Kerry Campaign Endorses Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

Kerry campaign spokesperson Stephanie Cutter unwittingly but unmistakably endorsed the motivation, if not the message, of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, although she was explaining Kerry's decision to attack the Swiftees:

"When somebody's attacking your military record, you reach a boiling point, and he reached a boiling point last night," Ms. Cutter explained. "When you go and fight in a war, when you spill blood for your country, your instinct is to fight back and defend your record."

As the new ad from the SBVT makes clear, these veterans did not like it when John Kerry described them to the US Senate in 1971 as war criminals and rapists who operated like an army of Genghis Khan. And they still don't like it.

Real Clear Politics explains why this plot twist is not good for Kerry. Kerry air-brushed his anti-war activities out of his biography as presented at the Democratic convention - presumably, "I was a war hero before I was a war protestor" seemed too nuanced a position to appeal to swing voters.

On the other hand, Kerry really did say those things. He tried to open a bit of distance between himself and his past when Tim Russert asked him about this in April, but how can he repudiate his anti-war days without antagonizing a significant portion of his base? This is a straddle-flip-flop that would stymie Paul Hamm.

For their part, the Swiftees have moved the argument to what seems to be their real objection to John Kerry - his medals may gall them, but it is his anti-war testimony that really lights their fire, as this 1971 debate between John Kerry and John O'Neill makes clear. (The debate is worth reading just for the staggering ineptitude of Dick Cavett's segues to breaks).

Before I resume radio silence, I have a personal plea to the Captain, Roger Simon, Hugh Hewitt, and anyone who might be in contact with the Swiftees: as this post explains, it has been widely reported that Kerry was honorably discharged prior to becoming a war protestor. Not So! When Kerry was meeting with the North Vietnamese, accusing his fellow officers of war crimes, and meeting with a group that discussed the assassination of US Senators, he was an officer in the Naval Reserve. This was only acknowledged by the Kerry campaign in May of this year, correcting a phony [strike "phony", insert "misleading"] Harvard Crimson interview from January 1970. Readers of the NY Times, the LA Times, and the Boston Globe are in for a surprise.

MORE: The smell of fear at the NY Times: from Adam Nagourney - "Kerry Might Pay Price for Failing to Strike Back Quickly:

In fairness to Mr. Kerry, his aides were faced with a strategic dilemma that has become distressingly familiar to campaigns in this era when so much unsubstantiated or even false information can reach the public through so many different forums, be it blogs or talk-show radio.

Matt, Glenn, Hugh, and Rush are breaking hearts at the Times - bring back the Responsible Big Media filter!

And from Glen Justice and Jim Rutenberg, "Kerry Is Filing a Complaint Against Swift Boat Group:

...some Democrats said privately they feared that this ad would have even more impact than the last, whose charges have not been substantiated.

"It's not something that can be easily or successfully discredited,'' said one party strategist, who requested anonymity because he did not want to be seen as undermining Mr. Kerry's campaign. "It's guys talking about how they felt and you can't discredit someone's description of his own feelings.''

And this excerpt from the ad is punishing:

The new commercial that the Swift boat group introduced on Friday features veterans who say that Mr. Kerry's antiwar statements in the early 1970's, when they were being held as prisoners of war by the Vietcong, aided their captors.

"John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I and many of my comrades in the North Vietnam prison camps took torture to avoid saying,'' says Paul Galanti, identified on screen as a prisoner of war from January 1966 to February, 1973.

Bring it on.

Comments

[Vet]

I looked into this a while back using Kerry's records. It looked like Kerry was tranferred into Reserves and then into the Inactive Reserves a couple of weeks later. He then transferred back to Active Reserves in, I think, 72.

One area where that would show up is in Kerry's Senate pension plan. If Kerry has, for example 28 or 30 years of government servide time depending on whether the time spent in the Reserves was active or inactive.

[Oswald Sobrino]

I see you have carefully read the Swifties' book! As far as I can tell, not many "elite media" types have. Go to pbs.org and look up the August 20th transcript for the Lehrer Newshour segment with political analysts Bill Kristol and Mark Shields. The conservative Kristol refuses to back down to the liberal Mark Shields' obviously uninformed pontificating. The liberal media types are in obvious meltdown, as also shown by the Hardball fiasco by Christ Matthews.

[daniel]

are you asserting that the crimsom interview is a fake, or is it a real interview with a "phony as ever kerry?"

the uk telegraph - as recently as last week, see:

(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/03/07/wkerr07.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/03/07/ixnewstop.html) -

interviewed the interviwer who interviewed john kerry for that article and according to this uk telegrapgh piece the interviewer - now a doctor at harvard - stands by the piece.

[inkling]

Here is the link to the Kristol/Shields transcript.

