Kerry Caught In Another Lie

It is almost getting monotonous reading about Kerry’s lies and flip-flops…

Here is the article:

Over the past three decades, John Kerry has used a story of being ordered to illegally enter Cambodia during his Vietnam service as proof of war crimes and to argue against U.S. foreign policy, but a new book by Naval colleagues of the Massachusetts senator charges the account is false.

On the floor of the U.S. Senate, March 27, 1986, for example, Kerry attacked President Reagan’s actions in Central America, charging they were leading the United States into another Vietnam. He claimed he could recognize the administration’s errors because he had firsthand knowledge that the Nixon administration lied about American incursions into Cambodia.

In a Boston Herald story, Kerry is quoted as saying, “I remember spending Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real.”

But in “Unfit for Command,” scheduled for release Aug. 15, John O’Neill, who took over Kerry’s swift-boat command, and co-author Jerome Corsi say there are two problems with Kerry’s claim.

One is simply that Nixon had not taken office yet.

The second, they say, is that during Christmas 1968, “he was more than fifty miles away from Cambodia. Kerry was never ordered into Cambodia by anyone and would have been court-martialed had he gone there.”

At the time, Kerry was stationed at Coastal Division 13 in Cat Lo, which had a patrol areas extending to Sa Dec, about 55 miles from the Cambodian border.

All of the surviving officers in Kerry’s chain of command deny he was ever ordered to Cambodia: Joe Streuhli, commander of Costal Division 13; George Elliott, commander of Coastal Division 11; Adrian Lonsdale, captain USCG and commander Coastal Surveillance Center at An Thoi; Rear Adm. Roy Hoffmann, commander of Coastal Surveillance Force Vietnam, CTF 115; and Rear Adm. Art Price, commander of River Patrol Force, CTF 116.

Also at least three of the five crewmen on Kerry?s PCF 44 boat – Bill Zaldonis, Steven Hatch, and Steve Gardner – deny that they or their boat were ever in Cambodia. The remaining two crewmen declined to be interviewed for the book.

The authors say the Cambodia incursion story is not included in Douglas Brinkley’s “Tour of Duty.” Instead, Kerry told of a mortar attack on Christmas Eve 1968 “near the Cambodia border” in Sa Dec.

With this many witnesses, Kerry could be convicted of perjury in a court of law. Some other swift bout missions Kerry was part of have been discussed in another thread, with conflicting accounts being presented by various veterans. However, whether or not he was ever in Cambodia seems a hard thing to make a mistake about. Oh, and take note the article quotes guys that were on his boat.

Any libs out there care to comment on your boy in regards to this lie?

The article is linked here: News agencies coordinate to promote climate change agenda
/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39856

A politician lying? My goodness what’s next??

I find myself wondering: What does Kerry have to do for the blind partisans to stop supporting him?

It seems to me that having at best a flip-flopper and at worst an outright liar, during wartime, would at least merit consideration of voting for President Bush.

But, what do I know? It’s “anyone but Bush.”
I’ve rarely heard a more irresponsible slogan…

JeffR

[quote]JeffR wrote:
What does Kerry have to do for the blind partisans to stop supporting him?
[/quote]

Even though I’m not a Kerry supporter, I think his final point is perfectly valid. Nixon did (later, after the event Kerry describes) claim we didn’t have troops in Cambodia, when we in fact did, and they sometimes were fired upon by their ARVN “allies” – which is indeed a very real absurdity. (But still not as absurd as the predominantly Buddhist Vietnam celebrating christmas with gunfire.)

And since Kerry’s a politician, I expect him to exaggerate, adopt, and outright manufacture the “experiences” leading up to that point. I expect this not because politicians are liars, but because a certain amount of creative license is usually necessary to turn reality into a good speech.

So I don’t really find the nit-picking about whether it was christmas eve of 1968 or whether it was five miles over the Cambodian border to be terribly convincing… I’m all for a demonstration that Kerry’s a big asshole who shouldn’t be elected, but this just looks like a bunch of petty and mean-spirited bullshit.

I’ve been steadily less and less impressed by these veterans’ arguments against John Kerry, and I’m now at the point where I pretty much regard them as a bunch of childish jerks. As a veteran myself, I find their conduct embarrassing.

