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An alert reader notes that John Kerry's last serious press interview was on August 1. The first Swift Vets ad ran on August 4. Just how long can Kerry stay in hiding?

Inspired by an American Spectator article titled Citation Enhancement.

While the Swiftboat Veterans For Truth currently face overwhelming attacks from MSM, DNC operatives and legal supporters, anti-war activists, and mis or uninformed non-veterans, consider the wrath they will likely face if John Kerry is elected POTUS.Their FBI files will be at the very top of those which will, no doubt, be aquired by Kerry and his operatives. Their lives will be subject to intense scrutiny by IRS and other governmental agencies under Kerry's thumb. Those who are not retired and hold government positions may lose their jobs or be passed over for promotion. Any who seek Civil Service employment...

Friday night, Bill Maher had John O'Neill on his HBO television program. O'Neill, of course, is the principal author of Unfit for Command, the book version of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign to challenge John Kerry's military record. The interview itself was almost unbearably anger-provoking, as Maher snidely attempted to skewer O'Neill over and over again, while a studio audience laughed and applauded the host's every word. At least, unlike Chris "Motormouth" Matthews, he didn't interrupt O'Neill's every sentence. (Snip) In the process of the interview, Maher asked at least (and perhaps only) one interesting question: if all...

It is supposed to be a devastating critique of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that John McCain doesn't like their ads. But should we be surprised? McCain knows no party. Instead, together with Kerry supporter Max Cleland, the Arizona senator makes for the smallest caucus in American politics — Thin-Skinned Vietnam War Veterans Adored by the Media (TSVWVAM).

Sen. John McCain , (R-Ariz) and Time magazine’s Karen Tumulty joined Face The Nation from New York, the site of the Republican National Convention.( Read the transcript here in PDF format) (excerpt) When asked by Tumulty if Kerry's post-war activities made him less fit to be commander-in-chief, McCain said, "Every American is entitled to protest the policies of their government.That's a sacred right of ours.Now whether John did that appropriately or correctly,I think,is a legitimate debate and discussion."

Thomas Jefferson warned, “Whenever a man casts a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct." John Kerry has hungered for the White House since he was a student and even took a video camera with him to Vietnam. In 1823, Jefferson wrote: “History may distort truth, and will distort it for a time, by the superior efforts at justification of those who are conscious of needing it most." John Kerry wrote his own report and insists that his official naval records be taken at face value, while refusing to fulfill his promise to release his medical records....

There were many telling moments in last week's jousting over what John Kerry did or did not do in Vietnam, but perhaps none more illuminating than this exchange between late-night comic Jon Stewart and Kerry, who was trying to set the record straight, not on CNN or 60 Minutes but on Comedy Central's Daily Show. "So I understand that apparently you were never in Vietnam?" asked host Stewart, tongue firmly in cheek. "That's what I understand, too," the Democratic presidential nominee shot back. "But I'm trying to find out what happened." They weren't the only ones confused; many voters wondered...

Key paragraphs: It is a sharp blow to Mr Kerry. A majority of Americans have heard the accusations, and opinion polls show that many of them find the charges to some degree believable. Support for Mr Kerry among ex-servicemen has collapsed. On the issue of Mr Kerry's Purple Hearts, the Swift Boat Veterans have a point. It is true that none of his injuries was severe, and that he used them to cut a one-year tour of duty down to little over four months: three Purple Hearts earn leave from active duty. But the claims that Mr Kerry's wounds were...

Until a few weeks ago, John Brenner, department commander for Pennsylvania's Veterans of Foreign Wars, was leaning toward George W. Bush. Then he caught wind of a TV ad launched by an anti-John Kerry group accusing the Democratic candidate of lying to get medals in the Vietnam War. "I don't want to see them question anybody's record," says Brenner, 61, a Vietnam vet. "Especially if they got a Purple Heart and . . . shrapnel in their leg." But last week, Brenner saw a second ad from the anti-Kerry outfit--Swift Boat Veterans for Truth--which blasted Kerry for telling a Senate...

Following are some of the major charges made against Hanoi John French Kerry by the SwiftVets, alongside supporting points and authorities, from Unfit for Command and other readily available documented sources on the internet and elsewhere: I. Kerry refuses to release official military and medical records (Unfit for Command pages 180-181) Kerry's campaign refuses to complete the simple Form 180 which would provide for the official & proper release of Kerry's military records and has sought to hide other records from the public and the press. 1) Washington Post reports on August 22, 2004, "Although Kerry campaign officials insist that...

