Free Republic

WEB EXTRA / Readers weigh in as wounds of Vietnam are reopened again . . . I am writing in response to the article published on November 6th about U.S. Senator John Kerry. I find it hard to believe that the issue of Senator Kerry’s service to our country is being brought up yet again by one small group of people with an ax to grind. - TIMOTHY P. MURRAY, Lt. Governor, Massachusetts Dear Senator Kerry, it does not matter what dirt you have on them, what you use to prove you right and them wrong, you lost this battle,...

AMANA, Iowa — With less than two months until the Iowa caucuses, Hillary Clinton is charging through the early-voting state in an attempt to widen a lead that was recently imperiled when her Democratic opponents stepped up their game of hardball against her following last week's candidate debate. The frontrunner's worries that opponents Barack Obama and John Edwards could outflank her in the heartland have set her to hiring 100 new staff in Iowa and possibly doubling that army by election night on Jan. 3. It also has led to a back and forth about fair play that has even...

The primary donor of an independent group that raised questions about Senator John F. Kerry during the 2004 presidential election has signed on to raise money for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's GOP presidential campaign. Bob Perry, a Houston home builder, is named as a member of Romney's Texas Leadership Team in an invitation for a fund-raising event in Dallas on March 26. Perry has earned a reputation for his willingness to finance the political activities of "527 groups," nonprofit organizations named after the federal tax code that applies to them. He gained notoriety for the $4.5 million he donated...

Jerome Corsi, co-author of the 2004 campaign book "Unfit for Command" attacking Sen. John Kerry's war record, joined up Tuesday with the organization intended to similarly undermine Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2008 campaign. TheVanguard.org is intended to be a right-wing version of the leftist MoveOn.Org. It was founded by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, including Gil Amelio, former CEO of Apple and National Semiconductor. Coming on board Feb. 16 as TheVanguard's full-time editorial and creative director will be Richard Poe, who has served as editor-in-chief of FrontPage Magazine. He has been described as the conservative movement's leading expert on MoveOn.Org's...

Well, it was worth every penny of it. Swift Vets and POWs for Truth was fined today by the Federal Election Commission for violating campaign finance laws. A fine of $299,500 was levied against the organization. The organization ran their website starting in April 2004 right up to November 3 when John Kerry lost the election...

WASHINGTON — The race to be the No. 2 House Democratic leader turned nasty Tuesday, with challenger Rep. John Murtha accusing opponents of "swift-boat style attacks" that hark back to his days being investigated in the FBI's 1980 Abscam sting. Murtha won endorsement Monday from Nancy Pelosi, who is widely expected to be the House speaker. But Murtha is opposed by some liberals who say they are not happy with the Pennsylvania lawmaker's pro-gun and anti-abortion record. Others say Pelosi took a wrong turn in backing Murtha over her current deputy Rep. Steny Hoyer because Murtha's record is marred by...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic Sen. John Kerry apologized directly to U.S. troops on Wednesday for comments about Iraq that had prompted a firestorm of criticism from Republicans and President George W. Bush. "I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform and I personally apologize to any service member, family member or American who was offended," Kerry said in a statement. Kerry said earlier in the day he was sorry for a "botched joke" about Bush that was interpreted as a slam on the U.S. military. Republicans demanded a more direct apology...

Just announced on the FNC.

WASHINGTON — Republicans are trying a seemingly successful technique found in Democratic campaign playbooks, linking their opponent to an objectionable gaffe much the way Democrats have pinned Republican candidates to politically unpopular President Bush. That appears to be the game plan as the GOP seeks to make John Kerry a last-minute issue before next Tuesday's midterm election by demanding to know whether their Democratic opponents support the Massachusetts senator's recent criticism of U.S. troops in Iraq. "Sen. Cantwell is Sen. Kerry's host in our state," reads a press release from Mike McGavick, Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell's Republican opponent. "She has...

The snide, hyper-elitism dripping from Kerry's words is arresting. But swirling beneath the surface of his comments is something deeper, something conservative critics have long identified and attacked among those they say belong to the "Blame America First" crowd, as former U.N. Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick so artfully once put it. And that is this: What, if anything, will liberals ...

