Apropos Of Nothing At All...

In the course of checking out something else I stumbled across this old Media Matters column by Eric Boehlert in which he asks "Can conservative bloggers tell the truth?".

His thrust was that John Hinderaker of Powerline was wrong when he claimed that "Most of what the [Swift Boat Veterans for Truth] said in their ads has never been disputed, let alone discredited."

Now, if one takes the trouble to read both posts, the Boehlert response seems a bit misdirected (as noted by the PowerGuys) - the Powerline post includes the caveat that "there was only one SBV ad the accuracy of which is even disputed, the first one that talked about the medals Kerry was awarded during his Vietnam service. Some of those facts are still uncertain, but the thrust of the ad, that Kerry's purported heroism in Vietnam was being grossly over-sold, was certainly true."  However, ignoring that caveat, Mr. Boehlert proceeds to reprise the disputes about that first ad. 

Ahh, well - Mr. Boehlert relies extensively on excerpts from his book, "Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush", which gives us a chance to learn something new.  Mr. Boehlert tells us this about the controversial first Purple Heart:

But the servicemen who were on the boat that night don't remember seeing Schachte. Since the boat was a small skimmer, it would have been hard for him to escape notice. Besides Kerry, the other crewmembers that night were Bill Zaladonis and Patrick Runyon. They had told the same story for years, and they both insisted neither Schachte nor anyone else was with the three of them that night.

Zaladonis and Runyon had "told the same story for years"?  To whom, other than perhaps each other (as Zaladonis claimed in his Lisa Meyers interview)?  Douglas Brinkley interviewed Zaladonis "repeatedly" for his 2004 Kerry hagiography "Tour of Duty", yet there is no mention whatsoever that Zaladonis was with Kerry during Kerry's first combat when Kerry earned his first medal; nor does Runyon get a mention in the book (if the index is reliable). 

And Michael Kranish of the Boston Globe (or a non-bylined Globe staffer) interviewed Zaladonis for the Globe's 2003 "Candidate In The Making" series yet apparently never elicited from Zaladonis that he was with Kerry on that dramatic evening Zaladonis later described as "one of the scariest nights" of his life.  And again, Runyon is a no-show. 

And Kerry's war diary was, for this incident, not a source for Brinkley or Kranish.  Hmm - can it be that Kerry never wrote about his first combat and first medal?  Mystifying.

It all seems odd to me - one might even suspect that Zaladonis came forward simply to prop up Kerry's claim to heroism, rather than because he was actually on the skimmer.  This would be akin to the performance of David Alston, one of the Band of Brothers who exaggerated his association with Kerry.

Fortunately, Mr. Boehlert has written that Zaladonis and Runyon have "told the same story for years", so once we see his evidence we may be able to declare this mystery to be resolved.

And since Mr. Boehlert is a member of the reality-based community who is comfortable wondering whether conservatives are capable of the truth, it seems fair to presume that he will be quick with his facts.

Our breath is bated...

INTRODUCING ZALADONIS:  In Tour of Duty, the skimmer op is discussed on pages 146-48.  Bill Zaladonis, part of Kerry's crew on PCF-44, is introduced on p. 160:

The Swift boat's engineman, [Bill Zaladonis], proved the hardest crewman for Kerry to get to know, if perhaps the most competent and focused on his job.  "He didn't care what happened, when, or whether anything ever happened at all", Kerry recalled.  "Underspoken and understated, he saw to it that the engines ran, that the oil was at the right level, and that they got to eat on time."  They both shared a love of Harley-Davidson motorcycles.  Sequestered in the Swift's stiflingly hot engine room Zaladonis would pass the time listening to doo-wop music by groups like the Five Satins or the Moonglows.  When really bored he would peel the gray paint off an 81-mm motor recoil basket with his forefinger, chip by chip...

Cmon- is that how any serious writer would introduce the guy who had participated in Kerry's first medal event?  There is no way Brinkley knew when he wrote this that Zaladonis had been in that skimmer.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING:  I first find Runyon and Zaladonis in the skimmer on Feb 20, 2004 in a Cox News Service story excerpted in this comment.  This is helpful to the Kerry side since Kerry's first Purple Heart was not under wide attack at that time (I recall the Globe story in April 2004 as being the first notable salvo, although there may have been rumblings before then.)

EXTENSIVE BACKGROUND:  Thomas Lipscomb researched this incident.

Comments

[Kazinski]

I'm sure its all in Kerry's military records that he has pledged to release.

[clarice]

I'd bate my breath, too, but I rather weakened by the smoking cessation program right now. TM, you'll have to bate for the two of us.

[maryrose]

I would bate my breath also but I'm afraid I will be old and gray by the time Kerry releases his records or in a death bed confession gives us the real story about his medals.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

I'm pretty sure none of you are gonna catch anything with that bated breath.

[Dr. Weevil]

Don't bate your breath too often: you might get a reputation as a master bater.

