Nick, no if you read that correctly it says at best that 19 of 23 officers contacted would sign. It does not say that only 23 officers served with kerry. In fact that number would be extraordinarily low if my experience in JROTC is any indication...
"We have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every commanding officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter that says he is unfit to be commander-in-chief," O'Neill said.
every commanding officer doesn't sound like "just the ones we could reach"
segovius what the hell are you smoking because I want some. Are you deliberately trolling? Oh what the hell... John Kerry is a Bush lite? Huh? It's night and day. He is pro enviromnent: Bush eats the environment for breakfast. He is a war hero: Bush is a Chicken Hawk. He is smart, Bush is dumb. He is pro choice, Bush is pro-God. Bush=Ashcroft and the Patriot Act, Kerry doesn't. Bush = lying to the public. And needing cheney to hold his hand while he lies because he isn't under oath and is behind closed doors, about lying in the first place. At least SDW2001 gets that. Ask trumptman and SDW2001 if they think Kerry is a Bush lite. However I DO agree he would be more "conservative" in terms of freakin money, something you think Republicans would understand. And yet the defict always swells when the GOP is running the show. Reaganomics didn't work last time so Bush tried it again and looked what happened. Duuuh.
Nick, no if you read that correctly it says at best that 19 of 23 officers contacted would sign. It does not say that only 23 officers served with kerry. In fact that number would be extraordinarily low if my experience in JROTC is any indication...
I quoted the article. You can show how it was read incorrectly. It would be easier to claim they are simply lying about how many officers served with Kerry. I see no modifier that the 23 were only those that were contacted. I've left it quite open to people beyond this as well. If you find a source that says otherwise, I'll gladly see this as portrayed in a misleading manner. However for now, it appears they are showing the ratio of all officers.
Quote:
"We have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every commanding officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter that says he is unfit to be commander-in-chief," O'Neill said.
I'm sure the Kerry campaign would try the same type of thing but they can't seem to find anyone that served with George W. Bush so it's kind of a moot point.
Seriously though, are they trying to say that Kerry didn't deserve his Silver Star? Two of his Purple Hearts have never been called into question, are they signing this because of the third?
This is why I have so much respect for Senator John McCain. McCain has the backbone to stand up and say that political attacks on war veterans such as John Kerry and Max Cleland are wrong, especially when it's questioning the service they gave to their country.
The Bush campaign got McCain in South Carolina in 2000 and overshadowed the issues with absurd fake news stories and by questioning his patriotism, etc. That's how Bush is able to win- not on a platform but by launching character attacks on his political opponents.
Of course, with the economy the way it is, the number of jobs lost in the last 4 years, gas prices going up, milk prices going up, a war on terror going poorly, a war in Iraq going even worse, and scandal after scandal (which the press just ignores at this point), why would Bush want to focus on the issues? Let's not forget that this is the man who can't think of ONE THING HE HAS DONE WRONG EVER!
Is it any real surprise that the Republicans want to slander Kerry like this? There's no other way that Bush can win re-election and if there was, why are they spending so much money on attacking John Kerry instead of defining President Bush's message for the future?
This is perhaps a silly and irrelevant sub-discussion but it is clear that that they are only referring to those people they contacted given the other "stats" in the article. They say only 19 of 23 officers that served with kerry. Why would you assume that this is all? They say nowhere all.
We have 19 of 23 chemistry majors that took courses with billybobsky. To assume that this means there are only 23 chemistry majors that took courses with me is unnecessary; if the statistics were honest we can only ascertain that they contacted 23 people and nineteen said something about me...
Edit: Actually it is important to realize that they do not say 19 of THE 23 officers that served with Kerry. That is a key distinction...
This is why I have so much respect for Senator John McCain. McCain has the backbone to stand up and say that political attacks on war veterans such as John Kerry and Max Cleland are wrong, especially when it's questioning the service they gave to their country.
...
Rethink what you just wrote.
Any veteran in politics should be free from all political attacks because he's a veteran? How's politics supposed to work under those conditions?
It was Kerry that made his military service a major part of his campaign. He can mention it over and over and over without someone saying, "You know he wasn't that great and ..."
This is perhaps a silly and irrelevant sub-discussion but it is clear that that they are only referring to those people they contacted given the other "stats" in the article. They say only 19 of 23 officers that served with kerry. Why would you assume that this is all? They say nowhere all.
