Kerry Haters: We're Not Fonda John

 
Tough John Kerry Trivia II

1. Kerry has an aide a part of whose job it is to keep available what food item for Nuancy Boy?

2. What was the name of the pet hamster that the International Man of Science reportedly gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to bring it back after a near-drowning?

3. By what nickname did the New-Wonk of Nuance's first wife refer to him while they were dating?

4. What was the name of the book that the International Man of Apology read to schoolchildren in New York when Hillary chided him that the children couldn't see the pictures, and who was the author?

5. How many times did John Kerry reportedly offer John McCain, a Republican, the vice-presidential spot on his ticket?

Some answers will certainly be in the comments, so don't click on them until you've tried to find all the answers.

 
Is Kerry Ineligible for Public Office?

Reader Karl sent me an email about Kerry's eligibility for office under the 14th Amendment, which reads in part:

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

This point was raised in a Crush Kerry discussion forum awhile ago. Interestingly, the law only requires that one have at any time in the past sworn the oath. Kerry, of course, swore an oath to the Constitution, and he admits at least meeting with the North Vietnamese after swearing that oath. In fact, FBI files show he met with them twice, although he admitted only to the first meeting. So the argument is that by meeting with thim, he violated the 14th Amendment.

This should be broadcast from the rooftops. Not so much because a legal battle in the event of a Kerry election, but to wake people up to this horrific character who's now gotta be figured to have an almost even chance of being elected President. Don't get me wrong, I still think Bush is going to win. But I also figured a couple of months ago that we would be far ahead of where we are now.

Kerry's defense isn't hard to figure out. He'll claim that he met with North Vietnamese only in an effort to win the freedom of the POWs. And besides, he'll argue, the people have been aware of his position on Vietnam for 33+ years (which is true). Nobody brought this up when he was lieutenant governor for 2 years or Senator for the last 20, and anyway, the law is just a Civil War remnant, passed to prevent the leaders of the Confederacy from being elected. John McCain will argue how unfair it is.

So my stance is bring it up by all means, but be ready when the Kerry defense is rolled out and counterpunch with "But don't you think it's significant that Kerry is at least arguably guilty of being in violation of the 14th amendment? Don't you think that he should never have met with the North Vietnamese twice, not once as he claims?"

 
Tour of Doo-Doo

Doug Giles wants to know why the Swiftees are getting such unkind treatment from the left:

What’s funny, [not funny, “ha-ha” … funny “weird”] is as long as the information comes from one uberliberal, overweight, college dropout with a communist bent, who routinely attempts to make “W” look like a greedy gnome who wrongfully plays golf while he unrepentantly sends our kids to the Gulf, well … that’s cool. Spreading such misinformation, created from the ether by one of the left’s darlings should not, according to most liberals, be examined. No! It should be believed and be considered inerrant and infallible, and the purveyor of such rank propaganda lifted high as a prophet.

 
Interesting Contradictions--The Sampan Incident--Updated!

I'm now starting to read the Boston Globe book on Nuancy Boy, John F. Kerry, The Complete Biography by the Boston Globe Reporters Who Know Him Best, looking for contradictions between it and Douglas Brinkley's Tour of Duty.

Here are two interesting ones, from the sampan incident where Kerry's crew killed a young child. According to the Globe (page 90):

"It is one of those terrible things, and I'll never forget, ever, the sight of that child."

However, Kerry says something quite different in Brinkley's book (269-270):

"Then somebody said that there was a body up front and we moved in closer to see the limbs of a small child limp on the stacks of rice. She had already covered it, and when one of the men asked me if I wanted it uncovered, I said no, realizing that the face would stay with me for the rest of my life and that it was better not to know whether there was a smile or a grimace or whether it was a girl or a boy."

Okay, that's a pretty minor thing--Kerry could say that what he meant in the quote the Globe used was that it was the sight of the child's body, covered up that he'll never forget.

More important is that the Globe book and Tour of Duty disagree on which boat Kerry was commanding at the time. From the Globe (89):

Gardner said that he and Kerry also clashed over an incident in swift boat No. 44 that left a deep mark on both men, the killing of a boy....

But in Brinkley, the incident happened on the PCF-94 (269):

One of the most horrific moments of Kerry's tenure in Vietnam occurred late one afternoon toward the end of that winter, after PCF-94 had headed out....

Brinkley doesn't provide a more specific time for the incident. "Toward the end of that winter" sounds to me like February or March. But the Globe is a little more specific (92):

Two days after the incident cited in that report, he and other swift boat skippers traveled to Saigon for an extraordinary meeting with Zumwalt and the overall commander of the war, General Abrams.

Brinkley is pretty specific on the date of that extraordinary meeting (254-261):

At 5:30 in the morning of January 22, 1969...

This provides some indication that the incident took place on January 20th, although I'm wary of placing the time by using two books that contradict each other on important points.

Update: The Globe footnotes (399) makes it clear that they are aware of the conflicting account in Tour; they say they checked with members of the 44 who recall the incident and found no members of the 94 with a similar memory.

Incidentally, the naval report on this incident is dated 1/20/69, so it would seem that date is nailed. John O'Neill cited this as the next big story out of the Unfit for Command book. Kerry reportedly did not mention the young boy killed in his report, instead reporting the rescue of two villagers and 5 VC killed or escaped.

 
Steyn Nails It

I wish I had 1/10th his talent.

A handful of Kerry's ''band of brothers'' are traveling around with his campaign. Most of the rest, including a majority of his fellow swift boat commanders and 254 swiftees from Kerry's Coastal Squadron One, are opposed to his candidacy. That is an amazing ratio and, if snot-nosed American media grandees don't think there's a story there, maybe they ought to consider another line of work. To put it in terms they can understand, imagine if Dick Cheney campaigned for the presidency on the basis of his time at Halliburton, and a majority of the Halliburton board and 80 percent of the stockholders declared he was unfit for office. More to the point, on the swift vets' first major allegation -- Christmas in Cambodia -- the Kerry campaign has caved.

 
UNRAVELING KERRY’S FABRICATION


photo montage: Rush Limbaugh

8 Unfit For Command:
O'Neill recalls serving with John Kerry in an interview with Pat Robertson, which begins:
PAT ROBERTSON: John, I want to ask you something about a picture that is hung in a museum in Saigon depicting foreign activists who contributed to the Communist victory over America. Is Kerry's picture in that exhibit?
JOHN O'NEILL: Amazingly, Pat, he was no hero in our unit. But he was a big hero to the North Vietnamese in their war museum in Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City. They have a hall - it is like a Cooperstown [Cooperstown, New York - site of the National Baseball Hall of Fame] of bad guys. They have el Fatah and Fidel Castro, Mao Tse Tung, and right in the middle of it is a shrine to John Kerry. A guy from our unit discovered that when he was in Saigon on Memorial Day. Copies of those pictures can be obtained right in the book "Unfit for Command."
…
ROBERTSON: So you are saying that Kerry gunned his boat, and in that Rassman fell over the side? Is that what you say happened?
O'NEILL: I am saying exactly that. Rassman fell off of Kerry's boat. Kerry's boat fled the scene. It was the only boat to flee the scene. All of the other guys, as we always did, stood to fight, to save the survivors of the number three boat. There was no fire, as it turned out. They saved the survivors, and after it became evident there was no fire, Kerry returned. His story is the world turned upside down, according to the people involved in that incident.

8 A good summary of Kerry. Too bad her conclusion is weak.
Kerry's quagmire
By Kathleen Parker
What if the single pivotal event of one's life - the moment that altered one's entire course, illuminating the path ahead, providing that critical psychological turning point - turned out to have been an invention of one's very own?
…
The pivotal moment in Kerry's life, according to his many testimonials on the subject, was Christmas of 1968, when, he has said, he was in Cambodia. This experience was central to his later becoming a war protester and to his lighting out on a political path destined to culminate in a rise to the U.S. presidency.
…
He's the sort of man who thinks to take a movie camera to war to document himself for uses now known to be political; who willingly exploits his heroism in ways real heroes never do; who builds a career on disgust toward a war he later characterizes as the crowning achievement in a life that seems more résumé than real.