I’m still voting for Bush. I just don’t want anyone to think it’s because these fuckheads talked me into it.

CDarlock,

Point taken.

If these stories are true, however, it points to a pattern of deceit and flip-flopping that has carried over into his political career.

That is what frightens me…

I’m paying implicit attention to Kerry on the outside chance he is elected. I wonder if the hardcore dem partisans are paying any attention to Bush’s speechs? I suspect they are. Unfortunately, it seems they are trying hard for the “gotcha.”
Bush has substance. It’s too bad the “anyone but Bush” crowd are unable to see his good points.

JeffR

[quote]JeffR wrote:
I find myself wondering: What does Kerry have to do for the blind partisans to stop supporting him?
[/quote]

For me, I’d have to say he’d have to start ranting about “God bless this and that” every 5 minutes (when, even with all my vision problems, even I can see its this religious extremism [insert islam, christianity] that has brought about all our current problems); he’d have to start forcing a bigoted system of psuedo equal rights on me, as well as he’d begin to place caps on what he believes to be worthy science or not… then I’d start to question my “blindness”… until then…

Ah… two sides to every coin… and I’m blind!

Isn’t it sad our “democracy” has left us with 2 choices? So you’re left with a perfectly justifiable slogan given our current electoral process… Oh, and if you’re still searching, check out Tennenesse and their “as long as it’s GOP” mentality! Ha!

Sorry for being a smart ass about your comment… but I’m certainly NOT blind… and I have a feeling neither is anybody else simply wanting change. (or a job)

[quote]JeffR wrote:
If these stories are true, however, it points to a pattern of deceit and flip-flopping that has carried over into his political career.
[/quote]

The only problem with this concern – and it is a valid concern, don’t misunderstand me on that – is that EVERY politician needs to conduct a certain quantity of deceit and flip-flopping just to get elected at all… let alone get anything done.

What I’m primarily concerned about is the question of whether Kerry has conducted malicious deceit or unethical flip-flopping… I don’t really see any; for all the venomous accusations directed at Kerry, he’s simply NOT the horrible, end-of-the-world candidate people like to pretend he is.

In fact, I would expect him to be about the equal of Bush in terms of political efficacy. He may have a different focus, but I think he’s just about equally as competent. So if Bush isn’t a good enough candidate to elect, then neither is Kerry.

I find it comical that Kerry’s people can’t seem to come up with a decent defense of these charges.

While I agree with CD that this is common on both sides of the aisle, it is a rarity that you see a presidential campaign dumbfounded like the Kerry camp…

Kerry is going to have to take an honest stand on something - anything - or risk losing any credibility.

Rush Limbaugh predicted all of this: he said that the Clintons’ don’t want a Dem to win in '04 so that Hillary can run in '08. So they put a Lib from Massachusetts on the ticket who is a bumbler and too stupid to lie intelligiently like Bill. I know, it sounds far-fetched but that’s what Rush said.
I think the Clintons would be pissed if Kerry won. Hillary will be too damned old in '12…

[quote]ZEB wrote:
A politician lying? My goodness what’s next?[/quote]

Zeb –

The problem with this is that Kerry has been using this story for 20 years as an illustration of his thoughts on politicians’ lies – specifically the President’s (Nixon’s). Should it turn out he was lying – or perhaps, in his great tradition, “adding nuance” – in his effort to condemn lying, this would just be more indication of his character…

BTW, his latest attempt at “nuancing” this are pretty stupid. Now he claims he was “near” Cambodia. Except that the whole point of his telling the story for 20 years was to say that Nixon was lying when he said we had no troops in Cambodia. So, I guess he had no point for 20 years? Some good nuance, that.

Overall though, I wish people would just focus on his Senatorial voting record. If they did that, I think this race would be a slam dunk. He has 20 years worth of votes that played really well in Massachusetts, but wouldn’t sound all that great to the rest of the country. Especially his stuff in the Cold War.

[quote]rainjack wrote:
I find it comical that Kerry’s people can’t seem to come up with a decent defense of these charges.
[/quote]

Me too. I find that comical about every political campaign. It seems like campaign HQs waste most of their time responding to bullshit, and paying zero attention to what is actually catching the eyes of voters…

It would be interesting to consider that in chicken-and-egg format. Do they ignore it because we pay attention, or do we pay attention because they ignore it?

