The SwiftVets will likely be discredited.
Being a Democrat, the insanity of a photo-op at Wendy's and five-star box lunches in the bus with Ben Affleck will never be reported.
Admission of war crimes, no problem.
But is it a little disturbing that he remembers events that didn't happen? Roger L. Simon thinks so. In Cambodia, Mon Amour he highlights an item from "Unfit For Command:"
Apparently, on the floor of the US Senate in 1986, Kerry asserted he was ordered into Cambodia in Christmas 1968. As he later told the Boston Herald, "I remember spending Christmas of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real."Never mind that Nixon was not yet president at Christmas of 1968, a whole slew of people, quoted in the chapter say it was impossible for Kerry to have been within fifty miles of Cambodia. They also say where he was and what he did. (It wasn't pretty.) Are they lying? Well, consider this. Despite having been repeated by Kerry many times over the years, this story (according to the chapter) is curiously absent from the Senator's recent laudatory campaign bio Tour of Duty. Why, if it was so important to him, so meaningful?
They can't be discredited. It's "he said" vs. "he said." What they can do is sail the "vast right-wing conspiracy" conspiracy again. "This ad was paid for by a wealthy Texan who, coincidentally, is also a major donor to George W. Bush's re-election campaign!" Well there's a shocker - that a wealthy Texan would support the candidate who DOESN'T want to jack up his taxes. There is some deep, dark, sinister plan working here, that's for sure.
In the end, voters will have to use their individual judgment to assess the validity of the claims on both sides. Now THERE'S a lost art for you!
Posted by: johngalt at August 7, 2004 10:56 AM