We have 19 of 23 chemistry majors that took courses with billybobsky. To assume that this means there are only 23 chemistry majors that took courses with me is unnecessary; if the statistics were honest we can only ascertain that they contacted 23 people and nineteen said something about me...
"We have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every commanding officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter that says he is unfit to be commander-in-chief,"
"We have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every commanding officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter that says he is unfit to be commander-in-chief,"
Yeah, that wasn't what I was arguing. Good job missing the point. We know why his commanding officers might be pissed at him still...
It is however irrelevant what these people who 'knew' him 30 years ago feel about him...
ITs not a spontaneous thing, it is organized, and by now, rote . . . they are so good at character assasination . . . its long and convoluted but so is the truth of this ugly smear tactic:
"May 4, 2004 _|_ The latest conservative outfit to fire an angry broadside against John Kerry's heroic war record is "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," which today launches a campaign to brand the Democrat "unfit to serve as commander in chief." Billing itself as representing the "other 97 percent of veterans" from Kerry's Navy unit who don't support his presidential candidacy, the group insists that all presidential candidates must be "totally honest and forthcoming" about their military service.
These "swift boat vets" claim still to be furious about Kerry's 1971 Senate testimony against the war in which he spoke about atrocities in Indochina's "free fire zones." More than three decades later, facing the complicated truth about Vietnam remains difficult. But this group's political connections make clear that its agenda is to target the election of 2004.
Behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are veteran corporate media consultant and Texas Republican activist Merrie Spaeth, who is listed as the group's media contact; eternal Kerry antagonist and Dallas attorney John E. O'Neill, law partner of Spaeth's late husband, Tex Lezar; and retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffman, a cigar-chomping former Vietnam commander once described as "the classic body-count guy" who "wanted hooches destroyed and people killed."
Spaeth told Salon that O'Neill first approached her last winter to discuss his "concerns about Sen. Kerry." O'Neill has been assailing Kerry since 1971, when the former Navy officer was selected for the role by Charles Colson, Richard Nixon's dirty-tricks aide. Spaeth heard O'Neill out, but told him, she says, that he "sounded like a crazed extremist" and should "button his lip" and avoid speaking with the press. But since Kerry clinched the Democratic nomination, Spaeth has changed her mind and decided to donate her public relations services on a "pro bono" basis to O'Neill's latest anti-Kerry effort. "About three weeks ago, four weeks ago," she said, the group's leaders "met in my office for about 12 hours" to prepare for their Washington debut.
Although not as well known as Karen Hughes, Spaeth is among the most experienced and best connected Republican communications executives. During the Reagan administration she served as director of the White House Office of Media Liaison, where she specialized in promoting "news" items that boosted President Reagan to TV stations around the country. While living in Washington she met and married Lezar, a Reagan Justice Department lawyer who ran for lieutenant governor of Texas in 1994 with George W. Bush, then the party's candidate for governor. (Lezar lost; Bush won.)
Through Lezar, who died of a heart attack last January, she met O'Neill, his law partner in Clements, O'Neill, Pierce, Wilson & Fulkerson, a Dallas firm. (It also includes Margaret Wilson, the former counsel to Gov. Bush who followed him to Washington, where she served for a time as a deputy counsel in the Department of Commerce.)
Spaeth's partisanship runs still deeper, as does her history of handling difficult P.R. cases for Republicans. In 1998, for example, she coached Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel, to prepare him for his testimony urging the impeachment of President Clinton before the House Judiciary Committee. She even reviewed videotapes of his previous television appearances to give him pointers about his delivery and demeanor. The man responsible for arranging her advice to Starr was another old friend of her late husband's, Theodore Olson, who was counsel to the right-wing American Spectator when it acted as a front for the dirty-tricks campaign against Clinton known as the Arkansas Project; he is now the solicitor general in the Bush Justice Department. (Olson also happens to be the godfather of Spaeth's daughter.)
In 2000, Spaeth participated in the most subterranean episode of the Republican primary contest when a shadowy group billed as "Republicans for Clean Air" produced television ads falsely attacking the environmental record of Sen. John McCain in California, New York and Ohio. While the identity of those funding the supposedly "independent" ads was carefully hidden, reporters soon learned that Republicans for Clean Air was simply Sam Wyly -- a big Bush contributor and beneficiary of Bush administration decisions in Texas -- and his brother, Charles, another Bush "Pioneer" contributor. (One of the Wyly family's private capital funds, Maverick Capital of Dallas, had been awarded a state contract to invest $90 million for the University of Texas endowment.)
