JustOneMinute

I Attempt A Swift Ad

If the Swiftee's new ad can excerpt Kerry's 1971 testimony, mine can too. And we will juxtapose Kerry's 2004 acceptance speech:

2004: I'm John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty.

1971: I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.

2004: I am accompanied by an extraordinary band of brothers led by that American hero, a patriot called Max Cleland.

Our band of brothers doesn't march together because of who we are as veterans, but because of what we learned as soldiers.

We fought for this nation because we loved it, and we came back with the deep belief that every day is extra. We may be a little older, we may be a little grayer, but we still know how to fight for our country.

1971: …they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam…

2004: I know what kids go through when they're carrying an M-16 in a dangerous place, and they can't tell friend from foe. I know what they go through when they're out on patrol at night and they don't know what's coming around the next bend. I know what it's like to write letters home telling your family that everything's all right, when you're not sure that that's true.

1971: I would like to talk to you a little bit about what the result is of the feelings these men carry with them after coming back from Vietnam. The country doesn't know it yet, but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence, and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped.

2004: I learned a lot about these values on that gunboat patrolling the Mekong Delta with Americans -- you saw them -- who come from places as different as Iowa and Oregon, Arkansas, Florida, California.

No one cared where we went to school. No one cared about our race or our backgrounds. We were literally all in the same boat. We looked out, one for the other, and we still do.

1971: …we are ashamed of and hated what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia.

2004: I defended this country as a young man…

1971: In our opinion, and from our experience, there is nothing in South Vietnam, nothing which could happen that realistically threatens the United States of America.

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.

Don't Impeach Anyone While I'm Gone

I will be in a Limited Bandwidth Modality next week while on vacation.

Do You Want The Truth?

You may think you're entitled. But the Kerry campaign thinks you can't handle the truth, which puzzles the Bear.

My question - isn't this one more story for the NY Times, champions of campaign finance reform, to sweep under the rug?