"The Kerry conundrum: Hypocrisy on parade" - accolades from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Topic: Kerry's Lies and Spin
There actually IS a reason why big city newspaper editors get the big bucks - sometimes they say what needs to be said better than us ordinary folk:
I think that the editorial's title says it all, but just in case you disagree, this is the meat of the op-ed piece:
"Why is Sen. Kerry proud of serving in Vietnam? Vietnam was, in his words, an indefensible horror where men were "given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history ... ."
We have that on the record. Also from his Senate testimony of April 22, 1971:
Referring to stories told by veterans of unspeakable American atrocities, he said: "They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do."
Would there be recrimination against South Vietnamese after an American withdrawal? "(Y)es ... but far, far less than the 200,000 a year who are murdered by the United States of America ... ."
"This war was really just as wrong, immoral and unrelated to our national interests five years ago as it is today ... ." That is, Kerry sought and accepted from his corrupt government combat medals for fighting in a war that, in his view, was an atrocity.
Kerry has claimed in one interview that his awakening to the nature of Vietnam came incrementally, after he enlisted in the Navy. Yes, that's the famed Kerry nuance.
But unabashed pride today about participation in a war that Kerry in 1971 called mass murder erupts without nuance, and without internal consistency.
John Kerry's Million Dollar Pain in the Ass Mood: incredulous Topic: Kerry's Lies and Spin
Just when you think you've gotten to the bottom of John Kerry's self-promotion and flat-out lying in order to create a heroic background for himself, the ooze gives way and you find an even lower level -
Read this op-ed piece for even more insight into Senator John Kerry:
Some interesting quotes from Mr. Valentine's article:
"By now, you've certainly heard of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. This is a group of Vietnam vets who served with Kerry during his four months in Vietnam and they don't have too many kind words for their former comrade-in-arms.
Before you discount these veterans as partisan hacks, as the Democratic spin-control machine would have you believe, understand that 16 of the 23 surviving officers who served with Kerry in swift boats in Vietnam have joined this group."
In other words, 2 out of 3 surviving swift boat officers who were in Vietnam with Kerry (including two of his former commanding officers) feel strongly enough about John Kerry's bullshit about his service there that they got together to protest it publicly.
Valentine's article goes on to state what I mentioned in an earlier entry - quoting Kerry's former CO Cmdr. Grant Hibbard about Kerry's attempt to brazenly get a Purple Heart for an accidentally (and incompetently) self-inflicted shrapnel scratch which happened outside of combat; and his eventual going around his CO to get that medal fradulently despite Cmdr. Hibbard's refusal to sign off on it.
Here's the new stuff -
"The third Purple Heart in question, the one that was Kerry's ticket home after just over four months in combat, occurred on March 13, 1969. The wounds sustained included a small bruise on his right arm and a minor injury to his buttocks. Again, Kerry insists he was wounded by enemy fire, but those who were there tell a different story. Kerry says he was wounded by an underwater mine. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth say Kerry was wounded as a result of his not-so-bright decision to toss a grenade into a nearby rice cache. The "shrapnel" actually plucked from Kerry's fanny was rice pellets."
So not only WAS Kerry a pain in the ass (according to two of his commanding officers in Vietnam) but he apparently got a Purple Heart for GIVING HIMSELF ONE, too - for two self-inflicted wounds (through incompetence and extremely poor judgment about when and where to use antipersonnel grenades, not to mention using them outside of actual combat or even confirmed contact with the enemy of any other sort), incurred outside of combat as required for the award of a Purple Heart or points toward early rotation out of theater, Lt.(j.g.) John Kerry was sent home from Vietnam after only four months in theater, not the year he would have ordinarily served.
So John Kerry appears: a) to have lied to get TWO of his Purple Hearts b) thus to have lied on two occasions in order to be sent home from Vietnam after four months, instead of the usual year-long tour; c) to have not corrected or clarified either item (a) or item (b) when folding them into his new patriot-hero persona; d) by all of the above to have an abiding disrespect for true heroism as evidenced by not seeking combat wound decorations for non-combat wounds; and finally e) to have shown willingness over a period of over thirty years to swear to the truth of lies when they are convenient to his goals.
Some of you would like to know why I call John Kerry "Zippo John," and Mr. Valentine's article throws light on that, as well:
"Interestingly enough, Kerry characterized himself as a war criminal in 1971, saying that he had taken part in the torching of villages and the killing of innocent civilians in violation of the Geneva Conventions."
The activity Kerry admitted to before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is what was known as a "Zippo raid," after the brand of cigarette lighter allegedly used by rogue American troops to burn the thatch huts of Vietnamese villagers down.