When the secret emerged, spokeswoman Spaeth caught the flak for the Wylys, an experience she recalled to me as "horrible" and "awful." Her job was to assure reporters that there had been no illegal coordination between the Bush campaign and the Wyly brothers in arranging the McCain-trashing message. Not everyone believed her explanation, including the Arizona senator.
The veteran group's founder, Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, first gained notoriety in Vietnam as a strutting, cigar-chewing Navy captain. But it was O'Neill, by now a familiar figure on the Kerry-bashing circuit, who came to Spaeth for assistance.
Until now, Hoffmann has been best known as the commanding officer whose obsession with body counts and "scorekeeping" may have provoked the February 1969 massacre of Vietnamese civilians at Thanh Phong by a unit led by Bob Kerrey -- the Medal of Honor winner who lost a leg in Nam, became a U.S. senator from Nebraska and now sits on the 9/11 commission.
After journalist Gregory Vistica exposed the Thanh Phong massacre and the surrounding circumstances in the New York Times magazine three years ago, conservative columnist Christopher Caldwell took particular note of the cameo role played by Kerrey's C.O., who had warned his men not to return from missions without enough kills. "One of the myths due to die as a result of Vistica's article is that which holds the war could have been won sensibly and cleanly if the 'suits' back in Washington had merely left the military men to their own devices," Caldwell wrote. "In this light, one of the great merits of Vistica's article is its portrait of the Kurtz-like psychopath who commanded Kerrey's Navy task force, Capt. Roy Hoffmann."
Arguments about the war in Vietnam seem destined to continue forever. For now, however, the lingering bitterness and ambiguity of those days provide smear material against an antiwar war hero with five medals on behalf of a privileged Guardsman with a dubious duty record. The president's Texas allies -- whose animus against his Democratic challenger dates back to the Nixon era -- are now deploying the same techniques and personnel they used to attack McCain's integrity four years ago. Bush's "independent" supporters would apparently rather talk about the Vietnam quagmire than about his deadly incompetence in Iraq."
Yeah, that wasn't what I was arguing. Good job missing the point. We know why his commanding officers might be pissed at him still...
It is however irrelevant what these people who 'knew' him 30 years ago feel about him...
Your point purposely ignored an important part of the article. If you bad mouthed your college, would you expect every single professor you ever had sign a statement saying what a useless tit you were? Would additionally, 19 out of 23 classmates claiming you were a dishonest, cheating moron be the only point of focus, or should both be examined as possibly being related, perhaps even important as to your character?
You imply that the 19 out of 23 is useless, because they must have been hand-picked and the 100% of commanding officers is useless, because they must be lying, bitter men. The opinion 19/23 of any group that knew you intimately should probably be considered, if trying to get to know you from a distance. The opinion of 100% of your superiors, bitter or not, should also have some weight.
Amazing that your replies complain about personal attacks, and all you post to discredit the information given about Kerry is a huge attack on all the parties who dare to criticize him. No addressing their claims. Instead we get conspiratorial phrases that would make any secret police organization proud.
Amazing that your replies complain about personal attacks, and all you post to discredit the information given about Kerry is a huge attack on all the parties who dare to criticize him. No addressing their claims. Instead we get conspiratorial phrases that would make any secret police organization proud.
Nick
You must be kidding me . . . its a bit journalistic . . .but really?!?
You must be kidding me . . . its a bit journalistic . . .but really?!?
Why don't you go ahead and link to the source so we can read all of it instead of just the selective quoting you do. I understand why you do it in the post, but it is common practice to give others a link to the source so they can read more than what you deemed most important.
Why don't you go ahead and link to the source so we can read all of it instead of just the selective quoting you do. I understand why you do it in the post, but it is common practice to give others a link to the source so they can read more than what you deemed most important.
Nick
It is the whole article . . its from Salon . . . I don't feel like hunting it down. . . . do it yourself . . .Im going to bed . . **** ** ******
Any veteran in politics should be free from all political attacks because he's a veteran? How's politics supposed to work under those conditions?
It was Kerry that made his military service a major part of his campaign. He can mention it over and over and over without someone saying, "You know he wasn't that great and ..."
Kerry made it an issue so now it's an issue.
I don't think they should be immune from attacks on the issues, but if John Kerry 'wasn't so great', then why did he get the Silver Star or the Bronze Star? Was he *not* responsible for saving the lives of everyone on his boat from enemy attack by taking out that grenade launcher?