8 As usual, you can always trust Christopher Hitchens to inject some humor.
Taking the Measure of John Kerry
By CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
He has succeeded in getting two very striking and independent women to marry him, the second of whom, though she sometimes resembles a large-print version of Bianca Jagger, is nonetheless living proof that ketchup is not a vegetable.
…
''A Call to Service,'' by Kerry himself, merits Mark Twain's comment on the Book of Mormon -- ''chloroform in print.''
…
If Kerry is dogged and haunted by the accusation of wanting everything twice over, he has come by the charge honestly.
…
The Boston Globe writers capture a moment of sheer, abject incoherence, at a Democratic candidates' debate in Baltimore last September:

''If we hadn't voted the way we voted, we would not have been able to have a chance of going to the United Nations and stopping the president, in effect, who already had the votes and who was obviously asking serious questions about whether or not the Congress was going to be there to enforce the effort to create a threat.''

8 HOWEVER, StrategyPage has posted Proof Kerry Was In Cambodia:
No doubt these were the atrocities about which John Kerry so courageously testified later before the U.S. Senate Investigation Committee. Apparently some details have been confused, for example, Kerry did not travel into Cambodia on this mission in his own Swift boat, but rather a PBR--which for this mission was callsign "Streetgang."

 
Next Time, Pay the Union Members to Stand!

 
Kerry Demonstrates The Underhanded Football Pass



Democratic presidential nominee Senator John Kerry (D-MA) tosses a football on the tarmac at Long Beach Airport, California as the Kerry campaign plane waited to take off for campaign events in Oregon, August 12, 2004.

 
John F. Kerry Fan Fiction

It was a dark and stormy Christmas Eve on the Mekong. We had left Sa Dec a few hours earlier, and were still exhilarated over the adventure of the drawbridge. As we came out of the town we realized that even with the drawbridge up all the way, we'd have very little clearance. But we decided to gun it rather than wait for low tide and made it through with about an inch to spare. The villagers who had come to watch us smash up applauded politely.

We were in that nebulous area between Cambodia and South Vietnam. The CIA spook was applying lampblack to his face. The hat was lying on the table between us. It was big and floppy and camo and I lusted after it.

The CIA man grunted. He was featureless like all spooks; after 4-5 missions they all started to look the same. But his voice was pure Southern farmboy.

"Y'all want the hat?" Before he could withdraw the offer I snatched it up and put it on my head a jaunty angle. He smiled, but it was a cold smile. "Y'all gotta swap one of yours."

I hesitated. The only hat besides my regulation Navy equipment was my old Red Sox cap, autographed by Eddie Yost himself. I liked to think of it as my lucky cap. But it wasn't camo, and it wasn't the hat of a real CIA man. So I handed over the baseball cap.

This was one of those unofficial missions that I chafed at. "Surely Nixon can't be running the government already," I had complained to Elliot when receiving my orders. "He's not the President yet!"

Commander Elliot had winked. "This has been Nixon's war all along, you know that as well as I do."

Gardner poked his head in the door. "Couple PBJs--err, PBRs coming up, Skippy--err, Skipper." I could see him surpressing a grin and wondered why, then cursed and whipped off the camo hat. Later that night I would have to put it in the secret compartment of my attache case. Otherwise Gardner and the other guys would undoubtedly visit indignities on it, which would probably lead to mildew.

I groaned at the news of the PBRs. The f'ing Navy couldn't do anything right. Elliot had assured me this area would be clear. But as the craft approached us, a mortar whistled overhead. "What was that?" I yelled. The second one hit the water only a few yards away.

The PBRs took off and we darted into Cambodia. Again, but not for the last time.

 
Legion Members in Action!

 
Blogger Roundup

Wild Bill has a solid post on Kerry's bizarre and untrue claims about President Bush's tax cuts.

Aaron Matthew Arnwine wonders why Kerry thinks that his Vietnam service alone qualifies him to be President.

Manifest Content has an entry for the John F. Kerry Fan Fiction Contest which we blogged about yesterday.

Allah thinks Kerry's reflection looks a little familiar.

 
Was David Alston Ever on Kerry's Boat?

Captain's Quarters has a phenomenal post on the subject. Read it all!

 
And Now for A Different Cambodia Story

Our buddy Chris at Kerry's Waffles tipped us off to this story. It appears that the International Man of Mystery has been involved in adoptions of Cambodian children by American parents.

Deputy Prime Minister Sar Kheng said he was pressured by US Senator John Kerry to lift an official suspension on foreign adoptions to allow 16 Cambodian children to be adopted by American families.

But the Post had learned that the adoption of these 16 children was in fact arranged by Lauryn Galindo, an American facilitator who works for a number of American adoption agencies including Seattle International Adoptions (SIA) which is headed by her sister Lynn Devin.

Now, let's follow the story to the next level: Who got the kids? Well, believe it or not, one of them appears to be Hollywood actress, Angelina Jolie.



A Hawaii woman who helped Oscar-winning actress Angelina Jolie adopt a Cambodian boy pleaded guilty on Wednesday (Thursday in Manila) to visa fraud and money laundering as part of a ring that paid poor women as little as $100 for their children, her attorney said.

Lauryn Galindo, 53, and her sister in Seattle, Lynn Devin, received fees of $10,000 or more to arrange adoptions by U.S. residents of children described as orphans, even though many still had parents, according to the documents.

 
Our Man in Cambodia

Andrew Antippas has a long article in the Washington Times about Kerry's supposed incursion into Cambodia.

My job in the political section of our embassy in Saigon was to be the "Cambodia Man." My principal tasks were to follow border incidents involving U.S. forces along the Cambodian border.

Finally, concerning the assertion that Mr. Kerry was shot at by the Khmer Rouge during his Christmas 1968 visit to Cambodia, it should be noted that the Khmer Rouge didn't take the field until the Easter Offensive of 1972, when the Vietnamese forces that had attacked the Cambodians initially in March 1970 pulled out of Cambodia to attack the U.S. and Vietnamese forces in Vietnam. Only Vietnamese Communist soldiers were found on the battlefields of Cambodia in 1970-72.

The bottom line of all this is that in the 15 years of active American military involvement in Vietnam and Cambodia, between 1961 and 1975, there was ongoing attention and scrutiny paid to the border because of the political sensitivities over the neutrality of the Cambodians. While things may have happened that no one ever found out about in Saigon, the Cambodians yelled bloody murder to the world press and the ICC whenever they found Americans trespassing.

 
MIDDAY ROUNDUP

8 Hugh Hewitt has An Interview with the Vice President: "Today you brought attention to John Kerry's plan to wage a more 'sensitive' war on terror. What do you think John Kerry meant when he said 'sensitive,' Mr. Vice President?"

8 Lorie Byrd: Media bias is on full display in the Swift Boat Vet story. All one has to do is compare to the Bush AWOL story.

8 And Lorie here, too: For anyone who didn't watch the Chris Matthews "interview" of John O'Neill Thursday, one of the most damning parts of it (damning for Matthews, that is) was when Matthews accused O'Neill of being a Texas Republican. O'Neill said he was not. Matthews asked where he lived. When Matthews nailed him for being from Texas, O'Neill pointed out that he has not voted Republican since 1988. He voted for Perot twice and then for Gore. Yes, O'Neill voted for Al Gore over George Bush. After that little gem came out, Chris Matthews said he didn't really care who anyone voted for. HA! How on earth can what happened on Hardball tonight be described as any form of journalism? I love that MSNBC makes transcripts available free online for a week after the shows run. I will post a link to it tomorrow when it is available.

