the committee hearings. See the "Democratic Republic" of North Vietnam and the revolutionary "government" of South Vietnam, in the person of John Kerry, discuss with Fulbright ways to get Nixon to "disengage" and accept the enemy's terms.
Back then, his listeners could discriminate.
Yes, we could. We still can.
Any wonder that I cannot bring myself to refer to these mainstream media clowns as anything more than mere employees of newspapers, etc.?
Thanks, shipmate. You said it well for all of us who were betrayed by this liar.
I was flying patrols in P-3s when you were floatin' yer boat.
And, like you, in those days, I remember being told not to wear our uniforms off base and having to try to hide what I did. It was very surreal.
Our homeport was right at the south end of the S.F. Bay.
You can imagine what THAT was like.
Oh, and your friend, the mechanic?? Tell him he's absolutely right!
Dear: WILLIAM O'ROURKE
Kerry remains a self-described war criminal, and stands by his defamatory assertion that virtually all American servicemen are war criminals too.
Veterans still think those unrepented charges are "aimed at them."
Mr. O'Rourke, you cant say things and not take responsibility for it. Kerry said last week that he stands by his position in the 1970's. He is not sorry for what he said. Words means things Mr. O'Rourke.
BTTT.
Kerry's old accusations are artifacts of their time. When taken out of the heated context of that war, their meaning is distorted. Back then, his listeners could discriminate. Now the aging and raging veterans supporting Bush are taking umbrage at charges never aimed at them. Their rancor has only increased with time.I'm going to take another swing at this paragraph. I caught the one Catch-22 fraud in post 27, but there's an even more transparent one lying there in the open which I missed for the better-concealed one.
The author tries to claim that quoting Kerry from thirty years ago is the same thing as, say, quoting from an 1874 book, The Descent of Man, by Darwin where he makes unfavorable comparisions between the "less civilized" races and the civilized ones. (In fact Darwin was about as non-racist as any Victorian Englishman managed.) That is, some of what was said looks bad now, but few would have objected at the time.
To say this about Kerry's testimony is totally false. What Kerry said and did looked bad then. To say the least, not everybody understood it as harmless. It might have been worse if anybody had heard of Lt.(jg) Lurch, but he was having his very first fifteen minutes of fame. The last sentence--"Their [the veterans's] rancor has only increased with time"--unwittingly acknowledges the point.
Their rancor HAS increased a lot, and just lately, because of the absolute mockery of Kerry running as some kind of GI Joe action figure. Before that, it was probably cooling off a bit.
I remember Bill Clinton predicting it would a cakewalk as well. Funny how the media never remembers *that*.
The swift boaters' charges against Kerry have undermined the reputation of the military's system of honoring bravery under fire. Anger at John Kerry's antiwar work has left them doing their own anti-military work.
Yet the continual smearing by the Dems of National Guard service being draft-dodging is not addressed.
One would never guess that his views are informed solely by his political cortex and not by a functioning brain. Oh, no. My goodness, no!
This has got to be the media's shallowest, most inane response to the SBVFT yet on record.
Kerry supporters hung up on their own petard.
I saw a great quote from a vet on NRO the other day. "If Kerry is defeated, it will be the parade we never got."
You guys were thinking the same thing, in the same way.
Thanks for your service!
Yeah, when you call people violent war criminals, even when you know good and well most of them weren't, that reputation is going to stick with you a while.
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