The bottom line is that former President Bush had set his son up in a cushy position in the Air National Guard so he wouldn't have to serve in Vietnam, and Vice President Cheney never served, yet they are making the *CENTRAL* point of their campaign for re-election to be John Kerry's military record. The point is that John Kerry was recognized as being a hero who saved the lives of the men on his boat and the Bush campaign doesn't want the people to know of his acts of bravery.
John Kerry has pointed out that he is a war veteran, this is true. But how is it inappropriate to point out one's national service record, especially when that person is a decorated officer? It is disgraceful that the Bush administration is trying to find people who will attack Kerry's war record when President Bush himself is hard pressed to find anyone who even *served* with him in the 70s.
I was on Mr. Kerry's boat in Vietnam. He doesn't deserve to be commander in chief.
BY JOHN O'NEILL
Tuesday, May 4, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
HOUSTON--In 1971, I debated John Kerry, then a national spokesman for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, for 90 minutes on "The Dick Cavett Show." The key issue in that debate was Mr. Kerry's claim that American troops were committing war crimes in Vietnam "on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." Now, as Sen. Kerry emerges as the presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidency, I've chosen to re-enter the fray.
Like John Kerry, I served in Vietnam as a Swift Boat commander. Ironically, John Kerry and I served much of our time, a full 12 months in my case and a controversial four months in his, commanding the exact same six-man boat, PCF-94, which I took over after he requested early departure. Despite our shared experience, I still believe what I believed 33 years ago--that John Kerry slandered America's military by inventing or repeating grossly exaggerated claims of atrocities and war crimes in order to advance his own political career as an antiwar activist. His misrepresentations played a significant role in creating the negative and false image of Vietnam vets that has persisted for over three decades.
Neither I, nor any man I served with, ever committed any atrocity or war crime in Vietnam. The opposite was the truth. Rather than use excessive force, we suffered casualty after casualty because we chose to refrain from firing rather than risk injuring civilians. More than once, I saw friends die in areas we entered with loudspeakers rather than guns. John Kerry's accusations then and now were an injustice that struck at the soul of anyone who served there.
During my 1971 televised debate with John Kerry, I accused him of lying. I urged him to come forth with affidavits from the soldiers who had claimed to have committed or witnessed atrocities. To date no such affidavits have been filed. Recently, Sen. Kerry has attempted to reframe his comments as youthful or "over the top." Yet always there has been a calculated coolness to the way he has sought to destroy the record of our honorable service in the interest of promoting his political ambitions of the moment.
John Kennedy's book, "Profiles in Courage," and Dwight Eisenhower's "Crusade in Europe" inspired generations. Not so John Kerry, who has suppressed his book, "The New Soldier," prohibiting its reprinting. There is a clear reason for this. The book repeats John Kerry's insults to the American military, beginning with its front-cover image of the American flag being carried upside down by a band of bearded renegades in uniform--a clear slap at the brave Marines in their combat gear who raised our flag at Iwo Jima. Allow me the reprint rights to your book, Sen. Kerry, and I will make sure copies of "The New Soldier" are available in bookstores throughout America.
Vietnam was a long time ago. Why does it matter today? Since the days of the Roman Empire, the concept of military loyalty up and down the chain of command has been indispensable. The commander's loyalty to the troops is the price a commander pays for the loyalty of the troops in return. How can a man be commander in chief who for over 30 years has accused his "Band of Brothers," as well as himself, of being war criminals? On a practical basis, John Kerry's breach of loyalty is a prescription of disaster for our armed forces.
John Kerry's recent admissions caused me to realize that I was most likely in Vietnam dodging enemy rockets on the very day he met in Paris with Madame Binh, the representative of the Viet Cong to the Paris Peace Conference. John Kerry returned to the U.S. to become a national spokesperson for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a radical fringe of the antiwar movement, an organization set upon propagating the myth of war crimes through demonstrably false assertions. Who was the last American POW to die languishing in a North Vietnamese prison forced to listen to the recorded voice of John Kerry disgracing their service by his dishonest testimony before the Senate?
Since 1971, I have refused many offers from John Kerry's political opponents to speak out against him. My reluctance to become involved once again in politics is outweighed now by my profound conviction that John Kerry is simply not fit to be America's commander in chief. Nobody has recruited me to come forward. My decision is the inevitable result of my own personal beliefs and life experience.