Taking Senator Kerry at his word, I started calling him "Zippo John" to commemorate his self-admitted acts of arson against civilians while allegedly serving his country.
I still want to know why John Kerry didn't do jail time - either for perjury before the Senate or for war crimes. One way or another, he either lied under oath or told the truth about having done worse things.
P.J. O'Rourke's two cents on the matter.... Topic: Kerry's Lies and Spin "Massachusetts' thinner, more sober senator, John Kerry, said that he
voted for threatening to use force on Saddam Hussein, bu
"Massachusetts' thinner, more sober senator, John Kerry,
said that he voted for threatening to use force on Saddam Hussein, but that
actually using force was wrong.? This is
what's known, in the language of diplomacy, as bullshit."
P.J. O'Rourke, "Why Americans Hate Foreign Policy," Peace
Kills (Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2004)
Another Kerry CO speaks out - was one of those million-dollar wounds FAKE? Mood: incredulous Topic: Kerry's Lies and Spin
Commander Grant Hibbard, USN (ret.) was Lt.(jg). John Kerry's commanding officer when Kerry was training to serve on Swift Boats, and when Kerry supposedly got one of the three combat wounds (thus Purple Hearts) that allowed him to return to duty outside Vietnam after only four-months.
Cmdr. Hibbard's version:
"While in Cam Rahn Bay, he trained on several 24-hour indoctrination missions, and one special skimmer operation with my most senior and trusted Lieutenant.
The briefing from some members of that crew the morning after revealed that they had not received any enemy fire, and yet Lt.(jg) Kerry informed me of a wound -- he showed me a scratch on his arm and a piece of shrapnel in his hand that appeared to be from one of our own M-79s. It was later reported to me that Lt.(jg) Kerry had fired an M-79, and it had exploded off the adjacent shoreline. I do not recall being advised of any medical treatment, and probably said something like 'Forget it.'
He later received a Purple Heart for that scratch, and I have no information as to how or whom.
Lt.(jg) Kerry was allowed to return to the good old USA after 4 months and a few days in-country, and then he proceeded to betray his former shipmates, calling them criminals who were committing atrocities.
Today we are here to tell you that just the opposite is true. Our rules of engagement were quite strict, and the officers and men of Swift often did not even return fire when they were under fire if there was a possibility that innocent people -- fishermen, in a lot of cases -- might be hurt or injured. The rules and the good intentions of the men increased the possibility that we might take friendly casualties." -- Commander Grant Hibbard, USN (retired)
One of John Kerry's COs speaks! Mood: irritated
Resume inflation is everywhere, so when I saw this statement from Captain Charles Plumly, USN (ret.), one of John Kerry's commanding officers in Vietnam, I decided to pass it on as a public service:
"During Lt.(jg) Kerry's tour, he was under my command for two or three specific operations, before his rapid exit...
...His turncoat performance in 1971 in his grubby shirt and his medal-tossing escapade, coupled with his slanderous lines in the recent book portraying us that served, including all POWs and MIAs, as murderous war criminals, I believe, will have a lasting effect on all military veterans and their families. Kerry would be described as devious, self-absorbing, manipulative, disdain for authority, disruptive, but the most common phrase that you'd hear is 'requires constant supervision.'" -
Zippo John's Band is breaking up... (that didn't take long... ) Mood: celebratory Topic: Kerry's Lies and Spin The National Review's Alexander Rose talks about one of the OTHER Swift
Boat officers who called self-admitted war criminal Jo
It's official - the anti-war activist community is
despondent that Presidential candidate and self-confessed war criminal John
Kerry isn't going to pull us out of the war on terror...too bad, sooo sad...
By the way, if you don't get the "Zippo John's
Band" reference in the title, Google "Grateful Dead" AND lyrics AND "Captain John's Band'" or ask your mommy; then Google "Zippo raid" or ask your dad. (I know, you don't HAVE to explicitly use the AND operator in Google, but I find it cuts way down on the number of low-relevance and irrelevant hits.)
Mood: don't ask Topic: Kerry's Lies and Spin The National Review's Alexander Rose talks about one of the OTHER Swift
Boat officers who called self-admitted war criminal Jo
The National Review's
Alexander Rose talks about one of the OTHER Swift Boat officers who called
self-admitted war criminal John Kerry out on the Dick Cavett Show about his
lies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the prevalence of war crimes committed by American servicemen in Vietnam .
We now get into the question - "Who
do we believe, many other Swift Boat captains who were there when Kerry was, or
Zippo John and some of his crew?" when it comes to the atrocities Kerry says other people were performing when he was also, according to him, busy
committing war crimes (like gunning down wounded prisoners) - when he wasn't getting Bactined for one of his three Purple Heart wounds or being incredibly brave, if he did say so himself.?
