John Ashcroft
08-12-2004, 11:54 AM
Here we go again. Faced with the rotten behavior of President Clinton, the Democrats and their media allies retreated in the face of the obvious and fell back on the absurd excuse that Clinton's lies about the Monica Lewinsky affair were simply "all about sex" and therefore not worth talking about.
They would trot out surrogates such as the oily Lanny Davis to obfuscate the truth and go on the offense against the president's accusers. After all, they would tell us, it's just another example of the vast right wing conspiracy's attack machine's attempts to smear the president. It worked that time - the truth got submerged in a sea of lies, cover-ups and distortions and the Clinton presidency survived.
Now they're at it again, hissing and slithering around, forked tongues darting, as they try to divert the nation's attention from one of the most serious charges ever leveled against a presidential candidate - that John Kerry told a series of egregious lies about his military service, elevating the story of his questionable behavior in combat into a saga of heroism.
The current party line is that it's all a Republican plot. The GOP attack machine financed by fat cat Republicans is behind the charges by a horde of Vietnam veterans who served side-by-side with John Kerry. And out comes guess who? Why it's none other than Lanny Davis, appearing on the Hannity and Colmes show and still at it, spouting a series of alibis having nothing to do with the facts.
The facts, you see, must be obfuscated. They are too well documented and far too damning to the political future of John Kerry to be allowed to get a thorough airing in public. Call out the lawyers, attack the critics, squelch the truth at all costs.
Well, somehow I don't think it will work this time, despite Davis and his fellow Democrat spinmeisters and their eager allies in the media. It won't work because John Kerry is already seen as a serial flip-flopper, taking both sides of every issue, and everything he says or does must in the public eye be seen as subject to extreme scrutiny. In other words, the groundwork has been laid - Kerry won't be able to duck and evade the charges against him and his vaunted war record. So, Senator Kerry, it's time for you to put up or shut up.
You might start by releasing all your medical records. According to Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, constructing a complete picture of your service is difficult due to gaps in the Naval records provided by your campaign. These gaps include missing and incomplete fitness reports, missing medical records and missing records related to your medal awards.
"For this reason," they say, "we call upon Senator Kerry to authorize complete access to all his military records by filing a standard Form 180, a simple two-page release form."
Then you might try to answer the very detailed charges leveled against you by hundreds of Vietnam vets who served side-by-side with you over your four months as a Swift Boat commander. These allegations are contained in John O'Neill's and Jerome R. Corsi's book "Unfit for Command" a book which columnist Robert Novak noted was meticulously researched.
The list of Swift Boat vets includes your entire chain of command - every single officer you served under in Vietnam. Your answer to their charges thus far is simply to ignore all this and pretend that the 13 veterans your campaign jets around the country and puts up in five-star hotels really represent the truth about your short, controversial combat tour.
According to the Swiftboatvets.com "Senator John Kerry has made his four-month combat tour in Vietnam the centerpiece of his bid for the Presidency. His campaign jets a handful of veterans around the country, and trots them out at public appearances to sing his praises. John Kerry wants us to believe that these men represent all those he calls his 'band of brothers.' But most combat veterans who served with John Kerry in Vietnam see him in a very different light.
"Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has been formed to counter the false "war crimes" charges John Kerry repeatedly made against Vietnam veterans who served in our units and elsewhere, and to accurately portray Kerry's brief tour in Vietnam as a junior grade Lieutenant. We speak from personal experience - our group includes men who served beside Kerry in combat as well as his commanders. Though we come from different backgrounds and hold varying political opinions, we agree on one thing: John Kerry misrepresented his record and ours in Vietnam and therefore exhibits serious flaws in character and lacks the potential to lead.
"We regret the need to do this. Most swift boat veterans would like nothing better than to support one of our own for America's highest office, regardless of whether he was running as a Democrat or a Republican. However, Kerry's phony war crimes charges, his exaggerated claims about his own service in Vietnam, and his deliberate misrepresentation of the nature and effectiveness of swift boat operations compels us to step forward.
"For more than 30 years, most Vietnam veterans kept silent as we were maligned as misfits, addicts, and baby killers. Now that a key creator of that poisonous image is seeking the Presidency we have resolved to end our silence.
"The time has come to set the record straight."
Kerry, tell your smear merchants to stop besmirching the 250 or so vets, many highly decorated, who have cast serious doubt on your fitness to serve as the nation's commander in chief. You did enough of that yourself when you slandered tens of thousands of your fellow Vietnam war comrades as baby killers and war criminals.
I haven't read the book but I did read one chapter and it is devastating in its solidly backed accounts of your behavior as a Swift boat skipper. What you are facing, Senator, are facts. And smearing those who provided the facts is no way to portray yourself as trustworthy.
Based on the recollections of those who served with you in the Swift boat units two of your three Purple Hearts resulted from self-inflicted wounds, your Bronze Star was unearned, your fellow Swift Boat skippers had nothing but contempt for you, and you lied about your roles in certain combat incidents.
You can't explain away these facts, or your whopper about being in Cambodia on Christmas eve in December 1968. The story was denied by at least three of the five crewmen on your boat, Bill Zaldonis, Steven Hatch, and Steve Gardner, who say that neither they nor their boat were ever in Cambodia. You can't discredit these facts simply by smearing hundreds of officers and enlisted men who have come forward to warn the public about your deceptions.
As more and more Americans read this explosive book, most of them will agree with the book's title, that you are indeed "unfit for command." If you have answers for each of the well-documented allegations, you had better come forth with them now and stop relying on your sleazy surrogates to sling the muck for you.
