Posted on 08/28/2004 1:22:36 PM PDT by mhking
It is an axiom of normal human behavior that one is embarrassed when caught flat-footed in a lie. That axiom, however, does not apply to the swift-boat critics of John Kerry. When caught cold in one lie, they simply move to the next.
The latest news reports shed light on the prevarications of John O'Neill, who succeeded Kerry as commander of swift boat PCF-94. A ringleader of the swift-boat critics, O'Neill is the author of a book -- "Unfit for Command" -- that tries to discredit Kerry's wartime heroism. Now walking the low road for George W. Bush, O'Neill first got into the dirty tricks business on behalf of Richard Nixon, who used O'Neill to try to undermine Kerry's rising appeal as an anti-war veteran in 1971.
Currently a darling of the right-wing talk show circuit, O'Neill has insisted in repeated interviews that Kerry could not have been in Cambodia during the war, as Kerry has said. In his book, O'Neill wrote: "Kerry was never in Cambodia during Christmas 1968, or at all during the Vietnam War," adding, he "would have been court-martialed had he gone there."
But days ago, reporters unearthed taped conversations between Nixon and O'Neill, in which O'Neill bragged, "I was in Cambodia, sir. I worked along the border on the water."
Was O'Neill court-martialed? Apparently not. Did he so much as pause after being caught contradicting himself? Not on your life. He just moved from interviews with legitimate news reporters to the friendlier zones of hacks such as Sean Hannity, who would not press him on his mendacity.
Neither O'Neill nor his band of liars is humiliated when one of their accusations blows up in their faces. In a recent attack ad, for example, George Elliott, Kerry's commanding officer in Vietnam, insisted that Kerry "has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam." This is the same Elliott who praised Kerry's courage and leadership profusely during the war, according to military records, and who campaigned for Kerry's re-election to the U.S. Senate.
He and the other veterans against Kerry apparently believe that truth doesn't matter; if they just keep throwing slime at Kerry, sooner or later, some will stick. They don't seem to care that much of the slime clings to them. This group is so obsessed with tearing Kerry down that they not only tell blatant lies, but some of them have also trashed their own records of wartime heroism.
Take Larry Thurlow, who commanded a swift boat alongside Kerry. Thurlow and others have spent weeks trying to undermine one of Kerry's central claims to heroism -- his rescue of Jim Rassman, for which Kerry won a Bronze Star. Thurlow has insisted that none of the swift boats in the Bay Hap River were under enemy fire that day, March 13, 1969.
But contemporaneous military action reports tell another story. Several documents back up Kerry's -- and Rassman's -- account. Indeed, the citation for Thurlow's own Bronze Star, received for his actions that day, notes "enemy small arms," "automatic weapons fire" and "enemy bullets flying about him."
Just last week, Oregon resident Robert Lambert, who was a crew member on Thurlow's boat that day, told his local newspaper: "He [Thurlow] and another officer now say we weren't under fire at that time. Well, I sure was under the impression we were."
Several of the veterans opposed to Kerry trace their animosity back to Kerry's anti-war activities, during which he accused U.S. soldiers of committing atrocities. But they haven't framed their major attacks around that. That's because they know -- or at least Karl Rove knows -- that Kerry's fiery rhetoric from 30 years ago won't sink his campaign.
The Bush campaign must portray Kerry as weak and indecisive -- an unfit commander in chief. That's difficult, since Kerry is a bona fide hero whose wartime exploits seem titanic compared with those of the president. Suffice it to say that Bush and Kerry were not exactly in the same boat in Vietnam. So Bush's surrogates lie to tarnish Kerry's medals.
They may have succeeded in sullying Kerry's military record. But the real truth they've revealed is the corroded core of the Bush campaign, which denies any link with the swift-boat veterans but profits by their poisonous bite.
Cynthia Tucker is the editorial page editor. Her column appears Wednesdays and Sundays.

Just damn.
If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...
forget the barf alert did we?
I've been away from a 'pooter for a week. What's this about O'Neill bragging to Nixon about being on the Cambodian border?
John Kerry threw the slime 35 years ago, and payback, especially after all that time, is a major b----.
only one minor problem- kerry's silence.