When
John "Do you know who I am?" Kerry talks about what other people did in Vietnam, I can hear echoes of "There I was... " (or the other traditional beginning of a war story, "This is no s--t... ").
When you think about it, the timing
of the release of "The Manchurian Candidate" couldn't be better,
speaking of fabricated heroism being used to buttress political chicanery....
John Kerry in dire straits? Mood: happy Topic: Kerry's Lies and Spin The National Review's Alexander Rose talks about one of the OTHER Swift
Boat officers who called self-admitted war criminal Jo
"I'm
just an aging drummer boy,
And in
the wars I used to play,
And
I've called the tune to many a torture session,
Now
they say I am a war criminal,
And
I'm fading away,
Father,
please hear my confessional... "
?
Dire
Straits, "The Man's Too Strong," Brothers in Arms
?
We've
come a long way in this country when the Democratic Party wants to put a
self-confessed war criminal from the Vietnam War into the White House, andBruce
Springsteen wants to hold a benefit concert tour for his campaign (or at least
to defeat his opponent)... maybe that's what Zippo John means by "this
country is moving in the wrong direction" - when liberals root for guys who
committed atrocities in Vietnam.?
?
I guess
that with the Democratic Party and the liberals, FDR's words about Anastacio Somoza still hold true -
?
"I don't
care if he's a son of a bitch, he's our son of a bitch."
Slate's Fred Kaplan drops a clinker for Kerry.... Mood: irritated Topic: Kerry's Lies and Spin Fred Kaplan offered an incredibly biased and slanted whitewash
("John Kerry's Defense Defense") of Kerry's record in Microsoft
Fred Kaplan offered an incredibly biased and slanted
whitewash ("John Kerry's Defense Defense") of Kerry's record in
Microsoft's online magazine Slate, mainly based around the fact that Bush the
Elder and his staff had also made sweeping cuts in the defense budget, but his
argument is fallacious on at least two grounds:
1) George H.W. Bush and his staff were probably wrong to
slash the defense budget as much as they did, but that doesn't excuse Kerry at
all.John Kerry isn't running against George H.W. Bush, but his son, George W. Bush.
2) Even if Kaplan's assertions were true (they mostly aren't, but let's say they are for the sake of argument), there is no evidence
in the voting record of John Kerry ever acting to buttress or improve our national defense while in the Senate.
Kerry even went as far as to claim that Communism was not a
threat to America, even though as he spoke (the mid-1980s) thousands of Soviet missiles were pointed at us, the Soviets were paying, funding, equipping and training terrorists, arming and training to invade Western Europe, and they had violated the biological weapons protocol, operating a mammoth BW research and
production program, making tons of weaponized smallpox and plague which they planned to drop on us with their ICBMs.According to Dr. Ken Alibek, deputy director of the Soviet (and later the Russian) bioweapons development and production agency Biopreparat, that lovable tree-hugging palooka Gorbachev personally signed the order for the biological missile warhead project.
George W. Bush has striven valiantly to patch the gaping
holes in our defense capability made by 12 years of neglect and, in some cases, purposeful destruction, not only by his father but Bill Clinton and the disastrous Democratic majority Congress of the early 1990s - with John Kerry in there plugging for more and deeper defense cuts and weapon system cancellations.
It takes a lot of nerve for John Kerry, a willing participant in this vandalism of our armed services throughout his career, to
gripe about the current President "invading on the cheap" when much of that is because Kerry and his fellow Congressional liberals did so much to
pauper the Department of Defense.
Not only is John Kerry NOT the most qualified man to defend our country, he isn't even remotely qualified for the job at all.All he's ever done as a Senator is to try to weaken our armed forces.
Many millions of American men and women understand the vital importance of a strong military - a concept most often attributed to Vegetius, the Roman student of military science whose book on the subject educated men of arms throughout Europe for centuries. Any of these people is more qualified to be commander-in-chief of our armed forces than John Kerry, whose career shows his total lack of comprehension of Vegetius' simple rule: "If you would have peace, prepare for war."
Finally, reports of Kerry's demeanor in Massachusetts show a pattern of narcissistic and abusive behavior toward mere taxpayers that many Americans in and out of the Armed Forces would find incompatible with being the Commander-in-Chief of the United States'
military.Will having the power that comes with the Presidency turn Kerry into a 21st century dictator, a Boston brahmin-ized Huey Long? Let's try not to find out, shall we?
incredulous
irritated
celebratory
don't ask
happy