Haven’t been around in a while, and I don’t see much reason to return. Looks like you fools have scared away all the opposition and now have merely have each other in your back patting, Bush-ball sucking bliss…

Vote Kerry.

Don’t let the door hit you in the ass when you leave, RSU…

[quote]Right Side Up wrote:
Haven’t been around in a while, and I don’t see much reason to return. Looks like you fools have scared away all the opposition and now have merely have each other in your back patting, Bush-ball sucking bliss.

Vote Kerry.[/quote]

Once, a long time ago, there were others like you - reasonable people who held simple liberal beliefs who replied to those who disagreed with rational and respectful answers…

[quote]doogie wrote:
Right Side Up wrote:
Haven’t been around in a while, and I don’t see much reason to return. Looks like you fools have scared away all the opposition and now have merely have each other in your back patting, Bush-ball sucking bliss.
[/quote]

This is typical of a liberal when faced with the facts- They begin to use the word “shit” more, and resort to derogatory fag talk. Often times they won’t even comment. Lumpy does this a lot. I don’t get upset at all if you point out Bush’s problems. For example, noone commented on my post about Kerry being a no show on the intelligence committee (http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do;jsessionid=78A4627609A89AFA8AA34C07F7762A71.ba13?id=483263 ) Just a simple hard fact that shows how irresponsible he is. I guess when you heat things up with hard facts, it makes the shit in their brains runny, and some ends up leaking out…

Very interesting — check this link:

http://instapundit.com/archives/017129.php

Every year politics in America sinks to a new low. Still people become polarized on a few issues and see anything or anyone not conforming to their belief as evil.

Bush is not a good man. Kerry is not a good man. Both are merely demagogues that will say or do anything to get elected. I believe that both Bush and Kerry misrepresent themselves to the public and if the issues they truly cared about were revealed, neither would stand a chance at getting elected…but this is the nature of politics in America today…baffle the public with impassioned appeals to emotions and prejudices while secretly lining the pockets of wealthy financial backers that got them into power.

It is amusing listening and reading quips that the apologists on both sides use to defend their amazingly lame-ass candidates. The Bush zombies only listen to positive things about their candidate and easily brush off any negatives as either un-important or simple lies…and the Kerry zomies do the exact same thing…comical… As far as I know there has only been one perfect human and he died a couple of thousand years ago.

Even though on the surface it looks as like Bush and Kerry are vastly different…under their thin outer coating they are more alike than most want to admit. No matter which one is elected next november the result will be the same…America one more step closer to becoming a third world nation.

I still believe that America is the greatest country in the world…but I wonder for how much longer???

[quote]DPH wrote:
Even though on the surface it looks as like Bush and Kerry are vastly different…under their thin outer coating they are more alike than most want to admit.[/quote]

There is, however, one major difference.

Kerry does not yet know how to be President.

So if Kerry is elected, he will need to spend a certain amount of time being trained to be the President. Since he does not seem to be a better Presidential candidate, this time is effectively wasted. We are investing it for zero return.

I don’t like that return on investment. I would be willing to make that investment to elect a candidate who was better, but I don’t see any point in making that investment for a candidate who is roughly the same.

Beyond that, I pretty much agree with you on this. There’s no compelling difference between Kerry and Bush. Neither is discernibly more qualified than the other to be President. And in cases like this, I generally side with the incumbent…

[quote]CDarklock wrote:

There is, however, one major difference.

Kerry does not yet know how to be President.
.[/quote]

Of course the Kerry zombies would reply that even after four years in office G.W. Bush does not yet know how to be president.


Most likely either sociopath candidate will run the country in much the same manner.

In reality the country is run by the big money special interest groups through the use of lobbiests (a.k.a. legalized bribery). America is quickly becoming the best country that money can buy.

The real crack-up is watching people fall for the same horseshit time and time again. These con-men are professionals at telling suckers…I mean voters what they want to hear so as to be elected or re-elected.

Happy voting everyone…

DPH-

I won’t argue with anything you said. Exactly how much of it is true will have to wait til the Judgement.

Maybe we should do it this way- whichever candidate is documented lieing the least wins.

Or, you can just go with impressions. Bush is direct although rather smug. Kerry is beady-eyed and shifty. I’m afraid I must go with Little Bush…