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Politics : The TRUTH About John Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (1221)	5/3/2004 11:45:45 AM
From: JakeStraw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1483

John Kerry's ad campaign: squeezing the purple heart dry John Kerry is opening his wallet in his battle against Bush. According to a story in the New York Times, media experts are claiming that Kerry's campaign has: "committed to spend up to $27 million for more than three weeks. Mr. Kerry's aides would not comment on the exact size of the buy, except to say it would most likely set records." What's curious about this story is that the only thing of interest about the campaign is the record-breaking size of the expenditure. Nothing that Kerry is saying is new or interesting. He's just spending a cool $27 million saying it. Apparently, the thrust of the campaign is to be the mouldy old chestnut of Kerry's Vietnam heroics. According to the NY Times report, the advertisements "will highlight his biography and service in Vietnam, which his advisers have always viewed as his strong suits." How fresh and forward-looking. Give me strength. Kerry is still selling himself on a 35-year-old war record. Hasn't the warranty expired on that thing yet? Or does the American public have an infinite appetite for grainy photographs of a big-jawed man lolling on a patrol boat? Kerry had better hope so. Then again, you can understand why they're going back through the old photo albums when the new snaps are as dynamic as this: 35 years ago he was a war hero. Now he's just an old man in a yellow jersey falling off his bicycle and scuffing his elbow on the gravel. 35 years ago his massive jaw looked purposeful and strong. Now he looks like Mr Punch. The tragedy of John Kerry is this: the longer his campaign drags on, the more clearly we can see what was so exciting about Kerry in the first place.... Howard Dean. Remember him? Howard Dean was fun. He was ebullient. Articulate. He was a brilliant, fiery opening act for a pointless headliner. It's Jimi Hendrix opening for The Monkees all over again. We just didn't realize how dull Kerry was because our applause for Dean (and Dean's own yells) were ringing in our ears. And now we're left with a ghastly silence, which Kerry is trying to fill with the rat-a-tat-tat of his old tugboat gun. Really, it's starting to smell like madness, this obsession with the past. It's the kind of thing you expect of your lunatic uncle who 'saw too much' and now sits rocking on the porch with a thousand-yard stare and slightly too much drool collecting at the corner of his mouth. Come here boy, and I'll tell you what I did in the war... Not now uncle. Isn't it time for your nap...? God help us. Suddenly $27 million doesn't seem like very much after all. lnreview.co.uk

To: American Spirit who wrote (1221)	5/4/2004 11:42:31 AM
From: JakeStraw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1483

Kerry 'Unfit to be Commander-in-Chief,' Say Former Military Colleagues By Marc Morano May 03, 2004 Hundreds of former commanders and military colleagues of presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry are set to declare in a signed letter that he is "unfit to be commander-in-chief." They will do so at a press conference in Washington on Tuesday. "What is going to happen on Tuesday is an event that is really historical in dimension," John O'Neill, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Navy as a PCF (Patrol Craft Fast) boat commander, told CNSNews.com. The event, which is expected to draw about 25 of the letter-signers, is being organized by a newly formed group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. "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. O'Neill, currently a Houston, Texas, based attorney, is no stranger to Kerry. O'Neill served in the same naval unit as Kerry and commanded Kerry's swift boat after Kerry returned to the United States. Kerry's command of the PCF boat lasted four months and ended shortly after he received his third Purple Heart. According to naval regulations at the time, any sailor who received three Purple Hearts could request a transfer out of the combat zone. Kerry and O'Neill engaged in a nationally televised debate in 1971 on The Dick Cavett Show over Kerry's allegations that many Vietnam soldiers had routinely engaged in atrocities such as raping and cutting off ears and heads of Vietnamese soldiers and citizens. Kerry was the then spokesman for the anti-war group Vietnam Veterans Against the War. "We are going to be presenting a letter that deals with Kerry's unfitness to be commander and chief that has been signed by hundreds of swift boat sailors, including most of those who served with Kerry," O'Neill explained. "The ranks of the people signing [the letter] range from admiral down to seaman, and they run across the entire spectrum of politics, specialties, and political feelings about the Vietnam War," he added. Among those scheduled to attend the event at the National Press Club and declare Kerry unfit for the role of commander-in-chief are retired Naval Rear Admiral Roy Hoffmann, who was the commander of the Navy Coastal Surveillance Force, which included the swift boats on which Kerry served. Also scheduled to be present at the event is Kerry's former commanding officer, Lt. Commander Grant Hibbard. Hibbard recently questioned whether Kerry deserved the first of his three Purple Hearts that he received in Vietnam. Hibbard doubted both the severity of the wound and whether it resulted from enemy fire. "I've had thorns from a rose that were worse" than Kerry's wound for which he received a Purple Heart, Hibbard told the Boston Globe in April. Organizers are confident that Tuesday's event and the letter with hundreds of signatures will educate people about Kerry. "It is one of the largest outpourings of concern about him being commander-in-chief that anybody could have in a presidential campaign and it is by the people who know him best," O'Neill said. cnsnews.com\SpecialReports\archive\200405\SPE20040503a.html

To: American Spirit who wrote (1221)	5/4/2004 2:39:45 PM
From: DizzyG	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1483

Is this a better source? 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. 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. opinionjournal.com Diz-