Posted on 08/18/2004 12:05:48 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Only a few short weeks ago, John Kerry was enjoying the temperate climate and familiar old stones of his native Boston. But now, as if in a "Twilight Zone" nightmare, he finds himself stumbling about, half lost in the steamy jungles of the Mekong Delta. It's 1968 again, or is it 1969?
The Doors blasts from the radio: "This is the end, beautiful friend, This is the end, My only friend, the end ... " He wakes up: "Saigon, damn. I'm still only in Saigon. Every time I think I'm going to wake up back in the jungle. When I was home after my first tour, it was worse. I'd wake up, and there'd be nothing ... I hardly said a word to my wife until I said yes to a divorce. When I was here, I wanted to be there. When I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle ..." (opening voiceover of Martin Sheen's character, Capt. Willard, from "Apocalypse Now").
"On more than one occasion, I, like Martin Sheen in "Apocalypse Now," took my patrol boat into Cambodia. In fact, I remember spending Christmas Eve, 1968, five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies, who were drunk and celebrating Christmas ... But nowhere in "Apocalypse Now" did I sense that kind of absurdity ... " (Senator John Kerry, Congressional Record, March 27, 1986).
He is either in Cambodia or somewhere damn near. He is either exchanging fire with the Khmer Rouge -- which would make it no earlier than 1972. Or it's 1968, and he is being shot at by drunken South Vietnamese soldiers celebrating Christmas Eve (a fine old Buddhist holiday). He was either there inadvertently, without orders, or on special assignment dropping CIA agents and SEALs behind enemy lines.
Last week, the Kerry campaign released a statement asserting that: "During John Kerry's service in Vietnam, many times he was on or near the Cambodian border, and on one occasion crossed into Cambodia at the request of members of a special operations group operating out of Ha Tien ... Kerry's was not the only United States riverboat to respond and inadvertently or responsibly cross the border ... " In any event he was, as his campaign spokesman said last week, somewhere on the Mekong River, which separates Cambodia from Vietnam -- except that the Mekong does not separate those two countries; it crosses perpendicular to their border.
Then it was announced in the London Daily Telegraph by Douglas Brinkley -- Kerry's biographer, confidante and enabler -- that Kerry was mistaken about being in Cambodia in Christmas of 1968, but "Kerry went into Cambodian waters three or four times in January and February, 1969, on clandestine missions. He had a run dropping off U.S. Navy Seals, Green Berets and CIA guys." The missions were not armed attacks on Cambodia, Mr. Brinkley informed the newspaper, and he had not included these secret missions in his biography of John Kerry. "He was a ferry master, a drop off guy, but it was dangerous as hell."
Sort of like the patrol boat captain who took Capt. Willard on a mission to "proceed up the Nung River in a Navy Patrol boat. Pick up Col. Kurtz's path, and terminate the colonel ... with extreme prejudice ... .You understand, Captain, that this mission does not exist, nor will it ever exist" (Col. Lucas in "Apocalypse Now").
Did John Kerry's mission ever exist? Was it known only to the CIA and God -- or not even to them? Is John Kerry dreaming of being Martin Sheen's Capt. Willard in "Apocalypse Now" or Martin Sheen's President Bartlet in "The West Wing"? That is the thing about dreams: They merge and twist, and generally lack linear reality.
It may now be dawning on John Kerry that he is living out Colonel Kurtz's Cambodian nightmare: "I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor ... and surviving." So far, John Kerry continues to slither ... and survive.
But the American political jungle is every bit as disorienting and suddenly lethal as the one he emerged from 30 years ago. John Kerry's tangled memory and war braggadocio has been mismanaged by him and his campaign team. They have given too many inconsistent answers, thus forcing the hand of major media outlets such as the Los Angeles Times, U.S. News and World Report, Knight-Ridder and the Boston Globe to start reporting the story.
Even self-admitted Kerry supporter Joan Vennochi wrote in her Boston Globe column this week that: "Kerry's statements about Cambodia do have traction for opponents ... (his spokesmen's) answer aren't good enough. ... He should answer every question voters have about it -- and he should answer himself."
I love the smell of political lies in the morning. ... The smell, you know ... smells like ... defeat.
Kerry Denies Hiding War Records - Mr. Sandusky said it doesn't surprise him that Mr. Kerry may have forgotten where he was then because, like many serving in Vietnam, they didn't want to think about Christmas. "We didn't know where we were at for Christmas," he said. "If [Mr. Kerry] said it, I believe it. I've known John Kerry for 35 years, and he's never lied to me."