Today, America is engaged in a new war, against the militant Islamist terrorists who attacked us on our own soil. Reasonable people may differ about how best to proceed, but I'm sure of one thing--John Kerry is the wrong man to put in charge.
Mr. O'Neill served in Coastal Division 11 in 1969-70, winning two Bronze Stars and additional decorations for his service in Vietnam.
Comments
Carry on...
Originally posted by trumptman
SDW's example has those that Kerry was working WITH.
How many years ago? And what criteria are they using to make their decisions? And how much contact have they had with Kerry in the last 30 years?
Hogwash.
"We have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every commanding officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter that says he is unfit to be commander-in-chief," O'Neill said.
every commanding officer doesn't sound like "just the ones we could reach"
Originally posted by billybobsky
Nick, no if you read that correctly it says at best that 19 of 23 officers contacted would sign. It does not say that only 23 officers served with kerry. In fact that number would be extraordinarily low if my experience in JROTC is any indication...
I quoted the article. You can show how it was read incorrectly. It would be easier to claim they are simply lying about how many officers served with Kerry. I see no modifier that the 23 were only those that were contacted. I've left it quite open to people beyond this as well. If you find a source that says otherwise, I'll gladly see this as portrayed in a misleading manner. However for now, it appears they are showing the ratio of all officers.
"We have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every commanding officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter that says he is unfit to be commander-in-chief," O'Neill said.
Nick
Seriously though, are they trying to say that Kerry didn't deserve his Silver Star? Two of his Purple Hearts have never been called into question, are they signing this because of the third?
This is why I have so much respect for Senator John McCain. McCain has the backbone to stand up and say that political attacks on war veterans such as John Kerry and Max Cleland are wrong, especially when it's questioning the service they gave to their country.
The Bush campaign got McCain in South Carolina in 2000 and overshadowed the issues with absurd fake news stories and by questioning his patriotism, etc. That's how Bush is able to win- not on a platform but by launching character attacks on his political opponents.
Of course, with the economy the way it is, the number of jobs lost in the last 4 years, gas prices going up, milk prices going up, a war on terror going poorly, a war in Iraq going even worse, and scandal after scandal (which the press just ignores at this point), why would Bush want to focus on the issues? Let's not forget that this is the man who can't think of ONE THING HE HAS DONE WRONG EVER!
Is it any real surprise that the Republicans want to slander Kerry like this? There's no other way that Bush can win re-election and if there was, why are they spending so much money on attacking John Kerry instead of defining President Bush's message for the future?
We have 19 of 23 chemistry majors that took courses with billybobsky. To assume that this means there are only 23 chemistry majors that took courses with me is unnecessary; if the statistics were honest we can only ascertain that they contacted 23 people and nineteen said something about me...
Edit: Actually it is important to realize that they do not say 19 of THE 23 officers that served with Kerry. That is a key distinction...
Originally posted by Fran441
...
This is why I have so much respect for Senator John McCain. McCain has the backbone to stand up and say that political attacks on war veterans such as John Kerry and Max Cleland are wrong, especially when it's questioning the service they gave to their country.
...
Rethink what you just wrote.
Any veteran in politics should be free from all political attacks because he's a veteran? How's politics supposed to work under those conditions?
It was Kerry that made his military service a major part of his campaign. He can mention it over and over and over without someone saying, "You know he wasn't that great and ..."
Kerry made it an issue so now it's an issue.
Originally posted by billybobsky
This is perhaps a silly and irrelevant sub-discussion but it is clear that that they are only referring to those people they contacted given the other "stats" in the article. They say only 19 of 23 officers that served with kerry. Why would you assume that this is all? They say nowhere all.
We have 19 of 23 chemistry majors that took courses with billybobsky. To assume that this means there are only 23 chemistry majors that took courses with me is unnecessary; if the statistics were honest we can only ascertain that they contacted 23 people and nineteen said something about me...
"We have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every commanding officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter that says he is unfit to be commander-in-chief,"
Originally posted by Tulkas
"We have 19 of 23 officers who served with [Kerry]. We have every commanding officer he ever had in Vietnam. They all signed a letter that says he is unfit to be commander-in-chief,"
Yeah, that wasn't what I was arguing. Good job missing the point. We know why his commanding officers might be pissed at him still...
It is however irrelevant what these people who 'knew' him 30 years ago feel about him...
