BUSH CAMPAIGN PROFITS FROM VETS' SLIMY ATTACKS ON KERRY
Sat Aug 28, 3:21 PM ET
By Cynthia Tucker
It is an axiom of normal human behavior that one is embarrassed when caught flat-footed in a lie. That axiom, however, does not apply to the Swift boat critics of John Kerry (news - web sites). When caught cold in one lie, they simply move to the next.
Cynthia Tucker
The latest news reports shed light on the prevarications of John O'Neill, who succeeded Kerry as commander of Swift boat PCF-94. A ringleader of the Swift boat critics, O'Neill is the author of a book, "Unfit for Command," that tries to discredit Kerry's wartime heroism. Now walking the low road for George W. Bush, O'Neill first got into the dirty-tricks business on behalf of Richard Nixon, who used O'Neill to try to undermine Kerry's rising appeal as an anti-war veteran in 1971.
Currently a darling of the right-wing talk show circuit, O'Neill has insisted in repeated interviews that Kerry could not have been in Cambodia during the war, as Kerry has said. In his book, O'Neill wrote: "Kerry was never in Cambodia during Christmas 1968, or at all during the Vietnam War," adding, he "would have been court-martialed had he gone there."
But days ago, reporters unearthed taped conversations between Nixon and O'Neill, in which O'Neill bragged, "I was in Cambodia, sir. I worked along the border on the water."
Was O'Neill court-martialed? Apparently not. Did he so much as pause after being caught contradicting himself? Not on your life. He just moved from interviews with legitimate news reporters to the friendlier zones of hacks such as Sean Hannity, who would not press him on his mendacity.
Neither O'Neill nor his band of liars is humiliated when one of their accusations blows up in their faces. In a recent attack ad, for example, George Elliott, Kerry's commanding officer in Vietnam, insisted that Kerry "has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam." This is the same Elliott who praised Kerry's courage and leadership profusely during the war, according to military records, and who campaigned for Kerry's re-election to the U.S. Senate.
He and the other veterans against Kerry apparently believe that truth doesn't matter; if they just keep throwing slime at Kerry, sooner or later, some will stick. They don't seem to care that much of the slime clings to them. This group is so obsessed with tearing Kerry down that they not only tell blatant lies, but some of them have also trashed their own records of wartime heroism.
Take Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Swift boat alongside Kerry. Thurlow and others have spent weeks trying to undermine one of Kerry's central claims to heroism -- his rescue of Jim Rassman, for which Kerry won a Bronze Star. Thurlow has insisted that none of the Swift boats in the Bay Hap River were under enemy fire that day, March 13, 1969.
But contemporaneous military action reports tell another story. Several documents back up Kerry's -- and Rassman's -- account. Indeed, the citation for Thurlow's own Bronze Star, received for his actions that day, notes "enemy small arms," "automatic weapons fire" and "enemy bullets flying about him."
Just last week, Oregon resident Robert Lambert, who was a crew member on Thurlow's boat that day, told his local newspaper: "He (Thurlow) and another officer now say we weren't under fire at that time. Well, I sure was under the impression we were."
Several of the veterans opposed to Kerry trace their animosity back to Kerry's anti-war activities, during which he accused U.S. soldiers of committing atrocities. But they haven't framed their major attacks around that. That's because they know -- or at least Karl Rove knows -- that Kerry's fiery rhetoric from 30 years ago won't sink his campaign.
The Bush campaign must portray Kerry as weak and indecisive -- an unfit commander in chief. That's difficult, since Kerry is a bona fide hero whose wartime exploits seem titanic compared with those of the president. Suffice it to say that Bush and Kerry were not exactly in the same boat in Vietnam. So Bush's surrogates lie to tarnish Kerry's medals.
They may have succeeded in sullying Kerry's military record. But the real truth they've revealed is the corroded core of the Bush campaign, which denies any link with the Swift boat veterans but profits by their poisonous bite.
Cynthia Tucker is editorial page editor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She can be reached by e-mail: cynthia@ajc.com. |
