Kerry should be wary of dredging up past

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | February 15, 2004 | Mark Steyn

[Puzzleman]

If you own a computer or listen to talk radio or read the British or Australian papers, you'll know that John Kerry is currently beset by rumors of interns. By the time you read this, it may be that America's genteel broadsheets and network news shows will have overcome their squeamishness and tiptoed gingerly down the path blazed by Drudge and Fleet Street, or it may be that they decide to investigate it a bit longer, just to get chapter and verse nailed down, which means you may not get to read about it till, oh, midway through President Kerry's second term.

[McGavin999]

That is the exact paragraph I picked out of the article. It just about says it all.

[Gritty]

Thanks for posting the entire article, Pokey 78.

I refuse to give excerpted articles by Quidnunc a BUMP and especially those of the Master, Mark Steyn.

So, if I (and others) do that, Steyn articles do not get the wide coverage they deserve - plus the archive is empty of some riveting historical commentary!

[LisaFab]

Sublime as usual. Thanks Poke.

[Agent Smith]

Mark Steyn, just fabulous as usual. BUMP

[netmilsmom]

Being born in 1961 and the product of schools that never taught history past the Civil War, I thank you.

I never knew how vile and unfair that war was.

[kitkat]

Welcome to Free Republic. That was a fine first post.

[edwin hubble]

"This is my first reply on FR..."

Welcome aboard.

[beckett]

Steyn never fails to impress. Truly the most brilliant wordsmith working today. He has encyclopedic knowledge, wit and verve, inventive phrasing, a clear eye and street smarts. He has it all.

[Lyford]

"So one John Kerry is a fake. Which is it? The Jane Fonda in pants of the early '70s? Or the Bob Hope USO tour Kerry of today? Running on biography is lame enough. Running on fake biography is pathetic."

Steyn is a genius. Brilliant, once again...

[RottiBiz]

We need to borrow a phrase (slightly modified) from Harry Truman. "We point out his record and the facts, and THEY just think it's attack politics. His record is what it is".

Great first post, LibLieSlayer! Love the modified HST quote.

Welcome to FreeRepublic!

[kitkat]

BOOKMARKED to save Alloysteel's post.

[kitkat]

BOOKMARKED to save Alloysteel's post.

[kitkat]

URP! 'Scuse me.

[quidnunc]

One of these days the stuff is going to hit the fan again over copyright infringment.

I do not intend to be the the one who has to hire a lawyer and fly back and forth between Illinois and California to defend myself in a lawsuit.

[beckett]

Only problem with your take on the Bob Kerrey incident is that the female witness in some vital respects has been corroborated by a member of Kerrey's own squad. Bottom line, a group of villagers ended up tightly grouped and dead in the center of the village. Kerrey himself admits as much. If, as Kerrey claims, his squad fired into to the village from several hundred yards outside it, how did the dead end up tightly grouped? Was everyone just standing around waiting to get shot?

Kerrey's squad member has testified that those people were ordered out of their hootches into the center of the village by Kerrey and his men after the squad entered the village. What happened next is open to debate, but the fact that the villagers all ended up dead is not. And Kerrey's claim of longrange fire is clearly false.

[Puzzleman]

and stops being a wimp about the Senate's unConstitutional "rules"

We don't have the votes to change the Senate rules to prevent filibustering our judicial nominees -- too many RINO's refuse to stand with us. We need to pick up Senate seats in 2004.

[ru4liberty]

Hey! Don't fuss at me, quid. :( I didn't take a position about your excerpting. I just explained to Huck why people brought up your name in these instances. Peace, my brothah!

[Martin Tell]

how do we know it was not just staged, as so much else Kerry has done in life?

There's a good chance at least some was staged. According to the NYT, Kerry had already turned anti-war before deploying to Vietnam. Also regarding staging, there is an 8mm film of Kerry ducking behind the hooch, then emerging (after supposedly finishing off the VC) with the rocket launcher. I think the RATs are saving this film for the convention (look for it to be played more often than the Rodney King video by the lamestream media). Another reason they are holding off using this could be that questions have already been asked about how there just happened to be a movie camera going at that time. I think the NYT asked this and of course was satisfied with the response.

Finally I love the phrase "terrified and Kerrified." I may have to change my tag line.

[angkor]

Only problem with your take on the Bob Kerrey incident is that the female witness in some vital respects has been corroborated by a member of Kerrey's own squad.

It doesn't matter. She is self-admitted VC. The whole village was VC. They weren't "collaborators," they were combatants. They weren't innocent, they were an actual fighting force arrayed against their fellow citizens of the RSVN to install a communist government.

I know a little about what the VC were and were not. My wife is Vietnamese.