[TH]

Hmm, spot the phony - it is clear from the links (but not this post), that what is phony is the information presented by the Harvard Crimson that Kerry was honorably discharged on Jan 3, 1970.

What source they might have had, other than Kerry, one can only wonder; why Kerry failed to correct it is also mysterious (OK, not really).

[KT]

"In fairness to Mr. Kerry, his aides were faced with a strategic dilemma that has become distressingly familiar to campaigns in this era...."

---Poor Kerry. I remember Bush faced a similar dilemma when Fahrenheit 911 came out.

[Jim in Texas]

When somebody's attacking your military record, you reach a boiling point, and he reached a boiling point last night," Ms. Cutter explained. "When you go and fight in a war, when you spill blood for your country, your instinct is to fight back and defend your record."

This is like the third or fouth statement from someone in the Kerry Campaign who talk like they actually have, ya know, fought in wars.

Is anyone else struck by the ludicrousness of it all?

Democratic Gen Xers talking like Vietnam vets, what's next?

[inkling]

Kerry's campaign motto: "BRING IT ON! Ow, quit it, that hurts!"

[Joanna]

>"In fairness to Mr. Kerry, his aides were faced with a strategic dilemma that has become distressingly familiar to campaigns in this era...."

Yeah right. In fairness to U.S. citizens, Kerry's incompetence in managing his presidential campaign doesn't speak well about his ability to manage more challenging strategic dilemmas such as those posed by fanatic Isamcists. If Kerry can't manage his campaign for Pete's sake, how can he be expected or trusted to manage the nation?

[James Brady]

Kerry lives in such a dreamworld that he thinks he's the ONLY person who served in Vietnam. He opened his Senate "testimony" by saying he spoke for all vets. At about the same time, I came back, got discharged and was spit at and called "baby killer" in S.F. International Airport. I guarantee he's never spoken for me or anyone else except himself.

[Warthog]

The Democratic Party needs to purge and reform or split into separately identifiable divisions. There is no way that Americans will ever trust a Party that sits Michael Moore in the Presidential box and fields such an obviously manufactured and flawed candidate. After months of Bush bashing hysteria with nary a token of resistance to the Democrats right to do it, a handful of middle-aged vets tell us what they saw and heard 35 years ago and the Democrats mobilize an army of lawyers to shut these guys up. Now that's scary.

[Beldar]

Tom, maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not sure I understand your plea. Is it just to for someone to ensure that the SwiftVets organization learns of Kerry's continuing reserve officer status when he was, for example, meeting with the North Vietnamese gov't and Viet Cong in Paris before his Senate testimony? If so, have no worries, my friend -- they're certainly aware of that. (As is Judicial Watch, which makes that one of their big arguments for why the DoD should consider stripping Kerry of his medals in their new formal complaint.) Or is there something else you want to make sure doesn't get missed?

[Beldar]

Tom, maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not sure I understand your plea. Is it just for someone to ensure that the SwiftVets organization learns of Kerry's continuing reserve officer status when he was, for example, meeting with the North Vietnamese gov't and Viet Cong in Paris before his Senate testimony? If so, have no worries, my friend -- they're certainly aware of that. (As is Judicial Watch, which makes that one of their big arguments for why the DoD should consider stripping Kerry of his medals in their new formal complaint.) Or is there something else you want to make sure doesn't get missed?

[Beldar]

Ack, sorry for the double-post -- feel free to delete the first one (or both, if I'm missing the point entirely).

[Tim]

JohnKerry:

"I first supported the war before I opposed it."

"I first fought in intensive combat before I didn't."

"I was in Cambodia illegally before I wasn't."

"I was part of a band of brothers before I wasn't."

"I threw away my medals before I didn't."

"I accused American soldiers of war crimes before I didn't."

And, finallly,

"I was a viable candidate for President before I wasn't."

[Tim]

JohnKerry:

"I first supported the war before I opposed it."

"I first fought in intensive combat before I didn't."

"I was in Cambodia illegally before I wasn't."

"I was part of a band of brothers before I wasn't."

"I threw away my medals before I didn't."

"I accused American soldiers of war crimes before I didn't."

"I was out of the Navy before I was in the Navy when I met with the enemy North Vietnamese in Paris."

And, finallly,

"I was a viable candidate for President before I wasn't."

[Porter]

there is an interesting comment in the forum at www.crushkerry.com, search word "awol," which shows that Kerry never showed up for his Ready Reserve duties. Has links and documents. Worth a look.

[John Hawkins]

Tom

Why do you say that interview was phony? That's the first time I've heard that charge made and numerous big media sources have quoted from it at one time or another. Can you clarify?

[Kyle]

You guys bring new meaning to "move on." When one charge doesn't pan out, you're on to the next one.

[DonBoy]

James Brady:

He opened his Senate "testimony" by saying he spoke for all vets.

