John Kerry and Cambodiagate

Sorry for the lite posting lately, I do have several excuses. First the kids are on summer break (they go back next week, thank god). Second, as the election gets nearer I have spent a lot of time researching the two candidates. And lastly, I have spent far too much time over at The Newshounds.

The Newshounds are a site set up by the "Outfoxed" organization to attack Fox News. If this group is a representative of the Democrats, boy are they in trouble. These moonbats still claim Gore invented the internet.

If you visit the moonbats, er, Newshounds, and I recommend you do, be warned they don't like being disagreed with. Instead of refuting your claims, your more likely to be called names.

After a visit Newshounds be sure to visit Johnny Dollar. Johnny is a lawyer who set up a site to counter the Newshounds. Let the food fight begin!

Here is a recent sample of a post I left on the Newshounds site.

"This Swift Boat story should be very over..."

Reported by deborah at August 9, 2004 10:48 PM

It's just getting started.

Take the chapter from their book about Christmas in Cambodia for instance.

Here is what the scandal, now being called "Cambodiagate", is about.

For decades, John Kerry has told anyone who'd listen that at Christmas 1968 he was on an illegal mission inside Cambodia. On the floor of the Senate in 1986, while attacking President Reagan for turning Central America into another Vietnam quagmire (wrong as usual), Kerry said: "I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the President of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared – seared – in me." [It was so "seared - seared - in me" but somehow Kerry's own book "Tour of Duty" says Kerry was no where near Cambodia]

The illegal Yuletide foray was so seared into him that he brought it up at every opportunity.

As he told the Boston Herald in 1979, "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."

LBJ was President on Christmas Eve 1968, but let that pass. Here's an Associated Press story from 1992: "Navy Lt John Kerry knew he had no business steering his Mekong River patrol boat across the border into Cambodia, but orders were orders… By Christmas 1968, part of Kerry's patrol extended across the border of South Vietnam into Cambodia."

Just one problem. It never happened. Every living officer up his chain of command says Kerry was never ordered to Cambodia. At least three of his five crewmen say their boat was never in Cambodia. And if you don't believe any of his fellow veterans, read the excerpt from Kerry's own journal published in Tour Of Duty, the recent hagiography by Douglas Brinkley.

On December 24 1968, Kerry was at Sa Dec – that's well inside Vietnam, 55 miles from the Cambodian border – and waxing wistful to his diary about a quiet Christmas far from home: "Visions of sugarplums really do dance through your head and you think of stockings and snow and roast chestnuts and fires with birch logs and all that is good and warm and real. It's Christmas Eve."

http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/08/10/do1002.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2004/08/10/ixopinion.html

And Fox News isn't the only media interested in the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Look, I would rather talk about the war. The current one, I mean — not the one that ended three decades ago. But, insofar as I understand the rules of Campaign 2004, every time any member of the administration says anything about the present conflict, he is accused by Democrats of shamelessly "politicizing" it. Whereas every time John Kerry waxes nostalgic about those fragrant memories of the Mekong Delta, he should be allowed to take his unending stroll down memory lane unmolested. After all, as everyone from John Edwards to Max Cleland to Bill Clinton has assured us, being a Swift boat commander for four months is the indispensable qualification for being president. When Hillary runs in 2008, no doubt she'll be leaning heavily on her four months running a Swift boat up and down the Shatt al-Arab during the Iraq war.

But hang on, most of these fellows in the anti-Kerry ad — the ones talking about how he can't be trusted, etc — are also Swift boat commanders? If being a Swiftee is the most important thing in American life, why are all these "Swift Boat Veterans For Truth" less entitled to be heard than John Kerry?

Well, because they're part of the "Republican smear machine". Apparently, it's the GOP's fault that only one of the 22 surviving Swift boat officers who served with Mr. Kerry is willing to support him, and that a big bunch of the remaining Swiftees feel strongly enough about his conduct 35 years ago to appear in one of the most remarkable political ads ever seen.

Had enough of Vietnam yet?

Most Americans had enough of it at the time. The clever clogs at the Democratic Party should have figured that out before they decided to relaunch John Kerry and John Edwards as Bob Hope and Jill St. John on their USO tour for the presidency. They should never have signed on to this vanity candidacy, even before the multiplying barnacles began encrusting the hull of the campaign boat.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20040808-110052-1938r.htm

Here are a few links with a lot more background on this developing scandal.

http://instapundit.com/archives/017097.php

http://www.rogerlsimon.com/mt-archives/2004/08/an_impeachable.php

http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2004/08/kerry_vesrsus_t.html

Posted by: marc at August 10, 2004 06:43 AM
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