[cathyf]

If we can pull off bating breath for that long we will have made space travel way simpler and cheaper. Don't forget to file for the patent on that, TM.

(Well, somebody has to keep track of the profit-making opportunities here!)

[vnjagvet]

Did anyone see Hillarity! in her Letterman stint?

I was watching WVA beat the s*** out of Oklahoma.

Amazing.

[Antimedia]

During the heat of that story, I was able to track down the hint of a chink in their story. During the time in question, it's not certain that Runyon was even at Cam Rahn Bay (which he would have *had* to have been in order to participate in the fabled "first blood" adventure of our hero, JFK.

How I devoutly wish it were possible to obtain the records of Runyon's and Zaladonis' service records, especially dates and locations. It would solve this "mystery" once and for all. Of course our professional fact-checkers have surely already done this and not come up with anything definitive, right?

[Other Tom]

I just received my copy of "To Set The Record Straight," and went immediately to Chapter 9, "An Unforgettable Cambodian Christmas." Anyone who can read those sixteen pages and still believe that John Kerry ever set foot in Cambodia, or Cambodian waters, at any time whatsoever is not rational. It is a devastating summary of Kerry's own contradictory statements and the statements of his crewmen (including those who supported him in the campaign) denying that any such event ever occurred.

Oh, how I love to see that self-adoring fraud exposed.

[Judgesfantasy]

Cell phone GPS lazer beam used to target person using phone. New phones coming out without GPS. Billions.

The camera isn't supposed to be used on humans. It was developed for lucifer's creations, which humans aren't. The patent was tried years ago. If you ask the phone company they're just going to say it is not approved by the FCC. Bad, like cell phone radiation.

Jack used cell phones allot and he always got there just too late when it was a nuke.

[Dave]

I'm sure its all in Kerry's military records that he has pledged to release

... 1068 days ago, not that I'm keeping track or anything.

[JM Hanes]

cathf:

"(Well, somebody has to keep track of the profit-making opportunities here!)"

We talkin' rebates?

[Perfect Sense]

Kerry bated his breath in Vietnam and awarded himself two medals.

[kim]

Eric combed five nits off the animal and calls it pest free, while the rest of us still see it jumping with each flea bite.
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[sbw]

Clarice: "the smoking cessation program"

Keep it up Clarice! Stopping smoking is traumatic. When something traumatic happens, the first urge is to smoke.

Next time you "need" a cigarette, wait five minutes before you light up. The urge may have passed. The puffs will slowly become further apart. You never "stop" being a smoker, but it has been more than 25 years since my last one. I'm glad.

[Cecil Turner]

I hate to get too wrapped around the axle of who was in the boat, because I think it's one of the few points where the Kerry-camp version may be more plausible than the SwiftVet claim. But that's really not the issue, which is more along the lines of whether enemy fire was involved in Kerry's first PH. Absent anyone, even from Kerry's side, who actually asserts there was return fire that night, the logical conclusion is that there wasn't. And if not, it's at best a judgment call for Kerry's commander on whether he rates the PH, and we know how that played out.

It wouldn't surprise me at all to find Kerry's reluctance to release his records is mainly predicated on some irregularity in that award (e.g., that he end-ran the system by getting a local hospital to award it against his CO's wishes), and the subsequent 3-wound early termination of his combat tour. That would not wear well with fellow VN vets, whose personal count-downs of in-country time were a high priority. But in the final analysis, all this issue did was to add to the visibility of Kerry's "Jen-Jis Khan" moment . . . and that was entirely Kerry's doing.

[Bingo]

That a newly-arrived officer would be assigned, as sole officer, to a "training mission" designed to be crewed by 2 officers and an enlisted engine operator just doesn't pass the smell test.

[chantix-or-niccine]

should I use Chantix or wait for Niccine ?

Niccine: a new approach to quit smoking This is a different approach to the quit smoking problem similiar to by the drug maker Pfizer's Chantix Swedish anti-nicotine vaccine to be tested in Nordic countries "

A Swedish vaccine against nicotine will be tested on 400 people in three Nordic countries," Heavy smokers who would like to quit, will get counselling along with the new drug, initial test will run for 4 months.

Niccine is supposed to help the immune system build antibodies against nicotine. Interesting approach to the problem: Niccine will latch onto the incoming nicotine and preventing it from reaching the brain's reward system, thereby preventing the smoker from getting that addictive smoking "kick" or hit.

Niccine, has been developed over the course of 10 years by Swedish researchers at the Karolinska Institute, under the guidance of professor Torgny Svensson who founded Independent Pharmaceutica. This is a different approach to the quit smoking problem used by Pfizer's Chantix

should I use Chantix or wait for Niccine ? Quit smoking, smoking cessation drugs,smoking cessation medicine

www.chantix-smoking.blogspot.com

[kim]

Nicotinic receptors are important throughout the body for a variety of responses. I do not trust this approach. Else we'd already have develepoed herd immunity. Jes' jokin'.
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