Viking
08-16-2004, 08:04 PM
It was hard not to chuckle at the piece of pantomime as John Kerry appeared on stage at the Democratic National Convention, gave a mock salute, and said, "My name is John Kerry, and I am reporting for duty."
This, I thought, is the start of the man's undoing.
It was all just too theatrical. Something of a charade.
Kerry has painted himself both as a Vietnam war hero and as an anti-Vietnam war demonstrator.
Well, you can likely be one of the two, but hardly both.
Now a sensational new book is hitting the bookshelves and it paints a far different picture of the self-proclaimed, heiress-marrying hero than we have so far known.
Unfit for Command by John O'Neill and Jerome Corsi (Regnery Publishing Inc, $29.95 US) charges Kerry was someone who couldn't get out of Vietnam quick enough and possibly a traitor who, according to secret FBI records, lauded Communist leader Ho Chi Minh as "the George Washington of Vietnam" in a speech in Philadelphia in 1971.
O'Neill actually succeeded Kerry as commander of Swift boat PCF 94 in Vietnam, and in 1971 soundly defeated him in a debate on the Dick Cavett Show on TV.
O'Neill and Corsi assess Kerry as a "liar and a fraud and unfit to be the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces."
Pretty strong language, by any measure.
They back up this character attack with a wide-ranging number of anecdotes collected from men who served with, or knew, Kerry during his less than one-year stint in Vietnam.
Just learning the Democratic presidential contender spent less than a year in Vietnam may surprise many, since his self-portrayal makes one believe he spent an extended period of time on dangerous assignment in that war-torn nation.
It's true Kerry received three Purple Heart medals for being wounded in action, and with those three he automatically earned the right to be shipped back home.
He'd done his duty.
Yet O'Neill and Corsi claim not only were the three wounds superficial, but alleges one was self-inflicted. The authors say an accompanying crewman told the examining doctor who was treating Kerry for his first "wartime injury" that Kerry even then was planning to run for president.
Quickly, set the stage!
They claim Kerry spent much of his time in Vietnam filming himself in scenarios carefully designed to look dangerous, and it is certainly true Kerry did take a movie camera with him to Vietnam. Again, setting the stage?
Kerry himself is obviously going to have to refute with evidence many of the accusations in this 208-page work, one by one, because you can bet they will become the subject of TV talk shows, investigative reporting, and even negative TV political commercials.
The authors insist Kerry helped disseminate KGB-generated anti-American propaganda during his anti-war activities -- activities in which he pretended to throw away his Vietnam medals in disgust while secretly keeping them to peer at alone at night -- and that he had secret discussions with Vietnamese Communists in Paris in 1970.
It is documented Kerry's photograph was found in the Heroes of the Vietnamese Resistance section of the War Remnants Museum in Saigon and that the Vietnamese Communist leadership considered him to be their hero.
O'Neill -- again Kerry's successor as commander of the Swift PCF 94 -- says the presidential nominee was so self-centred and such a self-promoter that fed-up crew members asked him to go home after he had served just four months in Vietnam.
They quote the gunner's mate who sat behind Kerry for most of his stay in Vietnam saying he came to regard him as incompetent and dishonest.
Certainly, questions have been raised many times over the years about Kerry's carefully-crafted persona involving both his war record, his anti-war activities and his non-stop flip-flopping on issues and Senate voting record.
The conservative intellectual William F. Buckley, hardly a fanatic, wrote a critique in 1971 of Kerry's anti-war testimony and described it as "the indictment of an ignorant young man" willing to level baseless charges.
O'Neill and Corsi conclude, Kerry is as self-obsessed and as ruthlessly calculating as Bill (Slick Willie) Clinton.
Americans surely do deserve answers to all these disturbing allegations and it is only Kerry who can give answers.
Let's just hope they are not throwaway answers akin to throwaway medals.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Calgary/Paul_Jackson/2004/08/15/583438.html
This, I thought, is the start of the man's undoing.
It was all just too theatrical. Something of a charade.
Kerry has painted himself both as a Vietnam war hero and as an anti-Vietnam war demonstrator.
Well, you can likely be one of the two, but hardly both.
Now a sensational new book is hitting the bookshelves and it paints a far different picture of the self-proclaimed, heiress-marrying hero than we have so far known.
Unfit for Command by John O'Neill and Jerome Corsi (Regnery Publishing Inc, $29.95 US) charges Kerry was someone who couldn't get out of Vietnam quick enough and possibly a traitor who, according to secret FBI records, lauded Communist leader Ho Chi Minh as "the George Washington of Vietnam" in a speech in Philadelphia in 1971.
O'Neill actually succeeded Kerry as commander of Swift boat PCF 94 in Vietnam, and in 1971 soundly defeated him in a debate on the Dick Cavett Show on TV.
O'Neill and Corsi assess Kerry as a "liar and a fraud and unfit to be the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces."
Pretty strong language, by any measure.
They back up this character attack with a wide-ranging number of anecdotes collected from men who served with, or knew, Kerry during his less than one-year stint in Vietnam.
Just learning the Democratic presidential contender spent less than a year in Vietnam may surprise many, since his self-portrayal makes one believe he spent an extended period of time on dangerous assignment in that war-torn nation.
It's true Kerry received three Purple Heart medals for being wounded in action, and with those three he automatically earned the right to be shipped back home.
He'd done his duty.
Yet O'Neill and Corsi claim not only were the three wounds superficial, but alleges one was self-inflicted. The authors say an accompanying crewman told the examining doctor who was treating Kerry for his first "wartime injury" that Kerry even then was planning to run for president.
Quickly, set the stage!
They claim Kerry spent much of his time in Vietnam filming himself in scenarios carefully designed to look dangerous, and it is certainly true Kerry did take a movie camera with him to Vietnam. Again, setting the stage?
Kerry himself is obviously going to have to refute with evidence many of the accusations in this 208-page work, one by one, because you can bet they will become the subject of TV talk shows, investigative reporting, and even negative TV political commercials.
The authors insist Kerry helped disseminate KGB-generated anti-American propaganda during his anti-war activities -- activities in which he pretended to throw away his Vietnam medals in disgust while secretly keeping them to peer at alone at night -- and that he had secret discussions with Vietnamese Communists in Paris in 1970.
It is documented Kerry's photograph was found in the Heroes of the Vietnamese Resistance section of the War Remnants Museum in Saigon and that the Vietnamese Communist leadership considered him to be their hero.
O'Neill -- again Kerry's successor as commander of the Swift PCF 94 -- says the presidential nominee was so self-centred and such a self-promoter that fed-up crew members asked him to go home after he had served just four months in Vietnam.
They quote the gunner's mate who sat behind Kerry for most of his stay in Vietnam saying he came to regard him as incompetent and dishonest.
Certainly, questions have been raised many times over the years about Kerry's carefully-crafted persona involving both his war record, his anti-war activities and his non-stop flip-flopping on issues and Senate voting record.
The conservative intellectual William F. Buckley, hardly a fanatic, wrote a critique in 1971 of Kerry's anti-war testimony and described it as "the indictment of an ignorant young man" willing to level baseless charges.
O'Neill and Corsi conclude, Kerry is as self-obsessed and as ruthlessly calculating as Bill (Slick Willie) Clinton.
Americans surely do deserve answers to all these disturbing allegations and it is only Kerry who can give answers.
Let's just hope they are not throwaway answers akin to throwaway medals.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Calgary/Paul_Jackson/2004/08/15/583438.html