Quoted at Atrios:

"I am not here as John Kerry. I am here as one member of a group of 1,000, which is a small representation of a very much larger group of veterans in this country, and were it possible for all of them to sit at this table, they would be here and have the same kind of testimony."

He says he's speaking for a large group (Vietnam Veterans Against the War), not speaking for all veterans.

Tom: in this:

it has been widely reported that Kerry was honorably discharged prior to becoming a war protestor. Not So!

...does the word "honorably" serve any function except to allow for an out-of-context quote (such as at Instapundit) where it sounds like Kerry was discharged with some other status, as opposed to the distinction you're actually making, which is that he wasn't out yet?

[Paul Zrimsek]

So Kerry wasn't claiming to speak for all vets-- merely asserting that if they were present they'd all be saying the same things he was saying? This is all very nuanced.

My own question after reading the Cavett transcript: Did Kerry believe that William Calley should not have been put on trial for war crimes? His insistence that his group didn't want any more Calleys implied pretty strongly that even one Calley was too many.

My favorite quote: "The true fact of the matter is, Dick, that there's absolutely no guarantee that there would be a bloodbath. "

[RandMan]

You guys bring new meaning to "move on." When one charge doesn't pan out, you're on to the next one.

That is rich Kyle. LOL. Guess you missed the part about Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia adventure. It seems it never happened. So it sort of, kind of, did "pan out". As for the other charges made by the SBVFT, Senator Kerry could clear those up by signing form 180 and releasing ALL the records.

As for the second SBVFT ad, all I can say is perhaps the Democrats should have taken a closer look at Kerry's Vietnam baggage. Don't blame the messenger when he points out that the emperor has no clothes.

Look Kyle, if you want to vote for a man that slandered his comrades, acted as a useful idiot for Marxists here in the US and abroad, and championed the US withdrawal in SE Asia that led to the boat people and the killing fields, then by all means, vote for Kerry. As for me, I'll pass, thank you very much.

[Tim]

JohnKerry:

"I supported my opponent releasing all of his military records before I opposed releasing mine."

[Beldar]

In responding to the Kerry campaign aids and the Kerry campaign supporters in the mainstream media who are now claiming that the second SwiftVets ad takes Kerry's 1971 Senate testimony "out of context," I've done a lengthy fisking of his entired prepared opening statement, to demonstrate who he claimed to be speaking of, and who he claimed to be speaking for, at various points. The more context one looks at, the clearer it becomes that Kerry's testimony was not just a report on what the 150 so-called "Winter Soldiers" had claimed to have seen and done, but an indictment — purportedly made by Kerry on behalf of vastly more than just the 1000 or so vets then protesting in Washington — of the entire American military presence in Vietnam, and indeed of the entire American culture.

[stevo]

over at captainsquarters blog, it had been brought up that in 2001 J.Kerry had requested to have his discharge moved back from 1972 to 1970 officially. do not know the outcome of this. Does anyone? Would he be trying to do this to "sanitize" his record before launching a bid for the cinc?

[baldilocks]

Sorry for the multiple trackbacks (one of those Typepad thing of which I'm sure you're aware). Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

[George P]

How can the Kerry campaign be hypocritical here but not the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? Aren't they doing exactly what they accuse Kerry of having done?

[david]

George P: Do I understand that you are saying the Swift Vets are running for president? Gosh, that does make a difference! Also, what exactly do you mean "doing the same thing"? Charging Kerry with lying?

[RandMan]

George P - you post makes absolutely no sense. Try again.

[Juliette]

It appears that in my many-times trackbacked post, I was mistaken. See the follow-up immediately afterward.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

"...presumably, 'I was a war hero before I was a war protestor' seemed too nuanced a position to appeal to swing voters."

Positively Zrimsekian.

[ed]

Hmmm.

"You guys bring new meaning to "move on." When one charge doesn't pan out, you're on to the next one."

There are just so many it's hard to choose. At this rate we'll be doing this for the next 6 years. From reading Unfit for Command a few times there's a couple dozen more charges that could be made.

I can't even begin to list them because it would essentially reprise the book.

[Link for swift boat veteran forums...]

Check out the truth at the swift boat forums!

[Blackdog53]

It is sad to see the kerry campaign rousting President Bush's military record. I was losing two very close friends at the same time he was sitting in Paris with the North Vietnamese. I had a friend that also sat with the North, only he was at the Hanoi Hilton. The only thing I can do now is just sit in sadness for kerry wondering if he is still proud of himself, how DARE HIM to ever criticize any type of war causulty in any conflict concerning real Americans giving there all for this country. He has no RIGHT!!!He needs to back off this avenue. I hope God has a special place reserved for kerry, like with the NVA, or whatever it was he believe's in.