Time To Panic?

The WaPo examined the conflicting versions of the March 13 incident that led to Kerry's Bronze Star. Although their specific conclusions were not unfavorable to Kerry, the warning shots fired by the WaPo must have set the Kerry campaign scrambling:

An investigation by The Washington Post into what happened that day suggests that both sides have withheld information from the public record and provided an incomplete, and sometimes inaccurate, picture of what took place.

...The fullest account of Kerry's experience in Vietnam is "Tour of Duty" by prominent presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. It was written with Kerry's cooperation and with exclusive access to his diaries and other writings about the Vietnam War. "Unfit for Command," by John E. O'Neill, who succeeded Kerry as commander of his Swift boat, and Jerome R. Corsi, lays out a detailed attack on Kerry's record.

The Post's research shows that both accounts contain significant flaws and factual errors.

...In "Tour of Duty," these thoughts are attributed to a "diary" kept by Kerry. But the endnotes to Brinkley's book say that Kerry "did not keep diaries in these weeks in February and March 1969 when the fighting was most intense." In the acknowledgments to his book, Brinkley suggests that he took at least some of the passages from an unfinished book proposal Kerry prepared sometime after November 1971, more than two years after he had returned home from Vietnam.

In his book, Brinkley writes that a skipper who remains friendly to Kerry, Skip Barker, took part in the March 13 raid. But there is no documentary evidence of Barker's participation. Barker could not be reached for comment.

Brinkley, who is director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans, did not reply to messages left with his office, publisher and cell phone. The Kerry campaign has refused to make available Kerry's journals and other writings to The Post, saying the senator remains bound by an exclusivity agreement with Brinkley. A Kerry spokesman, Michael Meehan, said he did not know when Kerry wrote down his reminiscences.

...Much information is available from the Web sites of the Kerry campaign and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and the Navy archives. But both the Kerry and anti-Kerry camps continue to deny or ignore requests for other relevant documents, including Kerry's personal reminiscences (shared only with biographer Brinkley), the boat log of PCF-94 compiled by Medeiros (shared only with Brinkley) and the Chenoweth diary.

Although Kerry campaign officials insist that they have published Kerry's full military records on their Web site (with the exception of medical records shown briefly to reporters earlier this year), they have not permitted independent access to his original Navy records. A Freedom of Information Act request by The Post for Kerry's records produced six pages of information. A spokesman for the Navy Personnel Command, Mike McClellan, said he was not authorized to release the full file, which consists of at least a hundred pages.

I sense frustration at the WaPo. Incomplete, inaccurate disclosure, a run-around from Brinkley, a bizarre confidentiality agreement - do they smell cover-up?

And will anyone keep a straight face if Kerry criticizes the secretive Cheney energy task force, when Kerry won't even release his own war notes except to a friendly historian?

I foresee a grim week for the Kerry side, with the Republican convention as their only hope of respite.

The InstaPundit was on this on Saturday.

MORE: OK, what is on your wish list for released records? My Conventional Wisdom pick - we all want to see the paperwork for Kerry's first Purple Heart.

My long-shot pick is the after-action reports for March 18/19, which should be Kerry's last mission (Brinkley says so, although his website does not). Brinkley says Kerry was sailing to Cambodia; other evidence suggests that Swiftee George Bates was with Kerry while Kerry torched a hamlet or two. Who knows?

UPDATE: The NY Times, "Friendly Fire: The Birth of an Anti-Kerry Ad", By KATE ZERNIKE and JIM RUTENBERG:

After weeks of taking fire over veterans' accusations that he had lied about his Vietnam service record to win medals and build a political career, Senator John Kerry shot back yesterday, calling those statements categorically false and branding the people behind them tools of the Bush campaign.

His decision to take on the group directly was a measure of how the group that calls itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has catapulted itself to the forefront of the presidential campaign. It has advanced its cause in a book, in a television advertisement and on cable news and talk radio shows, all in an attempt to discredit Mr. Kerry's war record, a pillar of his campaign...

Comments

[d]

Kerry claims he has released all his military records. Therefore, it should be very easy for him to sign a Form 180 and release his records, which according to Kerry would duplicate what he has already released. It would be a total non-event for Kerry. That is, it would be a non-event if Kerry is being truthful.

[GT]

yet more evidence:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5831541/site/newsweek/

The conspiracy grows!!

[Cecil Turner]

GT,

Where do you think those documents came from? Do you think there's some impartial Navy historian who follows boats on a day-to-day basis recording everything that happens? No, it's based on reports from commanders on the scene. In this case, that's the guy whose story about a second mine matches exactly the official report . . . and three others who say it never happened. Hmmm, I wonder who wrote that report?