 
“HYPERATIVE POLITICAL LIBIDO”



Pat Hynes’ (CrushKerry) review of UNFIT FOR COMMAND appears in The American Spectator today.
Book-of-the-Month
By Patrick Hynes
Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry
by John E. O'Neill and Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D.
(Regnery Publishing, 256 pages, $27.95)
THE SUBSEQUENT CHAPTERS contain the meat of the book. The authors present two broad categories of concern. The first are legitimate issues of debate, such as: Did John Kerry's anti-Vietnam War activities provide aid and comfort to the enemy? Reasonable people can disagree about these. But the second category -- his conduct during the war -- places Kerry on perilous ground. For if the swift boat operators are correct -- and it's vital to note John Kerry has never refuted these charges -- then John Kerry is a liar, an incompetent, a slanderer, and guilty of war crimes.
…

Kerry avoided any problem by filing an after action report in which the dead child simply disappeared from the record and was replaced by a fleeing squad of Viet Cong, some likely killed by Kerry. A terrible human tragedy was converted by another Kerry lie into another sterling triumph by the young war hero.

It's hard to believe this could be the man the Democrats have nominated for as their candidate for President of the United States.

 
Conclusions as I Reach Them

1 The Cambodian incursion cannot happen on PCF-44. This means that Kerry's first vine just got a little slimmer. Why? Because three of Kerry's boatmates on that ship, including two who are supporting Kerry (Zaldonis and Hatch) refuse to back him up. These are the guys that the press needs to interview!

2. That means his Cambodian incursion must have happened on another boat than the one that he claimed it happened on. This is pretty damning in and of itself, because none of the men on PCF-44 were on Kerry's second Swift boat, the PCF-94. The memory that was seared--seared in him, doesn't include who was there with him? That doesn't pass the sniff test.

3. There is almost no chance that Kerry can claim that he was in Cambodia in January of 1969. The book is pretty specific about Kerry spending most of his time in the far southern tip of South Vietnam, aboard the PCF-44, where three members say they've never been to Cambodia. He could not have traveled up the Mekong; that's simply out of the question.

 
Christmas in Cambodia--Dramatis Personae--Welcome Fellow L-Dotters Coming Over from Kitty Litter!--Update IV

(Note: This is the final version for now. Updates on David Alston and Tom Belodeau, and map for An Thoi.)

I thought it might be useful to get some basics down from Brinkley's book; the people, the boats, the timelines. This time I was able to get a non-large print version of Tour of Duty, so I will be able to highlight the pages where the information is located. I'm starting with Chapter 10, since that concerns the events of Christmas Eve, 1968. From there, I will go through January of 1969, since that appears to be Kerry's fallback for Cambodia.

Kerry's boat at Christmas 1968 was the PCF-44 (Page 209). Men on board the PCF-44 are as follows: Drew Whitlow (209), James Wasser, Radarman (213) also second in command (228); Stephen Hatch, Bosun's Mate (214), Stephen Gardner, Gunner's Mate (215) Bill Zaldonis, Engine Man (160). Gardner is the SBVfT member. Zaldonis and Hatch are apparently supporting Kerry, but also refuse to confirm the Cambodia story. These men are the ones to interview! What was the time of their service with John Kerry?

Kerry's second Swift boat is the PCF-94, which he takes over on January 30, 1969, after the prior skipper, Tedd Peck, is seriously wounded and sent home. Prior to Peck, the skipper of PCF-94 had been Tom Heritage. The crew of PCF-94 are as follows: Del Sandusky (262), Gene Thorson, engine man (262), Michael Medeiros, bosun's mate (263), David Alston, gunner's mate (263) Thomas Belodeau, radarman (264). All are current Kerry supporters. Update--Was Alston ever on Kerry's boat? This post certainly raises some interesting questions. Alston was replaced on the PCF-44 by Frederic Short (288). Update II--Belodeau passed away several years ago.

Other Boats:

Skip Barker (233), Skipper of PCF-31. Barker is the ONLY other Swift Boat captain to support Kerry. However, the Brinkley book introduces him as something of a villain: "Skip Barker--whose one-month seniority over Kerry made his PCF-31 the lead boat..." You can almost hear Brinkley grinding his teeth. Of course, at this time, Kerry had about 2 months experience and Barker, by this account, had 50% more experience.

Zeke Zucker (239) Skipper of another boat (no number given) and his Radarman Dorsey E. Lee (239). These men give Kerry descriptions of the Bo De run which Kerry reportedly taped.

Frank Gilbert (247) Skipper of PCF-6. He is wounded during the Bo De run.

Will Imbrie (249) Operations officer on a (unnumbered) LST. Also appears to be Skipper of the PCF-71 (250).

Mike Bernique (250) Appears to be Skipper of PCF-50. Kerry and he have beers on the island of Hon Khoai (250-253).

Wade Sanders (254) Skipper of PCF-98.

Rich McCann (255)

Bill Schmadine (257) Skipper of PCF-5.

Larry Thurlow (258) Skipper of PCF-53. SBVfT member; appears in advertisement against Kerry.

James Galvin (259) Skipper of PCF-22.

Tedd Peck (261) initially Skipper of PCF-57, he becomes the Skipper of PCF-94 prior to Kerry taking over that boat.

Tom Heritage (261) Skipper PCF-94 prior to Tedd Peck and Kerry.

Superior officers:

Commander George Strulie (Cat Lo) (233). Apparently deceased. Forgives Kerry and Barker for turning around during a storm (233).

Commander George Elliot (235), Commander at An Thoi. Elliot is the SBVfT officer who reportedly recanted his negative comments about Kerry to a Boston Globe reporter a few days ago, but since has re-affirmed his criticism. Appears in SBVfT advertisement.

Captain Roy Hoffman (237) (later Rear Admiral, ret.). Major leader of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Orders Kerry (via a subordinate officer) on Bo De mission (237). Appears in SBVfT advertisement.

Timeline:

December 24, 1968. Purported date of Kerry's Cambodia Adventure. (209-219). Some parts of Kerry's adventure confirmed (three ships fired on by mortars), fired on by South Vietnamese troops, but of course, the actual Cambodian incursion never actually happens. Lots of parts of this chapter attempt to create the impression that Kerry was very close to Cambodia: "...only miles from from the Cambodian border. Because they were only an hour away from that neighboring country..." (209), "...patrolled the watery borderline between Cambodia and Vietnam..." (210), "...patrolling near the Cambodian line..."(210). Looking at the map here, it becomes pretty obvious that Brinkley is trying to keep alive the hope that Kerry was near the border. They go from My Tho, to Long Binh, to Sa Dec. Look at the map of the city of Vinh Long (referred to in the book as Long Binh) and the cities of Sa Dec (destination) and My Tho(starting point) (appears when you expand the map of Vinh Long one time). As you can see the notion that they were patrolling the border between Vietnam and Cambodia is ridiculous. Which absolutely means that David Brinkley knew he was unable to confirm the Cambodia story and is trying as hard as possible to make the "near the border" story as credible as possible. But the map gives him away. What does this mean? That they absolutely knew they were in trouble on this story that Kerry had repeated so many times over the years.

December 29, 1968. (219-226) Kerry Crewman (and current SBVfT) Stephen Gardner wounded in action (bullet in arm). Kerry takes him to a small base at Dong Tam, and Gardner is patched up. Afterwards comes the story of the hunt for the Bob Hope USO show (at My Tho).

Undated Anecdote (226-230) "Not long after Gardner's injury...". Location: Co Chien River. Crew devises game of Swift boat duck hunt (no ducks harmed). Later they buy a duck from a Vietnamese teen, which Gardner kills with his M-16, and the crew has a bland-tasting duck dinner that night. There is a B-52 strike a few miles away, which offers Kerry (and Brinkley) a chance to moan about bombing.

Undated just after New Year's Day, "The new year of 1969 started..." (231-233). Brinkley says they are out of the Mekong Delta, "patrolling the open sea off the coast of Vung Tau." See the map again--Vung Tau is indeed on the coast, quite a long way from Cambodia. However, they were quickly on the move back to their base at Cat Lo (unfortunately not on the map, but apparently in the same bay area as Vung Tau), and they are then ordered to An Thoi (another town that does not appear on the map) Update III--Map of An Thoi shown here. Hat tip to reader Thucydides. As you can see, An Thoi is a fairly large island off the Cambodia coast. Kerry throws something of a hissy fit, but accepts the assignment.