The campaign is imploding- lautenberg is warming up in the bullpen and somebody thinks this is going to change anything?
Yeah, ain't life grand!
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This is sort of like a BJ isn't sex. She's pitiful, but what's really pathetic is she too stupid to know it. |
It's really fun to see how uncomfotable the Liberal people get when confronted with facts that show how really bad Kerry is.
Didn't she do a "Michael Jackson" to Euopeanize her face a couple of years ago?
He wasn't bragging about anything. He was stationed on the Cambodian border for about 4 months.
For me, it isn't what Kerry did while he was there. It's the lies he's told about his time there, and the lies he told when he came home. It's the ever-changing stories about his exploits, It's the ever-changing "beliefs". He's untrustworthy in ANY way, shape, or form, and the SBVT have pointed that out. Leftists are apoplectic over that.
Do you want to call Louis Farrakhan or should I?
She conveniently ignored that O'Neill commanded the Swift boat after Kerry. Feed the crowd the lies...
Kerry doesn't need Bush's help on this. He's doing a very good job of this all by himself...
The DNC lib hacks are all in a big sweat and as time goes on the mud they are throwing explains the panic they feel. I have never seen the demise of anything so completely as" A National Party No More", that Zell Miller wrote.(Zell, Democrat from Georgia, is one of their own who knows what has happened). You can't run on nothing....and since Kerry chose Vietnam and their were two and a half million guys watching, you better be right about your stories. His record in Congress, as Charles Krauthammer says, was so dismal, it tells the story of an anti way, anti military Senator who voted every weapon system down, wants sensitivity in our payback of 9/11, and desires running to the rotton from within U.N. for help.
Or is this so much guilt by association?
Heck, she conveniently ignored the entire 8 years of the Klintoon administration.
Hey Cynthia! Where ya been sleeping?
To Ms Tucker, this piece of information gives Kerry a get out of jail free card for claiming all these years that he was in Cambodia in '68 and it was "seared" into his brain.
Its tough understanding left wing lunatics.
Ahh journalism liberal-style:
If the truth doesn't fit your agenda, then spin it and twist it and torture it around until it does.
If that doesn't work, just make it up out of whole cloth - it's OK, because you know in your heart of hearts you're doing it for the good of the people.......
(OK, I know it's a cut~n~paste comment, but cyn doesn't merit more than that ;'}
What's that green stuff all over you, Cynthia?
Wait, if Kerry lied about Cambodia, doesn't that count as a falsehood "blowing up in one's face"? Kerry's lies don't matter, apparently.
I expect nothing less from the Al-Jazeera Chronicle. Ugh.
I love reading the bile in letters like this, full of lies and distortions. It's gonna be so much fun to see their heads explode when Dubya is re-elected...
Do any of the still alive Cox-Chambers family have any power there or are they sympathetic?
"Do any of the still alive Cox-Chambers family have any power there or are they sympathetic?"
I would say they are sympathetic based on the lower link at opensecrets.org
http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.asp?txtName=chambers&NumOfThou=0&txt2004=Y&submit=Go%21
No, they're just pathetic.
I thought she was black maybe that's just slime sticking to her!
I just read a hair on them. The grand dame is 84 now and her daughters are the big force in that empire.
I would guess like most media magnates, they are libs.
Well, there's the claim that O'Neill is heard telling Nixon that he was in Cambodia. There's the claim that George Elliott once said nice things about Kerry.
So far no lies and misrepresentations cited.
Ah yes, the Thurlow Bronze Star hubbub. Pathetic try Ms Tucker but you did try. That would be one, except.. the Human Events article at
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1195581/posts
squashes your puny attempt. ("Four Eyewitnesses Dispute Kerry's Account of Bronze Star Incident," Aug 20, 2004, by Joseph A. D'Agostino and David Freddoso) Hint: it has to do with who was writing those after action reports.
I guess I can go on waiting.
That's the genesis of a funny bumper sticker: "Time for Lautenberg?" or "Lautenberg Time!" or something like that.
Of course, democRats are too stupid to get it, but normal people aren't.