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry’s “botched joke” about students needing to study hard or risk becoming “stuck in Iraq” has ignited a political firestorm over the war exactly a week from the election. Kerry lashed out at the White House at a press conference in Seattle this afternoon for attacking him for his comments. The White House, however, called on Kerry to apologize for troop-bashing. A defiant Kerry refused. “Let me make it crystal clear, as crystal clear as I know how,” Kerry said. “I apologize to no one for my criticism of the President and his broken policy. If anyone...

SNIPIn 2004, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth started out on the margins of the presidential race. In an era of Old Media domination, they might have stayed there. When the group's founders held a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington on May 4, there was nothing in the next day's Washington Post, and the episode got scant attention elsewhere. A conservative website, FreeRepublic.com, however, covered the news conference and listed the fax numbers of Establishment news organizations, urging readers to send missives demanding to know why they were "blacking out" the event. A day later, the...

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- The ongoing battle over the truth of alleged war crimes and atrocities committed by Americans in the Vietnam War moves to a Philadelphia courtroom this week. An action filed in Philadelphia's Common Pleas Court today by a group of highly decorated veterans and POWs may finally hold Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and his allies accountable for the allegations they have propagated over the past 35 years.

We occasionally receive email from Donnie Dobro, a faithful reader with a down-home sense of humor. Donnie thought he heard a challenge from John F. Kerry and issued a response of his own, accepting it. We reprint below the two latest chapters in the leadup to a forthcoming duel I only hope will be televised. 1. 9/17/06 Challenged by John Kerry Greetings friends and fellow combatants. I have been challenged to a duel. To be specific, just a few days ago while referring to Swift Boat Sailors he stated: “I’m prepared to kick their ass from one end of America...

John Kerry recently volunteered that he was prepared to “kick [the Swift Boat Veterans’] ass from one end of America to the other” and that he would “demolish” us. He ought to take a Christmas cruise to Cambodia to calm down. Maybe he could take a side trip to tour “Genghis Khan” ruins. It is a little difficult to imagine Kerry (“I voted for it before I voted against it”) kicking the most decorated living serviceman, Bud Day, a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, or our salty commander, Adm. Roy Hoffman, anywhere. Perhaps Kerry had in mind using a “Rice...

WASHINGTON -- The comic career of Senator Jean-Francois Kerry is picking up steam, or gas, as the case may be. This inveterate windbag is, according to the New York Times, reopening the Swift Boat controversy of 2004 that did such damage to his presidential prospects when hundreds of the Vietnam War veterans who served with him deflated his reckless boasts of military gloire. He has undertaken this quixotic mission claiming that he can repristinate his military record despite the Swifties' evidence against it. Then the delusory senator from Massachusetts seems to think he will be a shoo-in for the presidency...

Some readers of HuffingtonPost.com have initiated a new wave of harassing phone calls to Swift Boat veterans who questioned John Kerry's military record in the 2004 campaign -- and the website's proprietors remained ignorant of it for days, despite repeated complaints. Last Saturday morning, HuffPost, Arianna Huffington's year-old online effort, linked to a story regarding the release of Navy personal information. By Saturday afternoon, two registered "trusted" HuffPost commenters posted the names and personal information of more than a dozen Swift Boat veterans. "SatanLivesinUSA" wrote at 2:15 p.m., June 24, "SwiftBoatVets who need some Black Ops done on them. I...

Some readers of HuffingtonPost.com have initiated a new wave of harassing phone calls to Swift Boat veterans who questioned John Kerry's military record in the 2004 campaign -- and the website's proprietors remained ignorant of it for days, despite repeated complaints. Last Saturday morning, HuffPost, Arianna Huffington's year-old online effort, linked to a story regarding the release of Navy personal information. By Saturday afternoon, two registered "trusted" HuffPost commenters posted the names and personal information of more than a dozen Swift Boat veterans. "SatanLivesinUSA" wrote at 2:15 p.m., June 24, "SwiftBoatVets who need some Black Ops done on them. I...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- One epitomizes the Washington political establishment as the Democratic Party's most recent presidential nominee. The other is the quintessential Democratic outsider, proud to be the only senator to vote against the USA Patriot Act.Notwithstanding their different histories, Sens. John Kerry and Russ Feingold joined forces last week to push a proposal that would have required troops to leave Iraq by July of next year. And they may soon have something else in common: Both are considering presidential races in 2008."It seems to be a marriage of convenience," said Democratic consultant Dan Payne, a former Kerry Senate campaign...