Kerry critics draw crowd, ire during speech in S.F. (Kerry Vet Leader Likens O'Neill to Goebbels)

Call your local newspapers, jewish and veterans organizations, and request they demand a public apology from Sanders and from the Kerry campaign. See last 2 paragraphs of article.

Kerry critics draw crowd, ire during speech in S.F. By Josh Richman STAFF WRITER

Saturday, September 11, 2004 - SAN FRANCISCO -- The summer heat grew milder but the rhetoric index was sky-high Friday as two leading critics of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's military service repeated their attacks while protesters picketed their presence.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth co-founder John O'Neill, author of "Unfit for Command," again aired his claims that Kerry not only conflated his own record in Vietnam for political gain but also smeared other veterans' reputations while speaking out against the war after his return.

"It's simply a fraud on the American people, much of it," he told an audience at the Commonwealth Club of California's Market Street offices.

Also speaking Friday was retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Robert "Buzz" Patterson, a senior aide to President Clinton who since has authored two books taking Clinton and other Democrats to task for what he deems their failings in military wisdom and national security. Antiwar liberals "hijacked" the Democratic party decades ago, he claimed, and Kerry is "ill-equipped to lead our young troops in combat."

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth filed a disclosure report Friday showing it had raised $1.9 million since April 23. O'Neill said Friday the section 527 advocacy group has received thousands of donations averaging $65 to $70, but the report shows $1.19 million was raised from a dozen donors, of whom eight -- including O'Neill himself -- are wealthy Texans.

O'Neill focused Friday on three specific incidents during what he called Kerry's "short and controversial" four-month combat stint. First, he said Kerry's account of a secret mission inside Cambodia on Christmas 1968 was "a total and complete fabrication ... a malicious lie."

Second, O'Neill said a report Kerry filed on a January 1969 incident claims enemy troops were involved, while Kerry's book claims he felt guilt for having accidentally slain civilians. And third, he claimed, Kerry's boat not only wasn't under fire when rescuing an overboard crew member in March 1969 but actually fled the scene during a short firefight.

O'Neill himself never saw Kerry in Vietnam; he took command of the same swift boat Kerry had led several weeks after Kerry left. Taking questions and mild, sporadic heckling from the audience, he said most officers and enlisted men in Kerry's unit -- although not aboard the same boat -- now feel Kerry is unfit to be commander-in-chief.

Outside, a few dozen protesters bore signs declaring "Unfit for Consumption -- Liar go home!" and "Swift Boat Lies for Bush" as the Kerry campaign recruited volunteers and registered voters.

Former Deputy Assistant Navy Secretary Wade Sanders of San Diego, who commanded a swift boat alongside Kerry's and who now leads California Veterans for Kerry, called O'Neill's claims "a pack of lies." "I would go into combat with John Kerry any time, any place -- I wouldn't follow George Bush into an ice cream parlor."

O'Neill "needs to be confronted with the lies he's fomenting," Sanders said. He likened O'Neill and Karl Rove to Nazi propaganda master Joseph Goebbels, saying they "studied at that man's knee."

As a proudly Jewish veteran of Vietnam, I take strong exception (and that's more polite than it deserves) at Kerry's California Veterans for Kerry leader, Wade Sanders, using language that likens John O'Neill to Joseph Goebbels. This is the same as when John Kerry said "The only feeling you could have was that you were like the Germans" in being in Vietnam [Dick Cavett show, 1971]. It is because of Kerry's words and actions then and now, and those like Sanders whom Kerry enlists in leading his campaign, that Vietnam veterans are so outraged, as are so many other citizens. Their brand of gutter smear politics reaches its ultimate low with likening Vietnam veterans to Nazis.

What is with the dnc and their infactuation with all things NAZI?

Old story - but worth repeating:

Read closely, and be honest with yourself as you answer along with these students.

In previous years, and on the first day of class, I have given my new students a ballot, indicating that "it is time to elect the leader of a great nation," and offering them two candidates, A and B.

Candidate A is identified as "a well-known critic of government, this man has been involved in tax protest movements, and has openly advocated secession, armed rebellion against the existing national government, and even the overthrow of that government. He is a known member of a militia group that was involved in a shoot-out with law enforcement authorities. He opposes gun control efforts of the present national government, as well as restrictions on open immigration into this country. He is a businessman who has earned his fortune from such businesses as alcohol, tobacco, retailing, and smuggling."

Candidate B is described thusly: "A decorated army war veteran, this man is an avowed nonsmoker and dedicated public health advocate. His public health interests include the fostering of medical research and his dedication to eliminating cancer. He opposes the use of animals in conducting such research. He has supported restrictions on the use of asbestos, pesticides, and radiation, and favors government-determined occupational health and safety standards, as well as the promotion of such foods as whole-grain bread and soybeans. He is an advocate of government gun-control measures. An ardent opponent of tobacco, he has supported increased restrictions on both the use of and advertising for tobacco products. Such advertising restrictions include:

[1] not allowing tobacco use to be portrayed as harmless or a sign of masculinity;
[2] not allowing such advertising to be directed to women;
[3] not drawing attention to the low nicotine content of tobacco products; and,
[4] limitations as to where such advertisements may be made.

This man is a champion of environmental and conservationist programs, and believes in the importance of sending troops into foreign countries in order to maintain order therein."

The students are asked to vote, anonymously, for either of these two candidates. I employ this exercise only every other year, at most, so that students will not have been told to expect it. Over the years, the voting results have given candidate B about 75% of the vote, while candidate A gets the remaining 25%.

After completing the exercise and tabulating the results, I inform the students that candidate A is a composite of the American "founding fathers" (e.g., Sam Adams, John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, etc.). Candidate B, on the other hand, is Adolf Hitler, whose advocacy for the programs named can be found in such works as Robert Proctor's The Nazi War on Cancer.

< snip >

The above article was titled ...

The Hitler Test
by Butler Shaffer
26 September 2003

Butler Shaffer teaches at the Southwestern University School of Law.

Hitler in the sense of "snappy dresser" or Hitler in the sense of politics?

I mean, Nazis were National Socialists sort of like how Nancy Pelosi belongs to that National organization for American Socialists. Democrats and Nazis goose step to the same political beat these days it seems. They have even got their own reincarnated version of Goebbels in the abundant form of Michael Moore.

At any rate, whatever the rats seems to come up these days seems to fall into the the old "I'm rubber you're glue" formula. Why do they even bother?

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