Undated, early in January (233) "...shortly before noon one day early in January 1969..." PCF-44 (Kerry's boat) and PCF-31 (Skip Barker) start for An Thoi, but the water is too rough for the boats and so they turn back to Cat Lo. However, their commander (George Strulie) told them later they had done the right thing. More of Kerry noodling about how ridiculous the war is.

Undated, apparently shortly after the previous day. (234-238) "Before he knew it, Cat Lo and the relative freedoms of...." Kerry and Barker are ordered again to An Thoi. Again the seas are apparently too rough. But they persevere on after receiving a radio message ordering them to continue. Kerry continues to rage and his diary descends into juvenility: "I feel like a small child who hides in attics on rainy days...." Kerry also reportedly begins sleepwalking and having violent nightmares. (236). (Note: Not laughing at this last bit--this was fairly common among Vietnam vets; my cousin Bob had the same problem).

Geography checks: On the way to An Thoi, Brinkley lists some areas: Bo De River, island of Hon Khoai and the Ca Mau Peninsula (235), Vietnam's southern cape. Brinkley says they were well into VC territory. However, very importantly, they are clearly rounding the southern tip of Vietnam, and not heading up the Mekong or its Delta. Look at the map at the city of Ca Mau and you can clearly see the peninsula they are rounding. He encounters Division Commander George Elliot, who apparently consoles Kerry.

Undated, but on the same timeline: Brinkley introduces the menace of the Bo De river. However, it's an obvious strikeout on the Cambodian experience, as it runs from the Gulf of Thailand to the South China Sea, all of which is contained within South Vietnam. Kerry is assigned to a "Sealords" mission, up the Bo De with five other Swifts. There follows the anecdote where Kerry is told of the prior Bo De runs (238-243). Some amusing bits in preparation to the Bo De: Kerry writes in his journal, "I am so conceited that I do not believe the gods would create so potent a being as myself for so prosaic an ending." He also puts on two pairs of flak pants, "to protect the family jewels".

Undated, clearly continuing: the Bo De run (245-248). Boats involved are the PCF-6 (lead boat), PCF-3, PCF-44 (Kerry), PCF-50, PCF-71 (rear). There are several exchanges of gunfire, but the only man wounded is Frank Gilbert, skipper of the lead boat. Afterwards Kerry regrets not having brought his camera with him.

Undated, same day as the Bo De run (249-253). Kerry and his crew head with some other Swift boats for the island of Hon Khoai. Kerry and Mike Bernique relax and have a few beers at a Navy radar site.

Update V--January 20, 1969. The Sampan Incident. Kerry's crew fire on a sampan (native boat) that was out after curfew and may have had VC aboard. They discover no actual dead VC, but it is assumed that one was killed and fell into the water. Kerry's report supposedly mentions 1 definite KIA (killed in action) and four either KIA or escaped. Interestingly, there is no mention of the boy being killed. John O'Neill on Hugh Hewitt's show cited this as the potentially most explosive allegation remaining in Unfit for Command. (Note: Date for this fixed from Boston Globe book (page 89-92, footnote on 399), which notes that Brinkley's (page 269) got this one wrong and offers pretty convincing evidence). O'Neill gave the date of January 21st on the radio show yesterday; the event did happen at night and may overlap dates.

January 22, 1969 (254-261). Kerry and some other Swift boat officers are flown to Saigon for a meeting with the top brass, including Admiral Zumwalt and Army General Creighton Abrams and Captain Hoffman.

January 29, 1969 (261-266) Tedd Peck, Skipper of the PCF-94, is seriously wounded in action and is sent home to the US. Kerry is transferred over to the PCF-94 on January 30.

After that, the chronology is unclear for awhile. Brinkley describes an incident before Kerry's taking over the PCF-94 where Kerry was assigned to another boat (not the PCF-44) and helped out a bunch of villagers, who were starving in VC territory. (272). Story is confirmed by Skip Barker, the only Swift Boat skipper supporting the Kerry campaign.

Conclusion: I don't see how Brinkley's going to shoehorn in a mission to Cambodia in that timeline. Kerry spends almost the entire month of January in the An Thoi area, in the Gulf of Thailand. While Cambodia is not all that far by sea, a river approach from Vietnam seems out of the question.

Completed for now.

 
Identity of the Spook Who Gave Kerry the Magic Hat Revealed!

Reader ter0 points us to the crucial photo evidence.

 
Christmas in Cambodia Heating Up Again

Drudge claims Kerry has turned in desperation to Douglas Brinkley to rescue him from the Christmas in Cambodia story.

TOUR OF DUTY author and John Kerry historian Doug Brinkley is rushing a piece for the NEW YORKER: to set-the-record-straight on Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia tale, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

Kerry has turned to author Brinkley for a "modification" after it was exposed that Kerry was not in Cambodia during Christmas of 1968, as he once claimed from the Senate floor.

The Brinkley piece for the NEW YORKER will now say that Kerry was not in Cambodia during Christmas, but rather in January, publishing sources tell DRUDGE.

This is a little odd, because Brinkley, of course, did not include the Christmas in Cambodia story in Tour of Duty. Indeed, the thing that clued Kerry Haters into the fact that there was something odd going on here was the fact that Brinkley did not mention the Cambodian incursion. It is obvious that Kerry is desperately climbing the ropes toward the cliff above.

Captain Ed is speculating that the January date is being chosen because it's after Steve Gardner left. From Hugh Hewitt's interview with Gardner:

HH: What months did you serve with Senator Kerry?

SG: November through January. Here's what I did. I served two months and two weeks of his four month, 12 day tour.

HH: Alright. Why did you leave off in January? What happened in January?

SG: That was my rotation time.

Tom Maguire states that Kerry might have a case around St. Patrick's Day 1969, when Operation Menu began. So why doesn't he shoot for March?

I keep harping on this, but I don't see anybody getting the real significance of Brinkley's Tour of Duty not including the Christmas in Cambodia tale. It means that some of Kerry's Band of Brothers won't back him up on this tale. It appears that March is out, so the obvious question is who's on his boat in March, who isn't there in January?

Sigh. Back to the book!

 
HMMMM?

A caller to Rush’s show asked a provoking question:
Did Kerry Take Us Out of War Based on a Lie?
CALLER: I just wanted to make the comment that it seems to me, you know, that it seems to me that the liberal position about George W. Bush and taking us to war in Iraq has been that he took us to war in Iraq based on a lie. And the 9/11 Commission was able to prove that that was false. However, it does seem to me that John Kerry took us out of a war based on a lie, and I think we need to start asking more questions about that.

 
Kerry Demonstrates His Throw-It-In-The-Dirt Form

 
ROUNDUP

8 CrushKerry ??? More to the McGreevey Story ???
We have an unconfirmed report from a major media source that NJ Gov. Jim McGreevey has more to worry about than a sexual harassment complaint. Apparently, a story is circulating that McGreevey has had a sexual relationship with a person other than an adult man, which could prove shocking. We have been told that the story is going to break tonight on one of the major cable networks. Can't say more in order to protect the source. We will keep you updated on the story …

8 Roberto, at DynamoBuzz, weighs in on his state’s latest news about Gov. McGreedy.

8 Lori Byrd, at PoliPundit, sat through Crossfire (bless her heart!) and concluded that the Left can’t handle mocking OR the truth (James Carville had a total meltdown). Take a well deserved rest, Lori!

8 Chris, at KerryWaffles, has posted John Kerry: Holiday In Cambodia.

 
Two More Blogs for the Blogroll

In connection with our support for John Thune for U.S. Senate, we welcome Daschle v. Thune. Jon Lauck is doing yeoman's work over there covering the big race.

Hat Tip: Hugh Hewitt

Virginia Patriots is a solid new blog who quite smartly linked to Kerry Haters. His blog is not limited to Virginia issues; he's got a lot of posts on Nuancy Boy. I was especially impressed by this post on a disgusting countdown going on by the jerks at Buzzflash.

 
Miscellaneous Thoughts on Cambodia

How disorganized is Kerry and his campaign? This should NOT have come as a shock to them. Why?

Well for starters, Kerry should have known he had a problem with this story a long time ago. How? Because it doesn't appear in Tour of Duty. Remember, this is a story that Kerry has told as representing a turning point in his life; surely he told it to his biographer. And surely Brinkley intended to put it in his book. But something stopped him; what could it be?