"May 4, 2004 _|_ The latest conservative outfit to fire an angry broadside against John Kerry's heroic war record is "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," which today launches a campaign to brand the Democrat "unfit to serve as commander in chief." Billing itself as representing the "other 97 percent of veterans" from Kerry's Navy unit who don't support his presidential candidacy, the group insists that all presidential candidates must be "totally honest and forthcoming" about their military service.
These "swift boat vets" claim still to be furious about Kerry's 1971 Senate testimony against the war in which he spoke about atrocities in Indochina's "free fire zones." More than three decades later, facing the complicated truth about Vietnam remains difficult. But this group's political connections make clear that its agenda is to target the election of 2004.
Behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are veteran corporate media consultant and Texas Republican activist Merrie Spaeth, who is listed as the group's media contact; eternal Kerry antagonist and Dallas attorney John E. O'Neill, law partner of Spaeth's late husband, Tex Lezar; and retired Rear Adm. Roy Hoffman, a cigar-chomping former Vietnam commander once described as "the classic body-count guy" who "wanted hooches destroyed and people killed."
Spaeth told Salon that O'Neill first approached her last winter to discuss his "concerns about Sen. Kerry." O'Neill has been assailing Kerry since 1971, when the former Navy officer was selected for the role by Charles Colson, Richard Nixon's dirty-tricks aide. Spaeth heard O'Neill out, but told him, she says, that he "sounded like a crazed extremist" and should "button his lip" and avoid speaking with the press. But since Kerry clinched the Democratic nomination, Spaeth has changed her mind and decided to donate her public relations services on a "pro bono" basis to O'Neill's latest anti-Kerry effort. "About three weeks ago, four weeks ago," she said, the group's leaders "met in my office for about 12 hours" to prepare for their Washington debut.
Although not as well known as Karen Hughes, Spaeth is among the most experienced and best connected Republican communications executives. During the Reagan administration she served as director of the White House Office of Media Liaison, where she specialized in promoting "news" items that boosted President Reagan to TV stations around the country. While living in Washington she met and married Lezar, a Reagan Justice Department lawyer who ran for lieutenant governor of Texas in 1994 with George W. Bush, then the party's candidate for governor. (Lezar lost; Bush won.)
Through Lezar, who died of a heart attack last January, she met O'Neill, his law partner in Clements, O'Neill, Pierce, Wilson & Fulkerson, a Dallas firm. (It also includes Margaret Wilson, the former counsel to Gov. Bush who followed him to Washington, where she served for a time as a deputy counsel in the Department of Commerce.)
Spaeth's partisanship runs still deeper, as does her history of handling difficult P.R. cases for Republicans. In 1998, for example, she coached Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel, to prepare him for his testimony urging the impeachment of President Clinton before the House Judiciary Committee. She even reviewed videotapes of his previous television appearances to give him pointers about his delivery and demeanor. The man responsible for arranging her advice to Starr was another old friend of her late husband's, Theodore Olson, who was counsel to the right-wing American Spectator when it acted as a front for the dirty-tricks campaign against Clinton known as the Arkansas Project; he is now the solicitor general in the Bush Justice Department. (Olson also happens to be the godfather of Spaeth's daughter.)
In 2000, Spaeth participated in the most subterranean episode of the Republican primary contest when a shadowy group billed as "Republicans for Clean Air" produced television ads falsely attacking the environmental record of Sen. John McCain in California, New York and Ohio. While the identity of those funding the supposedly "independent" ads was carefully hidden, reporters soon learned that Republicans for Clean Air was simply Sam Wyly -- a big Bush contributor and beneficiary of Bush administration decisions in Texas -- and his brother, Charles, another Bush "Pioneer" contributor. (One of the Wyly family's private capital funds, Maverick Capital of Dallas, had been awarded a state contract to invest $90 million for the University of Texas endowment.)
When the secret emerged, spokeswoman Spaeth caught the flak for the Wylys, an experience she recalled to me as "horrible" and "awful." Her job was to assure reporters that there had been no illegal coordination between the Bush campaign and the Wyly brothers in arranging the McCain-trashing message. Not everyone believed her explanation, including the Arizona senator.
The veteran group's founder, Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, first gained notoriety in Vietnam as a strutting, cigar-chewing Navy captain. But it was O'Neill, by now a familiar figure on the Kerry-bashing circuit, who came to Spaeth for assistance.
