>>Kerry has principles? Seriously, this was standard politics (which ain't beanbag, as Pogo used to say). It played well into Kerry's not exactly undeserved rep for taking both sides of every tough issue.<<
Nadine -
I don't think that rep is deserved. The so-called flip flops are really more of the distorted view of Kerry promoted by the Rove political machine. His views on Iraq and on other issues have been consistent.
I think Rove was afraid that Bush would be called a flip-flopper, so he found ways to skew Kerry's record to make him look like one. Bush did, after all, change his position about the 9/11 commission, about a Homeland Security Department (where incidentally I think he was right the first place), and on many other issues.
>>He wasn't charged with a completely fabricated military record. He was charged with certain fabrications, which he used to collect a bunch of medals in a very short four month stint, and to aggrandize himself with afterwards. If the charges were baseless, Kerry didn't have to make a big stink or sue over them. He had an extremely simple course of defense, which should have been effective - release his records. To this day, he has not done so, and has squirmed and promised and lied and done certain half-measures, releasing them to certain reporters, not the public.<<
OK, so Kerry was charged with falsifying the most critical aspects of his military record, not the entire thing.
Do you think that the reporters to whom Kerry released his complete records wouldn't have wanted to print the story if there were some kind of bombshell in there? I know you think they were "friendly reporters", but reporters are generally motivated more by wanting to get a scoop than anything else.
If you look at Kerry's web site, there are a lot of documents that are right there for anybody to see. I don't know if they represent his entire record, but they cover a lot of it.
Of course the charges sound plausible. Charges that sound plausible are the only kind to use in a smear campaign. That still doesn't make them true, and still doesn't shift the burden of proof.
>>I don't have a huge stake in the true origins of Kerry's medals (neither do the Swiftvets, imo; the real grievance is Kerry's 1971 Senate testimony), but I just go for the simplest explanation of what I see, which is that the Swiftvet charges are more or less true and/or there is something in Kerry's records that would really kill him if it got out.<<
There may be something in Kerry's records that would kill him if it got out, but I have to believe that any reporter who found such a piece of information would run with it, friendly or not.
I think the Swiftvets had an interest in making Kerry look bad and helping Bush win the election and that was all. They were supported financially by big-time Bush supporters, and can be linked to Karl Rove in one step.
- Allen |