Kerry's crewmates. They must have told Brinkley that Kerry was wrong about this. So faced with a contradiction on a story Kerry has told many times, didn't Brinkley go back to the International Man of Mystery and tell him, hey, we've got a problem here? Of course he did.

And Kerry's staff completely missed our original post on the matter, which should have been a gigantic red flag. This should be obvious, but I hope and pray that the Bush campaign has a volunteer reading Atrios, Kevin Drum, Smirking Chimp, DU, etc. And similarly, the Kerry camp should have folks monitoring Kerry Haters, Crush Kerry, Just One Minute, Captain's Quarters, Instapundit, etc. One things for sure; we know they've got somebody monitoring Kerry Waffles!

 
Some Fun Stuff

The Mudville Gazette is having a John Kerry fan fiction contest. This is going to be quite entertaining, as this snippet should tell you:

The fog was thick as pea soup as we made our way across the border, but it muffled the sounds of the boat as we entered Cambodia. That was good, because our business there was anything but good.

"I wish you'd take that damn blindfold off." I whispered to the skipper.

"I learned to sail this way, hombre." He replied. His parrot sat silently on his shoulder. The bird spoke three languages but was not using any of them now.

"That bird makes me nervous" told him "if he spouts off in any of those three languages I'll..."

"Four languages." He said, still wearing the blindfold, piloting the river on pure instinct, nerves of steel. "English, French, Italian, and 'bird' - you probably forgot bird." He cut the engine, pulled the mask off. "He's disciplined. He wont squawk. And this is as far as we go. I'm not risking my crew. Or my bird."

I'm going to take them up on this one.

Hat Tip: Instapundit

Chicago Ray has a look at Kerry's tangled web.

John Hawkins posts the Iowa Hawkeye's novel explanation for what Kerry was actually doing that Christmas Eve.

Written by a group of veterans who served with Kerry during his 4-month tour, "Misfit For Duty: John F. Kerry's Christmas Turkey" claims that Kerry embellished his war exploits, including a clandestine mission to the Arctic ocean on Christmas Eve 1968 to assassinate a rogue island of misfit toys.

Democratic spokesman Lanny Davis ripped the book as "unvarnished lies straight from Santa's North Pole sleaze workshop, dictated to a cabal of unhinged losers who represent a only a tiny majority of John Kerry's beloved Band of Brothers."

 
McGreedy to Step Down?

Kerry Haters reader Phillies Fan sent me this blockbuster news from the Garden State.

According to sources, former McGreevey adviser Golan Cipel is accusing McGreevey of sexual harassment.

Cipel resigned from the McGreevey administration under fire two years ago.

McGreevey's statehouse office was the scene of turmoil all day Thursday. Some staff members who appeared to be crying were seen leaving the office. McGreevey's parents were escorted inside.

A McGreevey spokesman says the governor will appear at a previously scheduled 4pm news conference in Trenton. KYW Newsradio 1060 will carry the news conference live.

 
The Night Before Christmas

I found this over at Esoteric Diatribe and there was a note that the soldier who did it had emailed to to a couple other sites, so I didn't think Ken would mind if we cut and pasted it here.

The Night Before Christmas
(Cambodian Version)

Twas the night before Christmas and we were afloat
Somewhere in Cambodia in our little boat.
While the river was lightened by rockets red glare
No one but the President knew we were there.

The crew was all nestled deep down in their bunks,
While the Spook and I watched the sampans and junks.
Our mission was secret, so secret in fact,
No one else would remember it when we got back.

When out on the water there arose such a clatter
I leaped down from the bridge to see what was the matter.
The incoming friendly was starting to flash
And I knew that the ARVN's were having a bash.

The snap of friendly fire on the warm tropic air
Convinced me for sure no one knew we were there,
On a clandestine mission so secret it's true
That I'm still convinced only Tricky Dick knew.

While I huddled for safety in the tub on the bow,
I thought of a title, "Apocalypse Now."
To give to the films I was I making each day
To show all the voters when I made my big play.

As I sat there sweating in my lucky flight jacket,
Spook said, "Merry Christmas!" and tossed me a packet.
And what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a new lucky cap, which I still have right here.

I keep it tucked here, in this leather brief case,
Just sharing with the press its secretive place
As I regale them again with my senate refrain,
That Christmas in Cambodia is seared into my brain.

Don't bother to quibble with history my friend,
By pointing out Johnson was President then.
Don't listen to Swiftees who try to explain,
For I tell you that night is seared into my brain.

Down Hibbard, down Lonsdale, and you too O'Neill,
So you don't remember? Well it's something I feel.
I don't need all you Swiftvets to support my campaign,
Cause Christmas in Cambodia is seared into my brain,

Into my brain, into my brain, into my brain...

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

Oh, man, that is just plain brilliant! Great job, Russ!

 
KERRY LEFT FLOUNDERING



Kerry 'invented Christmas in Cambodia claim'
For the first time, Sen John Kerry, the Democratic presidential challenger, has been left floundering by allegations that he invented a key episode of his decorated wartime service in Vietnam - a central plank of his election platform.
Mr Kerry has fought off charges for several years that he did not deserve all the medals he won in Vietnam, which included a Bronze Star and Silver Star for gallantry, and three Purple Hearts for combat wounds.
…
Yesterday, however, the Kerry campaign was left in verbal knots after a new book accused the senator of inventing stories about being sent, illegally, over the border into neutral Cambodia.

 
Could Kerry Have Been In Cambodia?--Updated!

Jim Geraghty over at the Kerry Spot has a long post based on information a Kerry supporter dug up on whether Kerry could have been in Cambodia. But the bottom line is this:

But there’s also the issue of having everyone in Kerry’s chain of command saying he wasn’t assigned to go into Cambodia and wasn’t anywhere near it... and three of Kerry's boatmates saying they were never in Cambodia. His story still seems sketchy, unless the Democratic candidate can point to some better supporting evidence.

Update: Instapundit has a great post on this here. One of the goofier things that Kerry's team is trying to claim now is that he was somewhere in between Cambodia and Vietnam. As Dorothy Parker (correction--Gertrude Stein) once said, there's no there, there.

 
Christmas in Cambodia--Where Do We Go From Here?

My initial reaction was, aw, shoot, they're admitting that he lied, errrr, forgot incidents that were seared--seared--into his brain. Like I said, lied.

But as Hugh played the Fox News clip several times during the show something began to click. Think about it this way. Kerry's Indiana Jones, no, make that Massachusetts Kerry, the intrepid adventurer. He's come to one of those embarrassing gaps in his narrative, and there's a rope bridge to the other side. Kerry begins to cross over, but as he gets out to the middle he sees angry natives swarming at him ahead. When Massachusetts turns around, he sees more trouble behind him. So what does he do?

Obviously, he cuts the rope bridge in half. The pursuers behind him fall into the ravine as do most of the ones ahead.

Kerry's story is the ravine. The old story--that he crossed into Cambodia on that Christmas Eve is behind him. He's cut that rope (see below). He was hoping to make it across to the other side without anyone noticing him, but that hope is gone. Now Massachusetts is dangling from two last strands of the rope bridge, trying to pull himself up.

And we're above him with swords. What do we do?

Well, it's pretty obvious, right? So now, what are the ropes with which Kerry desperately hopes to hoist himself up to the other side?

Rope 1: That Kerry was close enough to Cambodia on Christmas Eve to somehow be confused and think he was over the line. This one's a stupid, self-inflicted wound (some things never change with Kerry). They should have bought the bullet completely on Christmas Eve/Day. Hugh caught this immediately, but it should be hammered home--they're still dangling on this, perhaps because they sense that Kerry's weak on the latter point:

Rope 2: That Kerry did actually have an experience five miles inside the Cambodian border. The Swiftees have been tough on the notion that nobody would ever use a Swift Boat to cross the Cambodian border, that there were smaller craft called Riverine craft that operated in those areas, and apparently private craft were used to smuggle special ops forces. Kerry's dropped the Christmas Eve/Day aspect and now specifies no day. Obvious question--was it on X boat or Y boat, with this crew or that, and then you follow up with each of the crewmembers. Kerry commanded two different Swift Boats IIRC.

