"The inability of Hanoi John to deliver credible information on his bogus Cambodia claim is costing him his campaign. News at 11."
Posted on 08/10/2004 9:31:59 AM PDT by cyncooper
WASHINGTON — Part of John Kerry's (search) strategy in his White House bid is to play up his military service in Vietnam, but a group of veterans is challenging the Democratic presidential nominee's story.
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In an Oct. 14, 1979, letter to the editor of the Boston Herald, Kerry wrote: "I remember spending Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian borde being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
It is more explicit than even some of his other renditions of his "Christmas in Cambodia" tale and of course contains more fodder he should be confronted with.
In fact, Cameron did present this letter to the campaign and is awaiting their response. Not that I am silly enough to think they will provide one, or if they do, it will anything other than some absurd spin.
But while the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have been hammering Kerry's record, every living soldier who served under Kerry's command is backing their former commander.
Wasn't one of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth one of his gunners who served in his boat? I could have sworn I remembered this.
D
I have that memory which is seared-seared-in me..."
I hope someone is carefully reading the Congressional Record to see how many other lies John has told. Now, we know that this lie about Cambodia will be minmized by the leftists and dismissed as what? It was simply the effort of an officer who abandoned his unit in the face of the enemy and then spoke publicly in support of that same enemy, trying to make himeself look less like a cowardly traitor. Yeah, that's it. Got that Congressional Black Caucus?
You are correct. Steve Gardner is his name and he has been making the media rounds, including being on with O'Reilly last night (though O'Reilly has an unfair standard of "fairness", IMO).
To those who were excited about Carl Cameron's report yesterday (and I was happy to hear it), this type of sloppy reporting is why he and other Fox reporters are rightly taken to task when they report wrong information like the above "every living soldier" business.
yes - that should be cleared up - e-mail them!
He's also told the Cambodian story to biographers.
It is stunning to me that all these years nobody evidently confronted him with the inconsistancy between Christmas 1968 and naming Nixon as the evil-doing president who was lying (guess not) to America.
I have posted many times recently that during the dem primary I and others immediately picked up on his calling Vietnam "Nixon's War" and we pointed out Kerry went in under Johnson.
Now, that illustrates to me if we could pick up the disconnect between fact and fantasy on such a general mention, how did politicians, reporters, editors and biographers go literally years not catching the problem with his tale? I think we can guess the motive for many and why they said nothing.
I seem to remember only two people under his command endorsed him. One doesn't endorse him. Are the others all dead, or have they simply not come forward?
From the sample chapter I've read, the book's an A+. It's not Michael Moore or Ann Coutler style "preaching to the converted" material. It's hard-hitting old-fashioned journalism, using diverse sources. It would be really hard for anyone giving the book an honest look to believe in John Kerry.
D
Anyone know if the campaign's gotten back to Cameron yet?
nixon wasn't sworn as president until jan 1969...lol
I hope that someone gets this information and makes it public by having every conservative that gets on TV repeat it and repeat it.
UPDATE: Several readers note that the "near Cambodia" completely destroys the point of Kerry's original statement. This is representative:
If the campaign is really saying Kerry was just "near Cambodia", isn't that phenomenally lame?
When Kerry brought up Cambodia, he was always doing it in the context of presidential lying--i.e. "I was in Cambodia, listening to the president say we had no troops in Cambodia".
With this re-write, it becomes "I was *near* Cambodia, listening to the president say we had no troops *in* Cambodia, which, okay, was true as far as I could tell, but if I'd been just, like, sixty miles further west, it would've been a LIE!"
I am guessing they forgot to.
I bet they'd like to.
"I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians.."
Well, we know he already lied about Nixon, but JOHN, your Freudian slip is showing.
In case any of you missed this Kerry in Cambodia story.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1188632/posts
Precisely. I made this point yesterday in response to some who feared Kerry could simply claim he was mistaken and was only "near" Cambodia.
The Kerry campaign in fact did tell Carl Cameron that at first and Cameron showed them that 1979 letter where Kerry not only says he was in that country, he says 5 miles in.
They probably don't think they have to and they're counting on the rest of the media to run interference for them.
COMMAND CONFIDENCE Kerry staff: "Unfit not a problem, media is committed to seeing us win")
The campaign source said that the book was not considered a "serious" problem for the campaign, because, "the media wouldn't have the nerve to come at us with this kind of stuff," says the source.
"The senior staff believes the media is committed to seeing us win this thing, and that the convention inoculated us from these kinds of stories. The senior guys really think we don't have a problem here."
~snip~
Wonder how they celebrated Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July?
I had missed that! Thanks for linking it.
I'm speechless.
But I'll give the campaign the spin they can use. Kerry's mission for the CIA was so secret that NOBODY knew he was really IN Cambodia and the CIA guy who gave him the hat is now lamentably dead so isn't available to confirm the story. (Too bad the SwiftVet guys were with him 24/7 during the entire timeframe and can indeed contradict this story--but we all know they don't count)
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