[O'NEILL: He was down at SaDec (SaDec Province, in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam), Pat. In his biography entitled "Tour of Duty," all of a sudden, instead of being in Cambodia on December the 25th and 25th - as he had said more than 50 times in articles, and on the floor of the Senate - all of a sudden in his biography "Tour of Duty," he is 55 miles away, at a base, safely ensconsed in a base, writing a letter about sugar plums dancing in his head.] Source
if someone could tell when Kerry first started telling people he was doing secret mission into Cambodia to drop CIA and Special Ops it would tell a lot,,, was it BEFORE or After Apocalypse Now came out or just after?,, if it was just after, then we know he saw the movie and then decided to create a new hero of himself because it would impress anyone who saw the movie,,
That is some really fine writing, the article is positively lethal.
Did you read the LINK at Post #4?
thus forcing the hand of major media outlets such as the Los Angeles Times, U.S. News and World Report, Knight-Ridder and the Boston Globe to start reporting the story.
Isn't life GRAND. These sorry a$$e$ will HAVE to print the truth. LOVE IT !!!
I think in every war there are guys who feel they just didn't do enough and making up a life is easier than living one...and I think a liar feels he can get as much mileage out of a lie as he can telling about deeds he actually had done (not to mention it's a lot easier and safer)...but it also takes a willing gullible audience...
People want to rub shoulders with a hero....and 'the feeling' one gets is the same with a liar or a truth teller as long as the liar is believed to be genuine..(this is another reason the audience does not want the liar debunked imo...they also have a vested interest in the liar being genuine)
A liar can get even more mileage out of his lies with a corrupt audience... one who refuses to see or hear the truth because the truth or truth teller simply doesn't support their agenda...but the liar does....
And that is what makes the liar's version of events more credible to the liar's audience..than the truth terller's version of those same events...
The liars audience suffers from cognitive dissonance....Kerry has provided or will provide them with something they want...and so he is the good guy...they are bought and paid for...
The truth teller has nothing other than the truth to offer them....and so they make their decision to believe the liar...as the liar has something material to offer them...
The truth teller only has something for their honor....nothing for their bellies
The audience like the liar...has sold it's honor when it takes the liars side....and for a crust of bread...has sold it's honor cheaply
imo
Thanks for a great post.
_______________________________________________________
Unfit for Command [Excerpt] Kerry's testimony to the Fulbright Committee was a carefully orchestrated piece of political theater. Fulbright wanted a presentable,
young Kennedy-esque face to put on the antiwar effort, and Kerry wanted a national forum from which to launch his climb to political celebrity. Ted Kennedy
helped arrange Kerry's testimony with Senator Fulbright at a private fundraising event held at the home of Democratic senator Philip A. Hart of Michigan.
…………..Once Kerry learned that he would have the chance to give testimony before the committee, he recruited the assistance of Adam Walinsky, a
speechwriter noted for his work with Robert Kennedy. Walinsky drafted the speech and coached Kerry on its delivery. The only image Kerry wanted us to see was
a myth: a young man with a burning passion for the truth, the leader forced to sleep on the ground, the man answering his country's call to be where he was urgently
needed, before a committee of the United States Senate where the senators and America were urgently waiting for his firsthand criticism of the war. He proceeded
to level his charges: [End Excerpt] Page 99-100, 102-103
________________________________________________________
Read the column at Post #4.
Gee, maybe Martin Sheen spoke to Kerry back then and that's where he got the idea for what he did in Apocalypse Now. No wait, Martin Sheen played a makebelieve character. Let's see, hmm, it looks as if Kerry made it all up. Whicb begs the question: why is Kerry having those nightmares where he wakes up screaming and the fair T has to slap him and tell him to shut up?
PAT ROBERTSON is a great American! God Bless you PAT!
</sarcasm> </sarcasm,Isaid!>
Sorry, hershey, it won't let me turn off the snotty attitude I've developed about the Candidate... :o(
roll = role, cripes!
bttt!!!
Site of Kerry's Me Lie Massacre.
The man is unhinged.
The FIRST known instance of Kerry talking about entering Cambodia was in his 1979 movie review of Apocalypse Now in the Boston Herald. I also watched the rerun of the 1971 debate between Kerry and O'Neil on the Dick Cavett show and Kerry NEVER mentioned anything about entering Cambodia even though such a mention would have helped his case.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