As far as picking and choosing documents goes, you are ignoring the obvious discrepancy between reports claiming heavy fire and nothing getting hit. And I'm not sure how you can come up with 7-2, when there are at least three other skippers (Pees, Chenoweth, and Thurlow) who dispute Kerry's account, along with Odell (Chenoweth's gunner).

[Greg F]

"OK Greg, it's a waste of time debating with you. You don't even know what physical evidence is."

LOL ... please provide a reference to dispute anything I have posted.

"Believe what you will. I really don't care."

I know you don't care, you don't really want evidence, you just a shill.

[GT]

Cecil,

Well that makes it 7 to 4 by my calculations.

You have Pees, Chenoweth, Thurlow, and Odell on one hand and Kerry, Lambert (who was on Thurlow's boat), Rusell and Langhofer (who were on Chenoweth's boat I think), and Rassman on the other. That's 5. And however many of Kerry's crewmen. I think 2 but I may be wrong. So that gives you at least 5 to 4 and maybe 7 to 4.

As for documents here are some more:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5831541/site/newsweek/

I guess Kerry wrote thisd one as well, huh?

[Cecil Turner]

GT,

Wow, if you get one more witness telling it Kerry's way, does that mean it has to be the truth? And if Rassmann at the bottom of the river is a prime witness, can I bring in somebody who was back at headquarters? And how exactly did all those NVA marksmen miss entire boats repeatedly over the course of the firefight anyway?

Again, this one appears unprovable. They might even all be telling the truth, in either direction. (Honestly mistaking friendly fire for enemy on the one hand, or just not seeing the incoming on the other.)

And not to put too fine a point on it, I suspect Kerry supporters want to focus on this unprovable point to divert attention from the provable ones (Christmas in Cambodia, stealing credit for Peck's firefight, and the first and third PH's).

[GT]

it doesn't HAVE to be the truth. But if you have 7 witnesses and every single document on your side I'd say that's pretty compelling.

Particularly when those witnesses include crewmates of the accusers.

And particularly when the documents include the citations of the accusers.

[Tony]

Damage report on Kerry's boat includes blown out windows and damage to engine and steering. What we have all seen here is a lesson in political slander, practiced by very skilled practitioners. Not one iota of conclusive evidence has been presented as proof. A VFW spokesman tonight on the news called it quite accurately "nothing but a fight between sailors". However, clever political timing, in the summer doldrums, right before the late Republican convention, in the key battleground states, flamed on by radical right wing activist radio...no accidents here. Kerry has been attacked again, this time by his own countrymen. By men who don't care whose reputations they impugn in the process, as William Rood so sorrowfully wrote in his eloquent, honest statement.

We have seen here who has character and who hasn't. Tonight I watched John Kerry's Senate testimony, uncut, with his voice unaltered (as it is in the commercial -slowed down to sound more morose). And I saw a young man who was trying to do the right thing. But what was most striking was afterward, when they took callers. They had a separate line for veterans to call in. You will be happy to learn support for Kerry was running at least 2 to 1 on that line. And those who were unhappy were ranting in that same Hanoijohncommiebastard way that just tells any rational person where they are coming from.

I've seen a lot of stupidity and hypocrisy the past few weeks but those phone calls tonight, as well as the wise VFW spokesman and the testimony of the honest Lambert, gave me hope that there may be a rational, humane, intelligent core left in this country yet. The disgusting display of the Swiftvets and their slander aside.

[Cecil Turner]

GT,

I notice you're counting everyone on Kerry's boat, regardless of whether they've made a statement or not, and ignoring the damage reports (which, Tony, show exactly zero bullet holes for the engagement in question). Those too, are documents.

And if we're going to expand the record to Winter Soldier testimony, the laughable accusations of war crimes aren't going to help honest John any. I'll have to admit I didn't watch all the C-span show. But the couple of calls I caught at the end used the word "traitor" more than once. And I suspect Sen Kerry would really rather focus on some other aspect of the Vietnam War, if he had any say in the matter.

[GT]

Cecil,

One thing at a time, OK? I have made no comments at all about the winter soldier events.

And forget if you want Kerry's crew. That still leaves you 5 witnesses supporting Kerry.

[Cecil Turner]

GT,

Fine. That leaves approximately equal eyewitnesses on each side. Documentation is an after action report claiming heavy fire, but repair reports citing only a mine as doing any actual damage. Common sense suggests whatever fire there was wasn't terribly heavy, but proving its absence is impossible. Again, this one isn't going to be settled. (Unlike, say, Cambodian Christmas, the January 29 engagement, or the first and third Purple Hearts.)

[James J.]

I am trying to find out a little more about John O'neill.How did he get into the Naval Academy.Can anyone tell me.