JustOneMinute

Now It Is Lowellgate?

Pat Curley, whose blog title warns you to any possible bias (unlike "JustOneMinute" with the endless posts), has a good reprise of the Kerry - VVAW assasination plot, with a new twist - Gerald Nicosia, the author with the FBI files was burglarized, and some of the files were stolen. Let's try an LA Times link.

Now, who would steal something like that? Well, from the weird to the utterly bizarre - Lowellgate:

Get ready for Lowellgate.

On Sept. 18, 1972, the evening before the primary election during his second attempt for Congress, Kerry's brother Cameron and one Thomas Vallely, both part of his current campaign team, were arrested by Lowell police at 1:40 a.m. and charged with breaking and entering with the intent to commit larceny....

The Next Big Thing, II

Kerry and his association with the V.V.A.W. have caught the eye of the Boston Globe:

Kerry spoke of meeting negotiators on Vietnam

In a question-and-answer session before a Senate committee in 1971, John F. Kerry, who was a leading antiwar activist at the time, asserted that 200,000 Vietnamese per year were being "murdered by the United States of America" and said he had gone to Paris and "talked with both delegations at the peace talks" and met with communist representatives.

Kerry, now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, yesterday confirmed through a spokesman that he did go to Paris and talked privately with a leading communist representative. But the spokesman played down the extent of Kerry's role and said Kerry did not engage in negotiations.

Asked about the appropriateness of Kerry's saying that the United States had "murdered" 200,000 Vietnamese annually when the United States was at war, Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan said "Senator Kerry used a word he deems inappropriate."

C-Span has his testimony; Bryan Preston has more.

In related news, the VVAW assasination story made it to Scarborough Country Tuesday night. Transcript here.

MORE: Let's put this story in the mix. His good question - from a reconstruction of Kerry's role, he seems to have nothing to hide. What's up?

His dubious point - the murder plot justified the FBI surveillance of the group. My understanding is that no evidence has emerged suggesting the FBI knew of the plot - certainly, they "cleared" Kerry of involvement in violent activities when they ended surveillance of him.

That said, the murder plot does suggest that the FBI had reasons for keeping an eye on this group and its members.