Posted on Sun, Aug. 29, 2004 CAMPAIGN Bush sets bait, reels in helpless Kerry ZEV CHAFETS Everybody knows President Bush is a bass fisherman. But the president has spent most of August reeling in a more exotic specimen: the Giant New England Slack-Jaw. Years from now, when tales of the catch are told around GOP campfires, small boys will marvel at how the supposedly intelligent Kerryfish swallowed Bush's bait, hook, line and sinker. Slack-jaw season started in January, when John Kerry won the Iowa caucuses with help from a band of Vietnam character witnesses. At the time, Bush realized three...

On Politics and Religion And How We Got Here. Politics and religion.those two big bugbears. How in the world do we ever get to the opinions that we get to? Exactly how do we end up defining our stance when it comes to these two age-old conundrums? I am sure that men with much more information, insight and intelligence have tried, without success, to answer these same questions. Why should I add my feeble efforts? I know, in my heart, that my words will have no affect on you. Yet for some unknown, inexplicable reason, I feel compelled to say...

[excerpts] Early this week, a Kerry campaign spokesman admitted - as the Swift Vets had charged - that Kerry's first Purple Heart might have been the result of an accidentally self-inflicted injury on Dec. 2, 1968, rather than as a result of "intense combat" as Kerry's Web site has claimed. (As reported by columnist Bob Novak late this week, retired Rear Adm. William L. Schachte Jr. said that he was on Kerry's boat that day, and that "Kerry nicked himself with a M-79" grenade launcher.) The campaign's admission was reported by Fox News and The Washington Times, while most of...

In today's NY Times, reporters Blumenthal and Roberts weave together facts, fiction, hearsay and rumors in creating a piece titled: "For Kerry's Chief Accuser, a Flashback to a Political Battle From 1971." Identifying O'Neill as "little more than a Republican hit man" and "a one-dimensional partisan," they seek to reduce his educational and professional accomplishments with the statement "[he]says he graduated first in his class from the University of Texas law school and clerked for William H. Rehnquist." Clearly, a phone call by a NYT fact-checker could have removed the "he says" qualifier. But, not satisfied with the above slights,...

Unfit for CommandSwift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry By John O'Neill and Jerome E. Corsi Regnery. 216 pp. $27.95 Nemesis was the Greek goddess of retribution. Her name has come to be used to designate anyone relentless in the pursuit of vengeance. John O'Neill is John Kerry's nemesis. O'Neill is the man behind Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which has run a couple of television ads sharply critical of Kerry's military record. John O'Neill was also the commander of Swift Boat PCF 94. The man he succeeded as commander was none other than John Kerry. O'Neill served in...

Schachte said that there was no after action report on the first Purple Heart incident, because there was no hostile fire. This time the Navy "documentation" backs up the Swift Vets. No hostile fire = No After Action Report No After Action Report = No hostile fire So if there was no After Action Report, it means that there was no hostile fire, and Kerry fradulently got the 1st Purple Heart. Kerry claims that he was the OinC (Officer in charge) with two other enlisted men. If Kerry was the OinC on the mission as he claimed he was, and...

Statement of RADM William L. Schachte, Jr. USN (Ret.) August 27, 2004 As was true of all "Swiftees," I volunteered to serve in Vietnam and was assigned to Coastal Division 14 for a normal tour of duty. I was a Lieutenant serving as Operations Officer and second in command at Coastal Division 14 when Lieutenant (junior grade) John Kerry reported to us in mid-November, 1968. Lt. (jg) Kerry was an Officer-in-Charge (O-in-C) under training in preparing to be assigned as one of our Swift Boat O-in-C's. At some point following President Johnson's announcement of the suspension of bombing in North...

"For Shame" A leaked video reveals what Bob Dole really thinks about Bush's tactics. By Chris Suellentrop For pretty much the duration of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth controversy, the Kerry campaign has been trying to demonstrate that the smear campaign being conducted against the Democratic presidential nominee is all the more loathsome because it is part of a pattern of behavior by George W. Bush: the use of front groups to damage his campaign opponents by putting false statements into the political bloodstream. Particularly salient, Democrats believe, is the 2000 campaign conducted against John McCain during the South...

The honorable thing to do is to stay out of this fight and acknowledge that you have no personal knowledge of the events the Swiftvets described.