Americans making ironic comments about Kerry?

TomF

The U.S. Democratic Party's candidate for the Presidency, John F'n Kerry, has for years claimed that he spent a Christmas Eve on his "Swift Boat" in Cambodia, hoping not to be shot by drunken South Vietnamese Army soldiers celebrating Christmas.

Now it comes to light that he wasn't in Cambodia at all. Some (perhaps many) Americans are making openly ironic comments about this. Some are even noticing the irony of Kerry making his four months service in Viet-Nam the central part of his campaign and basing a good part of that on his heroic presence in Cambodia that Christmas Eve.

Ironically, Kerry may have assured the re-election of George W. Bush by stirring all these ironic thoughts in American voter minds.

teaser

yeah, it gets very confusing near election time, dont know what to believe about it anymore, it'll be over soon anyway,

might place a bet on GWB winning the election, not that i'd like him to,
but I can see it happening,

id say there will be riots in america if he does get it, and who could blame them for being angry, he cheated once, he can cheat again.
:mad:

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

TomF

For a truly disgusting example of how to shout over and divert attention from the contributions of a person who wants to debate you, follow the antics of James Carville (former Bill Clinton hatchet-man) in the transcript of a TV news program that can be found at
http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0408/12/cf.00.html

ColoradoGal

This is trully amazing that you all know so much about the US politics going on over here! I'm not saying that in a coy way, I'm really impressed that you have followed this so closely, regardless of your position. Americans really have no idea how connected we are to the world discourse (whether we want to be or not). Really, I have to tell my friends over here to read this as it is amazing.

Tom, I am surprised that anyone there is really following this Swift Votes. I saw that CNN program too. yes Carville was a bit too hot under the collar, but I think he was just too disgusted with this character O'Neil to engage with him. Have you ever seen the 30-year old footage of the John Kerry/John O'Neil "debate" on the Dick Cavett show? I think it was circa 1972 - it was on CSPAN channel over here. This young man O'Neil hatred for Kerry was absolutely venomous! Kerry kept trying to talk about the issue of bring men home from the war and O'Neil mostly just kept spitting hateful comments about Kerry himself. If been told by my parents that the late 60's/early70's were really an emotionally heated, raw, devisive time in our history. Have you also heard the old taped Nixon conversations regarding Kerry? I did recently in an excellent Tom Brokaw program on NBC that documented Nixon's covert attack/defence against this Young "formidable John Kerry". Right after Kerry's speech to the Senate in '71, the polls showed an immediate drop in support for the war and support for bringing home the troops. Nixon then discussed with Halderman how to combat Kerry by bringing up this John O'Neil to attack him in the press. O'Neil was basically a Nixon pawn for the Vietnam war!! Not that O'Neil wasn't a willing soldier for Nixon's cause, he was (as you can tell by the old footage). Halderman, who went to jail for Watergate became a "born-again" Christian and publically appoligized to John Kerry for the covert attacks and using the FBI to try to find dirt on the man, as they did with many anti-war Americans back then.

As Chris Matthews has dismissed this whole story, I agree that this whole effort is mainly about Kerry's outspoken protest of the War and for calling fellow soldiers War Criminals. If O'Neil would just stick to that story and not make up this crap about Kerry's medals, he might be a bit more credible. Kerry has stated that he regrets his rhetoric he used in '71, but let's put it into context it was 1971 people! It is a fact that O'Neil never interviewed any of the men who actually served with him ON HIS BOAT for this book, therein lies the smell of the rat.

TomF

I thought the Nixon aide who became a "born-again Christian" was Chuck Colson. All this is like "deja vu all over again" to me, and I'd say the U.S. election of 2004 is going to be like the one of 1972, except that the Democratic Party's candidate now is even more hapless than George McGovern was then.

shotamoose

TomF wrote:

the Democratic Party's candidate now is even more hapless than George McGovern was then.

Funny how he's leading in the polls, then.

ColoradoGal

Tom, I thought they both became born-again, concidering they didn't seem to be born right the first time 'round, I suppose it must have been an improvement.

Do you know any Sextons in Cork? Just curious.

TomF

I think it is worthwhile to note here that Kerry himself is the one who emphasised his Swift-Boat-in-Cambodia-at-Christmas episode as being very important. It is not his enemies in politics who made the fuss. What they are fussing about is that Kerry was not telling the truth. Now that he has been found-out, his response is to stop talking about this part of the centerpiece of his campaign for the Presidency of the U.S. Terminally odd, if you ask me.

Here is what a columnist says about it (granted, not a friend of the Kerry campaign):

"Selective memory is everyone's' secret enemy. Kerry hadn't been challenged in his selective recall since he left Vietnam, and his stories kept getting better and better. No wonder Kerry told the Washington Post interviewer, 'I wish they had a delete button on LexisNexis.'

But what is now clear is that Kerry has gone a step farther. Kerry lies. He not only lies to the Senate, the press and historians, he lies to his own press people, and he lies to himself. And he has been lying for years. And whenever one of Kerry's lies is under attack, he attacks every one else -- as liars.

And there is a pattern to his responses as well. When the lie becomes undeniable, the sources are attacked.
...

When the lie becomes unsustainable, it is attributed to a memory failure. Kerry never appears. He never tries to make an explanation. He takes no responsibility. He even hides from the press as he has for the past several days."

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=6980

gandalf

Well I suppose at least he has some memory of that time. Poor old Georgie has forgotten what a whole 6 months of his service record

Hobbes

Plus an inanimate carbon rod could run for president and it would be better then Bush.