Either put up or shut up, Senator.
Link: here (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/8/12/103303.shtml)
They would trot out surrogates such as the oily Lanny Davis to obfuscate the truth and go on the offense against the president's accusers. After all, they would tell us, it's just another example of the vast right wing conspiracy's attack machine's attempts to smear the president. It worked that time - the truth got submerged in a sea of lies, cover-ups and distortions and the Clinton presidency survived.
Now they're at it again, hissing and slithering around, forked tongues darting, as they try to divert the nation's attention from one of the most serious charges ever leveled against a presidential candidate - that John Kerry told a series of egregious lies about his military service, elevating the story of his questionable behavior in combat into a saga of heroism.
The current party line is that it's all a Republican plot. The GOP attack machine financed by fat cat Republicans is behind the charges by a horde of Vietnam veterans who served side-by-side with John Kerry. And out comes guess who? Why it's none other than Lanny Davis, appearing on the Hannity and Colmes show and still at it, spouting a series of alibis having nothing to do with the facts.
The facts, you see, must be obfuscated. They are too well documented and far too damning to the political future of John Kerry to be allowed to get a thorough airing in public. Call out the lawyers, attack the critics, squelch the truth at all costs.
Well, somehow I don't think it will work this time, despite Davis and his fellow Democrat spinmeisters and their eager allies in the media. It won't work because John Kerry is already seen as a serial flip-flopper, taking both sides of every issue, and everything he says or does must in the public eye be seen as subject to extreme scrutiny. In other words, the groundwork has been laid - Kerry won't be able to duck and evade the charges against him and his vaunted war record. So, Senator Kerry, it's time for you to put up or shut up.
You might start by releasing all your medical records. According to Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, constructing a complete picture of your service is difficult due to gaps in the Naval records provided by your campaign. These gaps include missing and incomplete fitness reports, missing medical records and missing records related to your medal awards.
"For this reason," they say, "we call upon Senator Kerry to authorize complete access to all his military records by filing a standard Form 180, a simple two-page release form."
Then you might try to answer the very detailed charges leveled against you by hundreds of Vietnam vets who served side-by-side with you over your four months as a Swift Boat commander. These allegations are contained in John O'Neill's and Jerome R. Corsi's book "Unfit for Command" a book which columnist Robert Novak noted was meticulously researched.
The list of Swift Boat vets includes your entire chain of command - every single officer you served under in Vietnam. Your answer to their charges thus far is simply to ignore all this and pretend that the 13 veterans your campaign jets around the country and puts up in five-star hotels really represent the truth about your short, controversial combat tour.
According to the Swiftboatvets.com "Senator John Kerry has made his four-month combat tour in Vietnam the centerpiece of his bid for the Presidency. His campaign jets a handful of veterans around the country, and trots them out at public appearances to sing his praises. John Kerry wants us to believe that these men represent all those he calls his 'band of brothers.' But most combat veterans who served with John Kerry in Vietnam see him in a very different light.
"Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has been formed to counter the false "war crimes" charges John Kerry repeatedly made against Vietnam veterans who served in our units and elsewhere, and to accurately portray Kerry's brief tour in Vietnam as a junior grade Lieutenant. We speak from personal experience - our group includes men who served beside Kerry in combat as well as his commanders. Though we come from different backgrounds and hold varying political opinions, we agree on one thing: John Kerry misrepresented his record and ours in Vietnam and therefore exhibits serious flaws in character and lacks the potential to lead.
"We regret the need to do this. Most swift boat veterans would like nothing better than to support one of our own for America's highest office, regardless of whether he was running as a Democrat or a Republican. However, Kerry's phony war crimes charges, his exaggerated claims about his own service in Vietnam, and his deliberate misrepresentation of the nature and effectiveness of swift boat operations compels us to step forward.
"For more than 30 years, most Vietnam veterans kept silent as we were maligned as misfits, addicts, and baby killers. Now that a key creator of that poisonous image is seeking the Presidency we have resolved to end our silence.
"The time has come to set the record straight."
Kerry, tell your smear merchants to stop besmirching the 250 or so vets, many highly decorated, who have cast serious doubt on your fitness to serve as the nation's commander in chief. You did enough of that yourself when you slandered tens of thousands of your fellow Vietnam war comrades as baby killers and war criminals.
I haven't read the book but I did read one chapter and it is devastating in its solidly backed accounts of your behavior as a Swift boat skipper. What you are facing, Senator, are facts. And smearing those who provided the facts is no way to portray yourself as trustworthy.
Based on the recollections of those who served with you in the Swift boat units two of your three Purple Hearts resulted from self-inflicted wounds, your Bronze Star was unearned, your fellow Swift Boat skippers had nothing but contempt for you, and you lied about your roles in certain combat incidents.
You can't explain away these facts, or your whopper about being in Cambodia on Christmas eve in December 1968. The story was denied by at least three of the five crewmen on your boat, Bill Zaldonis, Steven Hatch, and Steve Gardner, who say that neither they nor their boat were ever in Cambodia. You can't discredit these facts simply by smearing hundreds of officers and enlisted men who have come forward to warn the public about your deceptions.
As more and more Americans read this explosive book, most of them will agree with the book's title, that you are indeed "unfit for command." If you have answers for each of the well-documented allegations, you had better come forth with them now and stop relying on your sleazy surrogates to sling the muck for you.
Either put up or shut up, Senator.
Link: here (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/8/12/103303.shtml)