Free Republic

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- John Kerry's "reporting for duty" salute at the Democratic National Convention last month emphasized the key biographical boast of his campaign -- decorated combat service in Vietnam. Now his repeated claim that he also weathered combat upriver in Cambodia has drawn harsh skepticism -- driven by anti-Kerry veterans who star in a political commercial and book financed by Texas Republicans. Roy Hoffmann, a retired admiral who was a Navy captain in command of Kerry's unit at the time, said the candidate's past statements about spending a Christmas Eve in Cambodia can't be true. "I think he...

John Kerry is a shallow, hollow socio-pathological liar who is incapable of telling the truth. Kerry has sued his former Navy Swiftboat group to stop a TV ad exposing his war record in Vietnam as a fraud. I guess Kerry forgot about the First Amendment in our U.S. Constitution. The Vietnam vets have compiled the facts surrounding Kerry’s three Purple Hearts and Silver and Bronze Stars medals. His so-called “war hero” medals he’s now showing off in his presidential campaign was all made (or made-up) in only four months during combat in Vietnam. Kerry was the only Swiftboat sailor ever...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted on Sun, Aug. 15, 2004 On Kerry, news services play catch-up YVETTE WALKER READERS' REPRESENTATIVE Some of you think the paper isn't doing its job of covering Sen. John Kerry and the controversy surrounding his military record. Last week, readers called and wrote in, saying The Star hasn't covered critics' assertions that: 1) Kerry's claim of being in Cambodia on Christmas of 1968 was a lie; and that 2) One of the swift boat veterans says he was misquoted by the Boston Globe, and is still fully behind the anti-Kerry movement. True, The Star hadn't published either of...

OCALA - The highest ranking enlisted man on Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry's U.S. Navy swift boat in Vietnam, Clearwater resident Del Sandusky, will visit three north central Florida sites next Wednesday. Sandusky will visit with UAW retirees on 4301 Maricamp Rd., from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., be at the Disabled American Veterans Center (Chapter 85) at 9892 SE 58th Ave., from 3-5 p.m. before concluding his visit at the Unified Training Center at 809 North University Ave., in Gainesville from 7-9 p.m. Sandusky was born in a farming community in Streator, Ill., in December of 1943. His father worked for...

I'm being told by a reliable source that Unfit for Command may debut as number one one the NYT bestseller list. However, I do have a few questions... 1) In what week will it debut? 2) Will the NYT now have to review the book? 3) Will this affect the ability of the media to ignore it? 4) If it has been #1 on amazon, BN, etc. for quite some time, why hasn't it already hit the list? You'll have to excuse my ignorance here, but I'm not really familiar with book list procedures at the NYT. P.S. Please don't...

Veteran attacks Kerry Chesterfield man is a force behind contentious TV ads questioning Vietnam claims BY TYLER WHITLEY TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Aug 15, 2004 Retired Rear Adm. Roy Francis Hoffmann picked up the phone in his Chesterfield County home this year and launched a movement to brand John F. Kerry a liar.... (below is an excerpt form article at the link....) Kerry called Hoffman in May and offered to expunge the negative comments about him when "Tour of Duty" came out in paperback form, Hoffmann said. He refused. Hoffmann joined the Navy in 1943 as an enlisted man, then went...

PHILADELPHIA - (KRT) - A group of Vietnam veterans that is challenging Sen. John Kerry's claims of heroic war service 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...

An independent analysis of the reaction of independent voters from the Swiftvet television ads has been completed by Muhlenberg College and HCD Research and the results posted here. The study group consisted of 371 independent voters who self-described their political leanings thusly: Conservative: 4.31 % Somewhat conservative: 12.67% Moderate: 42.32% Somewhat liberal: 16.98% Liberal: 4.31% Unsure: 19.41% As people can see, the moderates in the middle plus the "unsure" dominate the mix, but the outliers seem tilted a bit towards liberals. More on that later. I won't get into the entire methodology -- after all, the report is on line...

Despite the Kerry camp's best efforts to attack the book and discredit its co-author, the white-hot new book Unfit for Command is holding firm at #1 on both Amazon and BN.com. Publisher Regnery Publishing reports that bookstore orders are still flooding in, and that they have gone back for a third printing, putting the total number of books in print up to 175,000. All this before the book has even been officially released, still slated for August 15th. A firestorm of publicity has erupted around the book and a related anti-Kerry TV ad, with Kerry flaks resorting to name-calling and...

ABC News Marc Ambinder has read 'Unfit for Command' in its entirety. The book is clear, crisply written, occasionally compelling, and full of polarizing firepower.It's rather short, padded with long exerprts from Kerry speeches, interviews with Swift Boat veterans, and other books.If you are inclined to think that John Kerry is brash, self-possessed and occasionally immature, this book will confirm your suspicions.If you are a partisan, you'll have your perceptions reconfirmed, whether you love Kerry and think he's a hero or hate him and think he's a fraud. If you don't know Kerry at all, there's a good chance you'll...

<p>There is a pic of Evita and Lurch under the headline, which currently is unclickable. More news to follow, I would gather.</p>

Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates (FMA), a Republican polling and strategic consulting firm based in Alexandria, VA, has just completed their second likely voter survey with interviews conducted ONLY in the 19 battleground states. The battleground states are defined as those in which the Bush and Kerry campaigns have been focusing their paid media efforts throughout the campaign. Nearly 6 in 10 likely voters claim that they that they recently saw, read or heard something about the TV ad “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” released and began airing in several key battleground states questioning the truthfulness of Senator Kerry’s Vietnam War...

Will Kerry's supporters stop at nothing? The cover of the new anti-Kerry book, Unfit for Command, set to hit shelves soon, has been given an alternative, pro-Kerry cover at the Barnes & Noble online store. The title of the book has been changed to Fit for Command, and the cover image has been changed from a close-up of a finger-pointing Kerry to a picture of Kerry in uniform with other Vietnam veterans. (The book currently sits at #7 on the Barnes & Noble Top 100 and at #2 on Amazon.) The book, which challenges the "war hero" status of John...

John Kerry, reporting for duty. Cheesy. Theatrical. And, as staged at this week's national Democratic convention, certain to energize groups of Vietnam veterans who bitterly oppose Kerry's anti-war activism. "It's not so much what Kerry did in country -- though his three purple hearts were for scratches -- but it was what he did when he came back home," says retired Army Col. Jack Peevy of Alpharetta. "He lied about my soldiers. . . . What he told were baldfaced lies, and he has never apologized to us in the military." Peevy, a 30-year veteran who served in the Central...

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have re-launched their web site at SwiftVets.com, changing the style and adding a considerable amount of new information. The Swift vets are also conducting a detailed review of John Kerry's Vietnam tour and should have some more interesting things to say in the near future.