Kerry cut the rope behind him when he allowed Douglas Brinkley to write his biography. Brinkley went way overboard in praising Kerry in the book. Those who've been around since May (which is about 25 people I guess) may remember my comical adventures attempting to finish the book without falling asleep as I read page after page of praise for the Lord God Kerry. But, and I think this is important, Brinkley refused to sanction Kerry's lie in the book. We've talked about the fact that this implies that more than one of Kerry's boatmates who appeared for him on stage at the DNC were unwilling to lie for him on that issue. Obvious followup question: How many of his boatmates (not the Swiftees, but the guys who support Kerry), now want to say that they were really close to Cambodia. Gardner insists they didn't get much north of Sa Dec, which is 55-60 miles from the border.

Kerry also left himself hanging on one slender thread when his assistants said he corrected the (Senate) record. Possibly true, but how do you follow this up? Somebody out there knows.

I still agree with Tom on the Lucky Hat Story. Let it go for now. The issue is not the Lucky Hat, it's Cambodia. Kerry's slow-motion response team did themselves no favors; they should have just said that having checked with his crew, he's come to the conclusion that they never were quite in Cambodia, but they were close. By doing this limited hangout, they have left Le Fraude dangling and potentially given us swords.

 
THE CHEESE STANDS ALONE



John Kerry’s Bodyguard of Lies
By Thomas Lipscomb
If the incidents it details are true, Kerry was a coward who fled in battle having unintentionally thrown his current supporter, Jim Rassmann, overboard in his panic. Kerry tried to get his first Purple Heart on the basis of a tiny self-inflicted wound from his own grenade. His supporter, Max Cleland, accidentally blew both his legs off and one hand off with one of his own grenades, but never asked for a Purple Heart because, just as in John Kerry's case, there was no enemy action at the time. Kerry went behind the back of the commander who refused his medal request and the doctor who had treated him, and got one anyway.
Swiftvet officers watched this kind of behavior for four months into Kerry's 12 month "tour of duty." Then three of them told him pointedly that he'd better use the three Purple Heart escape clause and return to the States fast. Kerry left the next morning.
…
Dick Morris, John McCain, Bill O'Reilly and others should stop twittering about how rude and crass and dishonorable and counterproductive it is to even explore such nasty possibilities in public and take a look at the charges and supporting documentation brought forth by the Swiftvets. Does it matter whether they are funded by Richard Mellon Scaife, George Soros, or The Tooth Fairy? What does matter in a close presidential election is if there is significant evidence that some or all of the Vietnam service Kerry has elected to make the center of his campaign to move from "war hero" to "war president" is a tissue of lies.

 
ROPE-A-DOPE


t-shirt

I’ve always maintained that Dubya is a master campaigner, which shouldn’t be surprising as he was a master poker player, as well. It’s called rope-a-dope, and Dubya is ratcheting up the game.
Our Advice to President Bush: How To Hoist Kerry on His Own Petard
For a supposedly "dumb" guy, and one who's not a lawyer (thank God), President Bush sure does know how to set a trap. And if the mainstream press were doing their job, the trap would not have been necessary.
What's the trap you say? It was using a cross examination technique used by good lawyers to dismantle witnesses. He made John Kerry to respond to a specific question, knowing what Kerry's answer would be (thus boxing him in), then laying the smackdown on him with his prior inconsistent statements.
As we here at crushkerry.com have been pointing out, John Kerry has never told the American people what specifically he would DO, other than not be George W. Bush. That is, until earlier this week.

Some dope! Bush earned his Bachelor’s degree from Yale in ’68 and his Harvard MBA in ’75.

 
With Great Power... Part II--Updated

(Note--This Post Will Be Promoted Throughout Thursday--Scroll Down for New Content)



When I thought about whom we could help here at Kerry Haters, it was pretty obvious. John Thune could easily win election this November. His election would mean a turnover of a seat in the US Senate. We'd have a chance of making a modest difference in a race because he comes from a small state.

And, we'd all have the joy of hearing Tom Daschle say, "I'm very disappointed," for the last time!

Why could John Thune easily win election this November? First of all, because John Thune has been a three-term congressman in South Dakota, and one of those rare state-wide congressmen, so that everybody in the state is accustomed to voting for him. In his second election, he won by the largest margin in state history. In 2002 he came within a fraction of taking a Senate seat away from Tim Johnson, a Democrat. There were widespread allegations, but you know how that goes: If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat.

His election would mean the turnover of a seat in the Senate that absolutely belongs to Republicans. Both Johnson and Daschle were lucky; neither of them were up for re-election in 2000, when George Bush won South Dakota by 23 percentage points.

But Tom Daschle is not going to go down easy. He still wields an enormous amount of power, and the lobbyists and Moo-On crowd will no doubt be sliming John Thune.

Here's the pitch:

Kitty and I do this for free. We're not paid Republican operatives, we're just concerned private citizens who want the best for this country. We think that is seldom served by Democrats, and certainly not Democrats like John Fraude Kerry and Tom "Disappointed" Daschle.

Somehow we've tapped a nerve. There are more Kerry Haters out there every day.

Anyway, if you want to show appreciation for the 1850 posts that Kitty and I have put up here, this is your chance. I personally donated $50 to Thune's campaign, and we are not taking any money for promoting him. If you can afford more, give more, if you can afford less give less, if you can't afford it continue to enjoy our blog and tell your rich friends about John Thune. And if you donated to the Swiftees last week, I apologize for hitting you up again so quickly--take a pass on this if it's not in the budget.

Remember, money contributed to Thune will give you the best bang for your buck--he has an excellent chance of winning and he'd get Tom Daschle off your television screen for good.

Click Here to Donate to John Thune!

We're going to do this once a week--Thursdays 'R' for Thune, and we are still taking nominations for one or two other candidates that we can help. We don't want to overdo this, but we also really want to smash the Democrats, because...

If It's Not Close They Can't Cheat!

Update: For those wishing to contribute by check, there is a pdf form here with all the information, or you can make a check out to John Thune for U.S. Senate and mail it to:

John Thune for U.S. Senate
P.O. Box 3308
Sioux Falls, SD 57104

Please include your employer and occupation; this is required under Federal law.

 
Bush to Win & Win Big Says Yale Economist

Let's hope that he's right:

In an interview to be published in next Sunday's "New York Times Magazine," Fair told Deborah Solomon, "My latest prediction shows that Bush will receive 57.5% of the two-party votes ... the chances that Bush loses are very small."

Fair, who claims to be a Kerry supporter, is described by the Times in the Aug. 15 issue as being known for creating an econometric equation that "has predicted presidential elections with relative accuracy." His most recent book, in fact, is titled, "Predicting Presidential Elections and Other Things."

Hat Tip: Ral, from The Second to Last Resort.

 
Kerry Finally Draws a Crowd!



But what's this? They're all waving Bush/Cheney signs!

 
Israeli Jews Prefer Bush Over Kerry

Longtime KH reader Gayle alerted us to this story.

Israeli Jews overwhelmingly want President George W. Bush (news - web sites) to beat his Democrat challenger John Kerry (news - web sites) in the US presidential election on November 2, according to an opinion poll.

A total of 49 percent of people questioned said they preferred Bush, with just 18 percent wanting Kerry to win.

Unfortunately, you can virtually turn those percentages around for US Jews. Pollster Frank Luntz was on Dennis Prager's show this morning and he indicated that Bush will probably get the votes about 33% of American Jews. The good news is that's a lot more than Bush got in 2000, and the swing in the Jewish vote could be crucial in states like New Jersey and Florida.

 
Worried About Christian Wackos? So Are We!

One of the constant things I hear from my leftist friends are questions about how I can possibly be a Republican with all the Christian Conservatives. I ask them if there are no religious Democrats. And why would being associated with him, her, and these people bother me?

But today I discoved some religious wackos who do make me uncomfortable: Catholics for Kerry 04. Get this article, a link to which is prominently featured on their homepage:

Antichrist?