A classic case of pointing out this kind of faulty reasoning, from the fourth Lincoln-Douglas debate:
Lincoln: "In regard to Trumbull's charge that he Douglas] inserted a provision into the bill to prevent the constitution being submitted to the people, what was his answer? He comes here and reads from the Congressional Globe to show that on his motion that provision was struck out of the bill. Why, Trumbull has not said it was not stricken out, but Trumbull says he [Douglas] put it in; and it is no answer to the charge to say he afterwards took it out. Both are perhaps true. It was in regard to that thing precisely that I told him he had dropped the cub. Trumbull shows you that by his introducing the bill it was his cub. It is no answer to that assertion to call Trumbull a liar merely because he did not specially say that Douglas struck it out. Suppose that were the case, does it answer Trumbull? I assert that you [pointing to an individual] are here to-day, and you undertake to prove me a liar by showing that you were in Mattoon yesterday. I say that you took your hat off your head, and you prove me a liar by putting it on your head. That is the whole force of Douglas's argument."
A classic case of pointing out this kind of faulty reasoning, from the fourth Lincoln-Douglas debate:
Lincoln: "In regard to Trumbull's charge that he Douglas] inserted a provision into the bill to prevent the constitution being submitted to the people, what was his answer? He comes here and reads from the Congressional Globe to show that on his motion that provision was struck out of the bill. Why, Trumbull has not said it was not stricken out, but Trumbull says he [Douglas] put it in; and it is no answer to the charge to say he afterwards took it out. Both are perhaps true. It was in regard to that thing precisely that I told him he had dropped the cub. Trumbull shows you that by his introducing the bill it was his cub. It is no answer to that assertion to call Trumbull a liar merely because he did not specially say that Douglas struck it out. Suppose that were the case, does it answer Trumbull? I assert that you [pointing to an individual] are here to-day, and you undertake to prove me a liar by showing that you were in Mattoon yesterday. I say that you took your hat off your head, and you prove me a liar by putting it on your head. That is the whole force of Douglas's argument."
Sorry for the double post.
Re-write the headline. It should read:
Cynthia Tucker: Stupid sticks to those that are....
I saw last night that the 'Rats are misrepresenting O'Neill's statement. O'Neill says something unintelligible between the two sentences above. According to O'Neill, who says he misspoke a single preposition--using "in" instead of "near"--I must assume that the unintelligible statement was some sort of correction of his conversational misstatement. In addition, O'Neill misspoke once in a single conversation that he didn't know was being taped. Kerry lied innumerable times in public, including on the floor of the Senate, where he had to assume or know that what he was saying was being recorded. Nice try 'Rats.
I'm not trying to come to the authors rescue BUT, this is the first sentence of the second paragraph. "The latest news reports shed light on the prevarications of John O'Neill, who succeeded Kerry as commander of swift boat PCF-94."
Poor Cindy. She can't tell the truth from lies. Just another Media Whore for John F*ckin.' Its nice to turn tricks by smearing the Vets and avoiding dealing with the substance of the charges. I can understand why she's haughtily offended; it never occurred to her other people might take issue with Kerry's description of his own bio and that his image as a "war hero" left something to be desired.
<< Cynthia Tucker is [Absolutely] the ... >>
.... ugliest of all among the ludicrous left's legions of lunatic lickspittles.
<< O'Neill .... just moved from "interviews" with "legitimate 'news' reporters" to .... hacks such as Sean Hannity, who .... >>
Stands infinitely morally and intellectually taller, is a thousand times better known -- and makes around a hundred times more money than the pittance paid Quota-Hiring's Pennant-bearing, Peter-Pricipled, intellectually and morally insolvent, Tucker.
<< Cynthia Tucker is [Absolutely] the ... >>
.... ugliest of all among the ludicrous left's legions of lunatic lickspittles.
And I'll bet if she commanded an audience of more than fifteen and invited Mr O'Neil to an interview, he'd go in a flash!
[Thanks for the ping, mh]
Blessings -- Brian
Yep, and Kerry has already admitted that he wrote the after action reports himself. No wonder the official record makes him look like a hero!
Oops.. thanks!
With Cynthia Tuckers name on it, it's not required, just a given.
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