Military Daze

[dude1394]

Well since it seems the NYTimes, WashPost, ABC, NBC, CBS are going to continue to carry water for their candidate, I guess it's up to the british to bring integrity to a the news.

dazed and confused

[quote]
Kerry's military daze
(Filed: 13/08/2004)

The most striking image from John Kerry's campaign for the presidency is him offering a beguiling, if rather hesitant, military salute to the Democratic convention, accompanied by the message that he was "reporting for duty".

This reference to his record as a decorated war hero was a signal that he would exploit what was thought to be his strongest card in a contest with George W Bush, whose own youth was noted for a notoriously unheroic evasion of active duty in Vietnam.

Perhaps carried away by this favoured theme of personal bravery, Mr Kerry has offered up anecdotes from his military adventures that are now coming under the sort of detailed scrutiny that a closely fought political contest brings with it. His most noteworthy story involves what would have been a secret, and illegal, foray into neutral Cambodian territory during the Vietnam war on Christmas Eve of 1968.

Mr Kerry's alleged memory, laced with touching recollections of his longing for hearth and home, has now been challenged in terms so authoritative as to call into question not only his war record, but also his basic integrity.

Faced with the bald assertions of men who served with him that this incident never occurred, Mr Kerry's campaign staff have responded by subtly altering the geography of the region. "On Christmas Eve in 1968," they say, Mr Kerry was "in fact on patrol in the Mekong Delta between Cambodia and Vietnam".

Quite apart from the forthright statement from the gunner's mate on his own boat, that they "were not anywhere near Cambodia", this response is bizarre. There is no such territory "between" Vietnam and Cambodia. The two countries abut one another on the Mekong Delta.

As well as inventing a fictitious South-East Asian no-man's-land, the Kerry camp is attempting to smear his critics by implying that they are a politically driven arm of the Bush campaign. But whatever the motives of Mr Kerry's dissident ex-comrades may be, the hard facts of their case remain disturbing, as the frantic fiddling of national borders suggests.

There are only two possible interpretations of this paradox. Either Mr Kerry is knowingly fabricating history for crass electoral advantage (and in rather odd contrast with his own renunciation of his Vietnam war experiences in the 1970s), or else he spent a fair amount of his time at war completely unaware of where he was. Neither possibility fits well with a campaign so squarely centred on Mr Kerry's war record.

[LRB]

There are only two possible interpretations of this paradox. Either Mr Kerry is knowingly fabricating history for crass electoral advantage (and in rather odd contrast with his own renunciation of his Vietnam war experiences in the 1970s), or else he spent a fair amount of his time at war completely unaware of where he was. Neither possibility fits well with a campaign so squarely centred on Mr Kerry's war record.

Loved this part. Also I have to worry about the competence of a man to be President who would make his Vietnam service such a centerpiece of his campaign with all these falsehoods told by him regarding that service outstanding. Quite frankly the man appears to be a 1st class idiot.