New Catholic Times, May 18, 2003

WASHINGTON DC -- According to freelance journalist Wayne Madsden, "George W Bush's blood lust, his repeated commitment to Christian beliefs and his constant references to 'evil doers,' in the eyes of many devout Catholic leaders, bear all the hallmarks of the one warned about in the Book of Revelations--the anti-Christ."

Madsen, a Washington-based writer and columnist, who often writes for Counterpunch, says that people close to the pope claim that amid these concerns, the pontiff wishes he was younger and in better health to confront the possibility that Bush may represent the person prophesized in Revelations. John Paul II has always believed the world was on the precipice of the final confrontation between Good and Evil as foretold in the New Testament.

The C4K04 website has disclaimer above this article saying that they don't agree with it, but they are posting it as a matter of interest. Thou shalt not lie, guys!

And what kind of Catholics would list this as a reason for voting against President Bush?

Bush tried to eliminate contraceptive coverage from federal employees’ health plans. Democrats fought back and won.

Hat Tip: Kerry Spot. Jim Geraghty is doing a great job over there; if only their webmasters would give his posts permalinks!

 
About This Big, Says Nevada When She Means Arizona?

 
Peggy Kerry's Acting Coach, and Andre Heinz's Buddy

Kerry's Waffles continues to impress us. Today Chris has a couple internal emails; one about Kerry's sister's need for an acting coach (we guess she needs to learn how to act as though she liked her brother), and the other (which we commented on awhile ago) on Andre Heinz's (Kerry's stepson) attempt to use charitable foundation funds to bring a friend to the US from France. The key is that both these emails reveal that the Heinz Family Philanthropies, a charitable organization, is intimately involved in helping out the Kerry campaign.

 
Christmas in Cambodia--Kerry Admits He Lied!

Hugh Hewitt is broadcasting right now that Fox News reports Kerry has caved on the Christmas in Cambodia story. That memory that was seared--seared--in him, that he mentioned in an article in 1979, that he mentioned in a speech on the floor of the Senate, that he mentioned in another article in 1992, turns out to have been false. A Kerry spokesman tried to claim that he had conflated two separate memories. They now claim that he was in Cambodia once, but that he got confused about whether it was Christmas or not.

We've talked about Kerry's convenient memory before. Another memory that was seared--seared--in him was that he had resigned from the VVAW prior to the infamous meeting in Kansas City where the leadership (including Kerry) debated a policy of assassinating US Senators. Kerry must be getting to hate historians, even those on his side. It was very sympathetic VVAW historian Gerald Nicosia who forced him to admit that he "might" have been at the assassination plot meeting, and it was synchophantic Douglas Brinkley who's effectively forced him to admit that he lied for many years about his Christmas in Cambodia.

 
My Guess Is About 100 IQ Points, Combined



Can you say, bussed-in union members? And we love the yellow tee-shirts; considering the Swiftees' allegations, yellow is a particularly suitable color for Kerry's campaign.

 
Kerry Haters Readers Get Results

I put up a post before about how some of the smaller blogs could get some of our traffic. One of the suggestions was that they could find the original letter to the editor of the Boston Herald where Kerry mentioned his trips to Cambodia. Well, one of those teeny, tiny blogs took us up: Instapundit. Unfortunately the image is hard to read, but the crucial passage is highlighted here.

Hat Tip: KH reader Marc, whose blog USS Neverdock is worth a look. Good job, Marc! We've added you to our blogroll.

 
With Great Power....

Comes great responsibility. Back when this blog had 50-100 visits a day we could just look at it as a way to have fun. But now we've been bitten by the radioactive spider, and suddenly, like Peter Parker, we have to be a little more serious. We have a rare opportunity to help improve things in this country, thanks to you, our readers.

Here's your chance to influence the agenda. Kitty and I have talked about adopting a few Republican candidates and trying to help them along. We agreed on one (to be announced tomorrow). Some things to think about:

1. The candidate must be capable of winning. However much we'd like to keep Cynthia McKinney out of the House of Representatives, her Republican opponent is not going to win in that district. But we don't want anybody who's guaranteed to win.

2. We'd prefer to back candidates where it would result in an increase in Republican seats, although current office-holders facing a tough reelection will also be considered.

3. Preference will also given for candidates in small states.

Note: We are going to ask readers to open up their wallets for the candidates chosen. I hate doing that; in the last three months I've only done it once, for the Swiftees. But money is the mother's milk of politics. This blog is regularly over 1000 readers a day. If everybody contributed $25 to one of our candidates, that would be $25,000, which goes a long way in a small state.

Suggestions? I predict the candidate we've already chosen will be mentioned in the comments.

 
October at the UN?

Okay, we're having a lot of fun with the Christmas in Cambodia story, what about October at the UN?

I put up a post about this yesterday, but in the fuss over Cambodia it appears to have slipped through the cracks.

Kerry claimed in a speech to the Unity Conference that he had met with the Security Council the week before the vote in the Senate:

I believe in my heart of hearts and in my gut that this president fails that test in Iraq. And I know this because I, personally, and others were deeply involved in the effort with other countries to bring them to the table. I met with the Security Council of the United Nations in the week preceding the vote in the Senate.

Okay, week preceding the vote in the Senate. The Senate vote took place on October 11, 2002, which is a Friday. Kerry could have meant in the last few days before the vote, or in the workweek that actually preceded the vote. This means that the possible dates that he could be talking about run from September 30-October 10.

Our reader Phillies Fan sent us a link to the UN Security Council minutes for 2002. Among the dates in question, the Security Council held meetings on October 2, October 4, October 8th, and October 10. Unfortunately there is no verbatim transcript for October 2 & October 10; just brief communiques that don't say much. The word "Kerry" never appears in the transcripts for October 4th & October 8th. It doesn't appear to be the 10th, because the communique issued for that date says that the SC "held its 4620th meeting in private with troop-contributing countries to the United Nations Misson of Observers in Prevlaka (UNMOP)."

That narrows it down to October 2, when the SC reports (PDF warning) that it held a "Meeting with countries contributing troops to the UN Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission." A further note is that the meeting was held pursuant to resolution 1353 (2001) annex II, sections A and B. As best as I can work out, resolution 1353 appears that this was solely about troops in Kuwait.

A poster at the Free Republic linked this speech Kerry gave to the Council on Foreign Relations.

AUDIENCE: Andy Nagorski, Newsweek. Senator, it's one thing to say that diplomacy on Iraq was bad. It's another to suggest that good diplomacy could have brought everybody along, as you seem to do. Do you think you really could have brought the Germans, the French along in a commitment to use force, if necessary, if you had been president?

KERRY: Yes. (Laughter, applause.)

NAGORSKI: Would you care to explain how, especially given --

KERRY: Absolutely. Absolutely and unequivocably.

NAGORSKI: If --

KERRY: I will explain. Let me explain to you very specifically.

Thanks to some friends in New York, I was invited to come up and meet with the Security Council in the week prior to the vote, and I wanted to do that, because I valued my vote. And I wanted to know what the real readiness and willingness of our partners was to take this seriously.

Now having read all this, if Kerry really did not meet with the Security Council (and it certainly does not appear that he did, at least not with the SC as a whole, although he obviously could have met with individual members), then he's just plain crackers.

 
New to the Legion

Check out Don Kerry, which is devoted to exposing Kerry's ties to organized crime. We have blogged about this in the past.

 
KERRY OFFENSIVE

Just how did they get all that personal info? This smacks of Clinton & Her Royal C going after the Travel Office people.
Dems Plan Assault on Vets
The Democrat National Committee has prepared a full-scale assault against the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to draw their character and veracity into question, according to one anonymous source inside the DNC. The campaign of character assassination is scheduled to coincide with the release of the book Unfit for Command which reveals inconvenient facts for the Kerry campaign.

“We have prepared what we call ‘Brown Books’ that contain damaging military records, personal credit histories, medical histories, psychiatric histories, divorce records, you
name it,” our source told us. "We've got the goods on the Veterans who oppose Kerry."

 
Want a Piece of Our Traffic? Move the Story!

