Posted on 11/03/2004 2:38:23 AM PST by JohnHuang2
John Kerry never thought it completely through when he decided at the Democratic National Convention to run for president as a hero of the Vietnam War.
He miscalculated the number of his fellow swiftboat veterans who were even today unwilling to give him a pass. He underestimated how many of us had studied then – and remembered today – the degree to which he supported the enemy when he decided to work with Madame Binh, the Viet Cong's top representative to the Paris Peace Talks.
He did not fully appreciate that running for commander in chief demanded a level of scrutiny several orders of magnitude more intense than that required for a liberal senator from Massachusetts. Yet all these pale in relation to the senator's most fundamental miscalculation – that in running for the presidency he could lie to the American people and get away with it.
Yes, John Kerry as war protestor in the early 1970s ran fully into the disdain of what President Nixon so aptly termed "the silent majority." No one should forget that President Nixon defeated George McGovern in a landslide in the 1972 presidential election, with McGovern ironically winning only the state of Massachusetts. John Kerry himself, running as an anti-war congressional candidate in Lowell, Mass., went down to defeat at the same time, unable to overcome the intense conservative criticism leveled upon him by Lowell's hometown newspaper.
This lesson was not lost on those of us – Kerry critics for over 32 years – who had resolved even then to oppose him if ever he should chance to contend seriously for the nation's highest office. A silent majority of Americans, just as much alive today in the electorate as it was during the Vietnam War, could be awakened once again to the reality of John Kerry's extreme radical protest.
Once awakened, that silent majority could be counted upon to rise up and reject John Kerry – as it had rejected McGovern in 1972, as it had rejected Kerry himself in the same year. John O'Neill and I wrote "Unfit for Command," confident in the belief that we could appeal one more time to fundamental Americanism of the still vibrant silent majority among us to defeat John Kerry.
Still, John Kerry did not learn an even more important lesson which Nixon's experience made even more apparent. Nixon's greatest fault was not running an unpopular war, nor was it being responsible for a second-rate burglary into the office of the chairman of the Democratic National Party. Nixon's unforgivable sin was to lie and cover-up.
This Americans would never forgive or forget. We eat cherry pie to celebrate Washington's Birthday. Why? Because of the apocryphal story that when George Washington as a child chopped down the cherry tree, he admitted the fault. "I cannot tell a lie," is the concluding line we are all taught as school children.
What was Kerry's lie? To exaggerate his four short months of service in Vietnam and his minor wounds into a self-advanced glory of mythic proportions. To claim his statement that the American military who served in Vietnam were the army of Ghengis Kahn, a calumny that disgraced the service of over 2 million Americans who served there with honor – including some 58,000 whose names are on that solemn black stone memorial in Washington, D.C., American heroes who did not come home, American heroes who deserved a better fate than John Kerry's slander.
Then John Kerry refused to release his military records, even when the Navy said there were some 31 pages of his file the public had never seen, even when serious questions had been raised that he had received a less-than-honorable discharge for collaborating with the enemy in time of war. All of this the American public might well have accepted and forgiven, if only John Kerry had told the truth and asked for forgiveness.
We Americans hold dear certain fundamental values among which are a belief in God, a love of country, a devotion to our children, and a conviction that truth has an eternal and lasting meaning. A person may not be devout in their faith, a candidate for public office may have gone through family separations and divorce – these are not fatal defects preventing election.
But to violate the trust to country by lying while holding or in pursuit of the nation's highest land is an offense beyond comprehension or forgiveness. This, the silent majority could never accept. This President Nixon learned painfully, being our first president to resign from office, in disgrace. So, too, on Nov. 2, 2004, John Kerry was forced to face the truth that the barrier standing between him and the office he had coveted all his life was nothing other than the lie he himself had become.
Beautifully, painfully true. I would actually feel sorry for Kerry if I thought he a shred of honor in him. Unfortunately, he does not.
I say that if Kerry doesn't concede today, we put pressure on him by getting the media to now cover the Truth.
Kerry's whole convention was a LIE...
1. No Man Left Behind was a LIE
2. It is 99% likely that one of his prominant "Band of Brothers" never served on the same boat with Kerry in combat.
Wouldn't it also be nice to find out whether he ever got an other than honorable discharge?
Dear Swiftees, your country, once again, owes you a debt of gratitude and more. Your example of duty and honor will never be forgotten.
It's a wonderful thing the internet is. With Kerry lying and exaggerating his record being able to check his record on the internet proved him to be deficient. Hopefully long gone are the days where you can say you can do things better but never tell people what you would do. I know I looked up Kerry's voting record in Congress and it told me everything I needed to know about him. Kerry said he was strong on defense, his voting record said he wasn't. He said he was for middle class tax cuts, his record didn't bear that out. He accused President Bush of having a secret plan for bringing back the draft. When you looked it up it was the Democratic Party's own people who sponsored the bills and then didn't even have the guts to vote for their own bill. Every time you turned around Kerry was either lying, skewing the truth or exaggerating the record. All I can say is thank you everyone who saw through Kerry's BS and re-elected the one candidate who tells you where he's coming from.
I thank the Swift Boat Veterans, but the big winner of the GOTV movement were the Evangelical Christians. Don't believe me? They came through in Ohio!
Very true -- Four More Years! :-)
hehehehe
Evangelicals changed things in WV too!
All true, but it is sickening to think that this scumbag Kerry still got 49% of the vote.
Media reporting Kerry hasn't spoken to campaign, media, or supporters since he voted yesterday. What an ingrate.
so libs...
CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?
(where's that pic guy when you need him?)
Sadly, it is only that Kerry lost, that make it possible
for the truth about him to come out.
Horrifying how close he came.
Ain't God good? We need to spend as much time Praising and Thanking Him as we did in pleading for another chance.
Our own Freeper J Corsi is vindicated for all the good he did with Swift Vets and John O'Neil. Mega props to him!
"He did not fully appreciate that running for commander in chief demanded a level of scrutiny several orders of magnitude more intense than that required for a liberal senator from Massachusetts."
Neither did ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX (unfortunately), MSBC, the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, et al, yada yada yada...
The real story of this election is how GWB was able to hang on against a relentless media onslaught of misinformation designed to bring him down. Nobody ever asked Kerry a single damned tough question about the very credible charges leveled by the Swift Boat Vets. As far as I'm concerned, it's near-criminal neglect of duty on the part of the media. They're not supposed to select the president.
Thank you, Mr. Corsi and Mr. O'Neil. You have performed magnificently. Mr. O'Neil is one of the most impressively composed, straight-shooters I've ever seen. Republican or Democrat, I admire him tremendously and would certainly want him on my team.
John O'Neil for Secretary of the Navy!
Thank you America for finally standing behind your Vietnam Veterans
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