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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (60767)	8/16/2004 9:39:38 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793717

Bob Novak is staying on the story. A question of Kerry's credibility August 16, 2004 BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST The passionate debate over John Kerry's war record has become a question of credibility. Who is accurately portraying what the Democratic presidential candidate did in Vietnam 35 years ago? Kerry's designated advocate Lanny Davis has posed a simple test of who was aboard a small boat with the future senator during his baptism of fire. On Dec. 2, 1968, Lt. j.g. Kerry saw his first action aboard a small boat called a skimmer or Boston whaler, resulting in the first of three Purple Hearts. Two crewmen, among the veterans who stood with Kerry on the podium in Boston, say only three men were aboard. John O'Neill, Kerry's fellow officer, critic and co-author of the newly published Unfit for Command, contends a future admiral who is critical of Kerry also was on the boat. How many men squeezed into the whaler may seem irrelevant to the dispute over Kerry's war record. But Washington super-lawyer Davis contends nobody in a boat with Kerry when he was wounded has joined veterans opposing him. He poses this as a test of whether O'Neill's book is a tissue of lies intended to destroy a presidential candidate. When television producers ask Kerry headquarters to discuss this controversy, they have been sending out Davis rather than one of the candidate's swift boat comrades. At Yale long ago, he admired fellow undergrad Kerry from afar as an orator and future leader. Now, outraged by the attack on Kerry's war record, Davis volunteered to help. The campaign accepted, and he jumped in -- too early. Bill Clinton's calm advocate became a shouter for Kerry who accused critics of being liars. Davis was not ready last Monday when the Kerry campaign placed him on Fox's ''Hannity and Colmes'' program. He had not yet read O'Neill's book, and mixed up an attack on one target, Louis Letson, a former Navy doctor who is quoted in the book as saying the wound was trivial and probably self-inflicted from a ricocheting grenade shell. On that program, Davis bought into the statement that Kerry was treated by ''another doctor, J.C. Carreon.'' ''This Letson guy never signed a single sheet of paper,'' Davis said. Actually, the now deceased Carreon was a medic who, according to Letson, bandaged Kerry's wound and regularly signed routine medical reports such as Kerry's. I contacted Letson, a retired family doctor, at his home in Scottsboro, Ala. He told me he remembered taking care of Kerry's wound, which was ''only a scratch,'' and also recalled the enlisted men, with some amusement, describing Kerry as promising he would ''come out of the war as the next JFK.'' By the time Davis appeared on CNN's ''Crossfire'' on Thursday, he had read the book and changed his emphasis. Davis was appearing for the first time on television next to O'Neill. He hammered home the point that nobody who ever had been in the same boat with Kerry has criticized his war service. O'Neill reiterated his contention in the book that Lt. William Schachte (later a rear admiral) was aboard the small whaler as Kerry's training officer and ''witnessed Kerry, with an M-79 [grenade launcher], fire and wound himself.'' Davis interrupted, shouting, ''That was a false statement.'' At Davis' suggestion, I telephoned the two crew members who said they were on the whaler that night: Patrick Runyon and William Zaldonis. Each said they did not know whether there was enemy fire and did not know how Kerry was wounded. But each said he was certain that they alone were in the boat with Kerry and did not even know Schachte. When I called O'Neill, he told me Schachte was sure he was aboard the whaler and would speak out later. Lanny Davis is a clever lawyer trying to reduce multiple charges against his client to one simple issue where, so far, he has the witnesses and his adversaries do not. Davis is also a decent human being who told me he thought he went over the line shouting at O'Neill and that ''there is a difference here of conceptions.'' That's better than simply crying liar in a fight John Kerry brought on himself.

To: LindyBill who wrote (60767)	8/16/2004 9:45:13 AM
From: John Carragher	Respond to of 793717

is that kerry Catholics or practicing Catholics. g

To: LindyBill who wrote (60767)	8/16/2004 10:10:22 AM
From: michael97123	Respond to of 793717

The mosque neednt be destroyed but i suspect al sadr militia will destroy it if we are clearly winning. We can surround it and starve them out if necessary. I am serious when i say we need a clear win or bush should just change course after the election. Let the shiaa handle iran and sadr. Let the sunnis deal with the baathists and terrorists and let the Kurds defend themselves with our help. We will only make things worse by staying without the will to at least try to win. And when i use the word win, its not the hearts and minds bs. You can only do that when the rabble, the terrorists and the baathists are clearly defeated. Mike

To: LindyBill who wrote (60767)	8/16/2004 11:04:56 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 793717

It looks like taking out this particular Mosque would be the Shiite equivalent of the Catholic reaction to destroying St Peters Basilica Who knows, really? It's not like it hasn't been damaged before. It was damaged in the fighting in 1991, when Saddam put down the uprising. The Arab Street is particularly good at whining about their sensibilities. But most of it is just a weapon to compensate for their weakness - "you mustn't touch our mosque, infidel, but we're allowed to use it as an armoury and a firing base". There's a limit to how many times you can play that card. The dog that isn't barking is the hawza, the real religious hierarcy of Najaf. I don't hear any fatwas from them.