We're getting nutty traffic the last week or so from the Christmas in Cambodia story. If some of you smaller bloggers would like to get some run-off from us (and some of the other bloggers covering the story), I'd be happy to boost you. What's needed is somebody to do some legwork.

Anybody out there in Boston or the nearby environs? Kerry's claim to have been in Cambodia apparently first surfaced in an October 14, 1979 Letter to the Editor in the Boston Herald about the movie "Apocalypse Now". I've heard the crucial excerpts from it, but the whole letter would be interesting.

There are other things folks could be doing. Want some suggestions? How about doing a comparison of the Brinkley book with the Boston Globe book? If somebody else had done that, they would surely have noticed the different stories about Christmas Eve/Day, 1968. Look for contradictions and blog about them.

 
MUDDY MEMORIES



Unfit for command?
By Tony Blankley
I stayed up late last night and read from cover to cover the book "Unfit for Command — Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry." An impartial reader (if there is still such a beast in this election season) would have to conclude that either the book is a pack of lies or John Kerry is in fact a reckless, lying man who misrepresented the facts in order to receive medals he didn't deserve, and is indeed unfit to command even a tug boat, let alone the United States military as president.

How Kamp Kerry responds to the book.
Legal Terrorism
To their credit, TV stations in some marketplaces have refused to surrender to the bullying tactics of Kerry’s lawyers. This presents the democrat party and the Kerry campaign with two choices: put up or shut up.
They can slink off the field for having threatened TV stations with a baseless libel lawsuit, or, despite how they eventually hedge their threat, they can actually sue those TV stations that aren’t intimidated.
The latter course would be utter disaster—and Kerry’s lawyers have to know this. Kerry would no longer be able to hide behind spin masters. He would have to file a written complaint. Sworn depositions (including Kerry’s) would have to be taken. He would have to respond to requests for factual admissions. He would have to answer written interrogatories. He would have to produce documents.
There would have to be a trial. That means sworn testimony, cross examination, documentary evidence—all in front of a jury, reporters, perhaps even TV cameras.
Once all that happened, America would know who told the truth—and who lied.

 
Blogs on Christmas in Cambodia

Tom Maguire just keeps a rockin'.

Captain Ed continues to cover the story like a blanket.

Michele Catalano remembers an old punk rock song.

Whizbang comes up with a great potential response from the Kerry campaign:

I'd tell you about it- but then I'd have to kill you.

Lots and lots of inbound links to our original post.

 
The Trickle Continues; Big Media Starting to Sniff a Story

Hugh Hewitt has a World Net Daily article on the controversy.

It is impossible to stonewall a story that broke out of the blogosphere and into the major media on Monday night and Tuesday morning, so eventually John Kerry is going to have to stand by his wildly implausible tales of cross-border excellent adventures, or he's going to have to apologize for inventing personal history.

Hugh's been actively pushing the story to a reluctant news media. Yesterday he mentioned that he had talked to the editor of the Boston Globe, asking if he were aware of it, and he also brought it up on the air with a writer for an Iowa paper.

Zev Chafets at the NY Daily News is on the trail.

Sorry, but that's not going to wash. The issue is not whether the charges against Kerry are politically motivated (they obviously are) or who is paying for them. There's just one relevant question: Are the allegations true? Specifically, is it true he lied about being in Cambodia.

Unlike the debate over Kerry's medals, this is a matter that can be checked and verified. If it turns out Kerry was there, the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth are liars and their charges are, in the words of Kerry's friend John McCain, "dishonest and dishonorable." But if he wasn't there, the Kerry campaign is saddled with a problem it can't solve by calling Republicans names, threatening TV stations or even bringing up President Bush's less than stellar war record.

Now two of New York's dailies have written on this story; can the Grey Lady avoid it much longer? Byron York nailed that on Hugh's program yesterday; the Times will bury an offhand mention of the story in the 27th paragraph of a 39-paragraph story on Kerry's medals so that they can say they covered it. If you remember, this is how they handled Kerry's attendance at a VVAW meeting where the assassination of US Senators was discussed.

 
ROUNDUP

The Prowler
8 Karen Hughes is back: "We needed her six weeks ago," says a campaign staffer. "But we're still confident that this campaign is doing what needs to be done on every level to ensure re-election. The media can spin whatever it wants, but we're going to win this thing. We have to."

8 Political indigestion: As has been the case with both Kerry and Edwards in a number of dining establishments across the country, the Carolinian did not receive a universal warm welcome during the lunch hour appearance. Some diners grumbled about being interrupted, while others just glared at Edwards.
Kerry-Edwards advance staffers made a point of scurrying about the room, steering the candidates away from potential "trouble tables," as they are now termed. "After some of the problems in Pennsylvania and Ohio" -- where Kerry has been confronted with unfriendly receptions by individuals, a campaign source said -- "we're much more attuned to the settings we are putting them in and the potential coverage they might receive."

Rush Limbaugh
Kerry Makes Mistake of Answering Questions: John Kerry, ladies and gentlemen, has begun making what I think are huge mistakes. And the most recent huge mistake, he's starting to answer questions. And after he answers questions, then he's starting to issue questions or ask them. (story) "Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said Monday that he would have voted for the congressional resolution authorizing force against Iraq even if he had known then that no weapons of mass destruction would be found." My friends, would somebody on the left, one of you Kerry supporters, perhaps a 9/11-Fahrenheit, whatever it is, aficionado, call and explain to me how this news affects you? This is the centerpiece of your campaign, that Iraq was unnecessary, that Iraq was a boondoggle, that Bush lied to get us into Iraq -- and now your candidate has just said that it doesn't matter whether there was weapons of mass destruction or not, he would have given the president authority to go into Iraq and would have supported it anyway!

 
I'm With Tom--Beware the Hat Story

Memo to self--it pays to write everything down and update as required. Tom Maguire put up a post today warning everybody to be wary of the hat story, but he also warned me in a comment. I noted it but didn't amend my story; I'm fixing that mistake now. It would be all too easy for Kerry to conflate the hat story with the Christmas story and thereby wiggle out of the trap he's in.

Consider what we know about the hat story. Here's the important part from the original article:

A close associate hints: There's a secret compartment in Kerry's briefcase. He carries the black attaché everywhere. Asked about it on several occasions, Kerry brushed it aside. Finally, trapped in an interview, he exhaled and clicked open his case.

"Who told you?" he demanded as he reached inside. "My friends don't know about this."

Does that sound like a setup to you? It sure does to me. A lot of people may be misinterpreting my original post to mean that I ruled out any possibility that Kerry was ever in Cambodia. That is not the case. From what I read, I was able to eliminate the possibility that Kerry was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve/Day. Tom points out that Brinkley's book indicates Kerry's last mission or so was a mission that did involve ferrying SEALs to (not into) Cambodia. It's important that we not get off on side issues. Keep the focus on Christmas; that's the story Kerry has embellished over the years.

 
DECONSTRUCTING JOHN “RAMBO” KERRY



Hugh Hewitt has posted his interview with Steve Gardner, who served with John “Rambo” Kerry on the same swift boat. Read the whole interview; here are some highlights.

Hugh Hewitt: I interviewed Steve Gardner today. He served two tours in Vietnam, including two months and two weeks of John Kerry's swift boat service--on John Kerry's swift boat-- from November 1968 through January 1969:

HH: What months did you serve with Senator Kerry?
SG: November through January. Here's what I did. I served two months and two weeks of his four month, 12 day tour.
…
SG: [Kerry] is an opportunist, number one. But he is a self-seeking opportunist who used the laws that were designed to help the honest men who were over there in Vietnam who had gotten wounded three times to get them back out of it. He knew the rules well, and he used that to get out of there early.
…
HH: Will any of the guys who have endorsed John Kerry, who served on the boat with you, will they back him up on the CIA agent story, or the Christmas Eve story?
SG: Well they can't now.
HH: Why?
SG: Well they all know that that didn't transpire. John Kerry has already said that from what I understand.

Hat tip to Lucianne! Thank you Lady G; your listing this interview in your Must Reads will bring mega attention to this story.