New Book: Kerry ‘Unfit for Command’

How was he able to "learn" that, given that O'Neil didn't take over Kerry's swiftboat until months after he had left it?

I don't entirely understand this.Nixon was elected president in 1968. What's the issue here?

Wikipedia says he was elected in 1968. So the election was in 1968. Obviously, he wouldn't have been sworn in until January 1969, but until then, he was still the president-elect.Robertson and O'Neill make it sound like nobody had even heard of the guy in 1968 or something; saying that Kerry's story can't be true because he says "President Nixon" and Nixon wasn't president yet is the height of disingenuity. Nixon was president-elect and, as we do today, would have been referred to as president in casual speech.

Prove it. O'Neill's say-so is insufficient; he's clearly motivated by a personal prejudice vs. Kerry. It's possible to be someplace and not be certain which country you're in, especially in wartime. It's not like the borders you see on the map are drawn on the ground, and Kerry didn't have GPS like we do today. Moreover, borders change. The place Kerry was in might not be Cambodia now, but it might have been, then.I need you to substantiate that this is a lie.

How would he know, exactly?Cambodia as it is now, or Cambodia as it was then? Almost anything would be more conclusive than the consistent string of hearsay you've presented so far.

I'll be happy to read anything written by somebody who was actually there with Kerry.But I don't waste my time with what you've presented so far.

I thought this USA Today article was interesting: No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-08-08-kerry-vets_x.htm

quote:

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Who are these men who say Kerry didn't deserve the medals he received as a swift boat commander, a view sharply at odds with that of men who served under him? And why are they telling their stories now, more than 35 years later?

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On its Web site (SwiftVets.com | The Real Story on John Kerry's Military Service), the group calls itself "non-partisan." But public records show that two of its three main backers are longtime GOP contributors: Bob Perry, a Texas home builder who gave $100,000, and Harlan Crow, a Dallas real estate executive, who gave $25,000.

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The third major backer is John O'Neill, who put up $25,000 and is co-author of the group's book. The Texas lawyer was closely tied to Bush when he was Texas governor. In 1971, O'Neill, a swift boat veteran who didn't serve with Kerry, was picked by the Nixon White House to counter Kerry's anti-war stand in TV debates.

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quote:

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Among those criticizing Kerry:

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George Elliott, who came to Kerry's defense during his 1996 Senate campaign when questions were raised about his Silver Star. Kerry received the award after beaching his boat to chase a Viet Cong guerrilla who was firing from shore. Kerry jumped ashore and killed the guerrilla. As Kerry's commander, Elliott approved the award and gave him glowing marks in fitness reports. But in an affidavit last month, Elliott said he "was never informed that (Kerry) had simply shot a wounded, fleeing Viet Cong in the back." Last week, Elliott recanted that affidavit in a statement to The Boston Globe, saying he had made "a terrible mistake." But the Swift Boat Veterans group has since issued a statement reaffirming Elliott's affidavit.

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Elliott was not available for comment Sunday, but in an interview with USA TODAY earlier this year, he said that while he strongly disagreed with Kerry's anti-war activities, "I don't know how anyone would have taken the risks he took in combat just for the glory of running for office."

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I think that says it all. Saying that Kerry volunteered for the most brutal and dangerous campaign of the 20th century simply as a springboard for an election campaign - an election that he might not have lived long enough to run in - is simply incoherent. You don't run off to a shootin' war to generate an impressive political resume.No, if it's that you want, you join a cushy Air National Guard post and then take a few months off without telling anybody. Natch!

Prove it. Hrm, I don't think most people would describe volunteering for action in a brutal and punishing war "wimping." Wimping would have been begging your dad to pull strings to get you moved to the top of a domestic Air National Guard waiting list, and checking the box "I do not volunteer for duty in Vietnam" on your enlistment papers.Wimping is when you can't even finish your Air National Guard stint. Getting sent home with some Silver Stars is not "wimping."I don't think that, if you're a Bush fan, you're going to want to through around words like "wimping". How many Purple Hearts does Bush have, again? How many Silver Stars?

If he had "wimped", as you said, I might see it as a flaw in Kerry's character.I do, after all, see Bush's wimping as a flaw in his character. But only a crazy person would describe volunteering for the Vietnam war as "wimping."

How many Silver Stars does he have?You don't get those by sending in boxtops, Whatever.

That's Bush you're thinking of. Remember when I asked you to substantiate that Kerry's Hearts were "questionable"? Yeah, you still haven't done that yet. Could you show me the article from 1996 where Stein makes the same argument against Sen. Bob Dole?Oh? You can't? As I suspected; another hypocritical non-objection.This message has been edited by crashfrog, 08-17-2004 11:54 PM

They weren't witnesses, though.It's been established that none of them served with Kerry. Moreover, the people that did serve with Kerry have consistently lauded his wartime conduct.

He has not, to my knowledge, claimed to be. You're free to provide links to refute this, but since he hasn't told the story since the 80's, that might be hard to do.You're conflating several claims and claiming that Kerry's the one changing his story. Dealt with that, though. The only one making this claim is a doctor who wasn't the one who treated Kerry. You don't have any evidence, though. Kerry appears maybe for a few seconds in the 40 minutes or so of film he shot in Vietnam. That's hardly a man staging heroic battles for the camera - that's a young leutenant shooting tourism film on a 9mm he bought in the PX. Again, he's never claimed to be. He claimed to be being shot at by Cambodians at that time, and he was, according to his boatmates.

Actually Thurlow, being the senior skipper in the engagement, would have probably been the one to write up the report.Intelligence services reported later than the Vietnamese lost one soldier and that several were wounded in that very engagement. Who shot them if not American soldiers returning fire?How did the bullet holes get in Thurlow's boat? The thing about being a politician is, libel suits don't usually go very far. The courts have consistently ruled that public individuals are entitled to much less protection against libel by the courts. It may very well be that Kerry can't sue, no matter what the Swift Boat liars say.As it is though, he is suing them for their violations of campaign finance law.

You know, if you bothered to actually examine these claims instead of parroting them from Bush's commercials, you might not look so stupid when we debunk them for you.As it turns out, this claim is absolutely false. What they're describing as "absences" are occasions when Kerry was present for the open hearings, but did not speak.That's not an absence to me, or to any reasonable person. Here's another outright false claim. Kerry supported a bill that cut 6 billion from a large number of government programs in an effort to reduce the national debt. (Remember that phrase you Republicans used to use? "Fiscal Responsibility"?) In regards to intel funding, it would have lost only $1 billion.But that bill did not go through. The bill that Republicans passed cut even more. As well it should - 58 percent of the intel budget at the time was going to survellance against the Soviet Union, which [i]no longer existed.

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