Until now, Hoffmann has been best known as the commanding officer whose obsession with body counts and "scorekeeping" may have provoked the February 1969 massacre of Vietnamese civilians at Thanh Phong by a unit led by Bob Kerrey -- the Medal of Honor winner who lost a leg in Nam, became a U.S. senator from Nebraska and now sits on the 9/11 commission.
After journalist Gregory Vistica exposed the Thanh Phong massacre and the surrounding circumstances in the New York Times magazine three years ago, conservative columnist Christopher Caldwell took particular note of the cameo role played by Kerrey's C.O., who had warned his men not to return from missions without enough kills. "One of the myths due to die as a result of Vistica's article is that which holds the war could have been won sensibly and cleanly if the 'suits' back in Washington had merely left the military men to their own devices," Caldwell wrote. "In this light, one of the great merits of Vistica's article is its portrait of the Kurtz-like psychopath who commanded Kerrey's Navy task force, Capt. Roy Hoffmann."
Arguments about the war in Vietnam seem destined to continue forever. For now, however, the lingering bitterness and ambiguity of those days provide smear material against an antiwar war hero with five medals on behalf of a privileged Guardsman with a dubious duty record. The president's Texas allies -- whose animus against his Democratic challenger dates back to the Nixon era -- are now deploying the same techniques and personnel they used to attack McCain's integrity four years ago. Bush's "independent" supporters would apparently rather talk about the Vietnam quagmire than about his deadly incompetence in Iraq."
Originally posted by billybobsky
Yeah, that wasn't what I was arguing. Good job missing the point. We know why his commanding officers might be pissed at him still...
It is however irrelevant what these people who 'knew' him 30 years ago feel about him...
Your point purposely ignored an important part of the article. If you bad mouthed your college, would you expect every single professor you ever had sign a statement saying what a useless tit you were? Would additionally, 19 out of 23 classmates claiming you were a dishonest, cheating moron be the only point of focus, or should both be examined as possibly being related, perhaps even important as to your character?
You imply that the 19 out of 23 is useless, because they must have been hand-picked and the 100% of commanding officers is useless, because they must be lying, bitter men. The opinion 19/23 of any group that knew you intimately should probably be considered, if trying to get to know you from a distance. The opinion of 100% of your superiors, bitter or not, should also have some weight.
Originally posted by pfflam
Long ad-hominem attack quoted yet again.
Amazing that your replies complain about personal attacks, and all you post to discredit the information given about Kerry is a huge attack on all the parties who dare to criticize him. No addressing their claims. Instead we get conspiratorial phrases that would make any secret police organization proud.
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
Amazing that your replies complain about personal attacks, and all you post to discredit the information given about Kerry is a huge attack on all the parties who dare to criticize him. No addressing their claims. Instead we get conspiratorial phrases that would make any secret police organization proud.
Nick
You must be kidding me . . . its a bit journalistic . . .but really?!?
Originally posted by pfflam
You must be kidding me . . . its a bit journalistic . . .but really?!?
Why don't you go ahead and link to the source so we can read all of it instead of just the selective quoting you do. I understand why you do it in the post, but it is common practice to give others a link to the source so they can read more than what you deemed most important.
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
Why don't you go ahead and link to the source so we can read all of it instead of just the selective quoting you do. I understand why you do it in the post, but it is common practice to give others a link to the source so they can read more than what you deemed most important.
Nick
It is the whole article . . its from Salon . . . I don't feel like hunting it down. . . . do it yourself . . .Im going to bed . . **** ** ******
Seems like he wants them to [help] clean up our little mess in the Middle East?
I have not seem very much on Kerry re: the UN.
Rethink what you just wrote.
Any veteran in politics should be free from all political attacks because he's a veteran? How's politics supposed to work under those conditions?
It was Kerry that made his military service a major part of his campaign. He can mention it over and over and over without someone saying, "You know he wasn't that great and ..."
Kerry made it an issue so now it's an issue.
I don't think they should be immune from attacks on the issues, but if John Kerry 'wasn't so great', then why did he get the Silver Star or the Bronze Star? Was he *not* responsible for saving the lives of everyone on his boat from enemy attack by taking out that grenade launcher?
The bottom line is that former President Bush had set his son up in a cushy position in the Air National Guard so he wouldn't have to serve in Vietnam, and Vice President Cheney never served, yet they are making the *CENTRAL* point of their campaign for re-election to be John Kerry's military record. The point is that John Kerry was recognized as being a hero who saved the lives of the men on his boat and the Bush campaign doesn't want the people to know of his acts of bravery.
John Kerry has pointed out that he is a war veteran, this is true. But how is it inappropriate to point out one's national service record, especially when that person is a decorated officer? It is disgraceful that the Bush administration is trying to find people who will attack Kerry's war record when President Bush himself is hard pressed to find anyone who even *served* with him in the 70s.
Unfit for Office
I was on Mr. Kerry's boat in Vietnam. He doesn't deserve to be commander in chief.
BY JOHN O'NEILL
Tuesday, May 4, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
HOUSTON--In 1971, I debated John Kerry, then a national spokesman for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, for 90 minutes on "The Dick Cavett Show." The key issue in that debate was Mr. Kerry's claim that American troops were committing war crimes in Vietnam "on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." Now, as Sen. Kerry emerges as the presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidency, I've chosen to re-enter the fray.
Like John Kerry, I served in Vietnam as a Swift Boat commander. Ironically, John Kerry and I served much of our time, a full 12 months in my case and a controversial four months in his, commanding the exact same six-man boat, PCF-94, which I took over after he requested early departure. Despite our shared experience, I still believe what I believed 33 years ago--that John Kerry slandered America's military by inventing or repeating grossly exaggerated claims of atrocities and war crimes in order to advance his own political career as an antiwar activist. His misrepresentations played a significant role in creating the negative and false image of Vietnam vets that has persisted for over three decades.
Neither I, nor any man I served with, ever committed any atrocity or war crime in Vietnam. The opposite was the truth. Rather than use excessive force, we suffered casualty after casualty because we chose to refrain from firing rather than risk injuring civilians. More than once, I saw friends die in areas we entered with loudspeakers rather than guns. John Kerry's accusations then and now were an injustice that struck at the soul of anyone who served there.
During my 1971 televised debate with John Kerry, I accused him of lying. I urged him to come forth with affidavits from the soldiers who had claimed to have committed or witnessed atrocities. To date no such affidavits have been filed. Recently, Sen. Kerry has attempted to reframe his comments as youthful or "over the top." Yet always there has been a calculated coolness to the way he has sought to destroy the record of our honorable service in the interest of promoting his political ambitions of the moment.
John Kennedy's book, "Profiles in Courage," and Dwight Eisenhower's "Crusade in Europe" inspired generations. Not so John Kerry, who has suppressed his book, "The New Soldier," prohibiting its reprinting. There is a clear reason for this. The book repeats John Kerry's insults to the American military, beginning with its front-cover image of the American flag being carried upside down by a band of bearded renegades in uniform--a clear slap at the brave Marines in their combat gear who raised our flag at Iwo Jima. Allow me the reprint rights to your book, Sen. Kerry, and I will make sure copies of "The New Soldier" are available in bookstores throughout America.
Vietnam was a long time ago. Why does it matter today? Since the days of the Roman Empire, the concept of military loyalty up and down the chain of command has been indispensable. The commander's loyalty to the troops is the price a commander pays for the loyalty of the troops in return. How can a man be commander in chief who for over 30 years has accused his "Band of Brothers," as well as himself, of being war criminals? On a practical basis, John Kerry's breach of loyalty is a prescription of disaster for our armed forces.
John Kerry's recent admissions caused me to realize that I was most likely in Vietnam dodging enemy rockets on the very day he met in Paris with Madame Binh, the representative of the Viet Cong to the Paris Peace Conference. John Kerry returned to the U.S. to become a national spokesperson for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a radical fringe of the antiwar movement, an organization set upon propagating the myth of war crimes through demonstrably false assertions. Who was the last American POW to die languishing in a North Vietnamese prison forced to listen to the recorded voice of John Kerry disgracing their service by his dishonest testimony before the Senate?
Since 1971, I have refused many offers from John Kerry's political opponents to speak out against him. My reluctance to become involved once again in politics is outweighed now by my profound conviction that John Kerry is simply not fit to be America's commander in chief. Nobody has recruited me to come forward. My decision is the inevitable result of my own personal beliefs and life experience.
Today, America is engaged in a new war, against the militant Islamist terrorists who attacked us on our own soil. Reasonable people may differ about how best to proceed, but I'm sure of one thing--John Kerry is the wrong man to put in charge.
Mr. O'Neill served in Coastal Division 11 in 1969-70, winning two Bronze Stars and additional decorations for his service in Vietnam.