Swift Boats Are Back And Lipscomb's Got 'Em

Kate Zernike of the Times gets a front-pager deploring the use of the term "swiftboating" to mean "the nastiest of campaign smears".  Thomas Lipscomb, who covered the Swift controversies in depth back in 2004, trounces her.

To which I will add my one original contribution to this stew:  The latest response by Kerry's defenders mentions Kerry's controversial first Purple Heart on p. 12 (of 15):

The attempt to denigrate the circumstances of Kerry’s first Purple Heart, for example, is disproved by the two enlisted men, Pat Runyon and Bill Zaladonis, together with Kerry, who state categorically your so-called eyewitness, William Schachte, was not on the skimmer in the action that night. (Responding to this lie,
Zaladonis has quipped: “me and Pat aren’t the smartest, but we can count to three.”8) Should William Schachte ever consent to sit in a room with them, which he has thus far refused to do, or to be interviewed publicly with them present, which he has also avoided, they will offer further proof of his lie.

I would be curious to see what proof they could produce.  What has struck me is that Zaladonis was interviewed repeatedly by Douglas Brinkley prior to 2004 for Brinkley's "Tour of Duty" hagiography, and was also interviewed by the Boston Globe for their 2003 Kerry profiles.  Yet neither the Globe nor Brinkley elicited from Zaladonis that he first met Kerry during this incident that resulted in Kerry's first combat, Kerry's first medal, and was later described by Zaladonis as "one of the scariest nights I've had in my life".  Instead, Zaladonis meets Kerry a few days later as a crew member on Kerry's first PCF.

Deficient interview technique, twice over?  Or did Zaladonis only later decide that his story was even more impressive if he put himself in the boat with Kerry?  Zaladonis first appears with Kerry on the skimmer when the Purple Heart story was being criticized in early 2004. 

Neither Brinkley nor the Globe will be following up on this, and Kerry's War Notes (aka his journal) have not been made available so that we could see his contemporaneous account of his first combat and first medal incident.  And a Bonus Note - although it was his first medal incident, the medal was actually awarded later than some of the others (IIRC); the presumption is that Kerry pushed through the paperwork after some other officers had gone Stateside.

Thomas Lipscomb had more on Kerry's first Purple Heart (and my thoughts).

Comments

[Neo]

I'm curious to find out exactly what mysteries that a bunch of "Swiftboater" that we never on Kerry's boat can prove or disprove.

So far I still haven't heard any except Kerry say he went to Cambodia.

[Neo]

Maybe these new "Swiftboaters" met that CIA guy with the "Magic Hat".

[clarice]

Lipscomb's piece is a truly extraordinary piece of work--worth clipping and pasting.Thank you for bringing it to my attention,TM.

[thegreatsatan]

Jesus, they keep letting that ignorant twat write about this stuff? No wonder Times readership continues to tank.

[Forbes]

Yeah, I second the motion Clarice. Lipscomb really points out the short comings of the agenda-driven press--and that should be an embarrassment to any reporters. Telling the story means getting to the bottom of it, and Lipscomb points out that these folks are just enablers of mostly hack politicians, like Kerry. Sad state of affairs.

[narciso]

You have to give him to wander into that
'den of scum and human villainy' that is
the Huff Po. Whether any of the facts will get through it's another matter. Of course,
Rand Beers, the man who made it unsafe for
missionaries to fly their families in passenger planes, has piped up on how McCain's experience in the Hanoi Hilton, has limited his foreign policy perspective.
How many people fit under that bus, anyway, it's getting awfully crowded. And the news
round up wouldn't be complete with Aparism "Bobby" Ghosh Time pean to female suicide bombers, using the example of Husna
who followed her Darwinian brother into the family trade of C-4 model. My local paper has of course, taken up the Bin Laden
hunt story; leaving out the role of Robert Grenier priority switch to South East Asia and N. Africa; way from Iran & Afghanistan.
And of course, the leaking of the oil contracts, has cause them to be re-evaluated
with oil moving toward $150 a barrel,

[JJ]

Wow on Lipscomb's post. His points are especially good because he lays them all out for independent verification -- something the Times does not do by assumption.

I attribute it all to Hanlon's or Ingham's razor -- which he as well does -- although he also points out that it reekth beyond even that.

[Thomas Jackson]

I see Kerry still hasn't post his 180 nor collected on the million dollar bet.

But in your heart you know that Kerry was one of those anti-war angels in heaven who warned God against hostilities against Satan.

[PeterUK]

A former British Prime Minister,Harold Wilson said "Two weeks is a long time in politics". Four years is a "lifetime",thirty three years an eternity.
Most people won't remember who John F.Kerry is,many don't know the war that he briefly visited.The might even think he was shot in Dallas
Vietnam is two generations ago,but the Democrats keep fighting it as it were their finest hour.Tell the average voter you won't be "swiftboated" and they will think you are turning down a sexual advance.
All Republicans have to do is focus on the here and now,addressing the current concerns of the electorate.

[kim]

I think you may find the wreckage of the Patriot Project in the archives of JOM, May of '06, where 'We wuz takin' it to 'em!'

There seems to be yet a new attempt to rehabilitate him. Please let it mean that Kerry is in consideration for Veep.
====================================

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

There seem to be some new specifics here:

A source who had been on the Harvard Law School admissions board revealed that with Kerry's bad military record he was turned down for admission though clearly qualified because they didn't want to admit someone who they thought would be unable to pass the bar.

What "bad military record?" There was no sign of it on Kerry's website nor in the Brinkley biography and Kerry had certainly never spoken of it. ....

Finally, a former Secretary of the Navy told me that Kerry had asked him to expunge the disciplinary action the Navy had taken against him for what the Navy regarded as treasonous activities supporting the enemy in a time of war so he could be admitted to a law school and get on with his career. The Secretary refused. So it appears that Kerry went to Father Drinan, the former dean of the Boston College Law School. Kerry had decided not to run against Drinan for an open Congressional seat Drinan then occupied. Kerry asked him for help. The disciplinary action disappeared from Kerry's official records with the general Jimmy Carter amnesty for Vietnam veterans with bad service records, the first bill Carter initiated after his inauguration.

I don't think I've seen the sources mentioned before.

[kim]

A key tender spot is his wartime journal and photos. Any call for them shut up his defenders fast.
==========================

[GMax]

Lipscomb points out directly that Kerry with all his dancing and weaving on what Pickens said while quoting someone else's website is pretty bizarre, but think you MSM morons. If Kerry could refute any of the stuff in the SwiftBoat ads, why would be doing this stupid Kabuke dance? As Lipscomb rightly infers, Kerry own actions here strongly implys that the Swift Boat Veterans were correct on every point. If not Kerry would certainly just release the information and make a big deal of the $1mm going to charity.

[PeterUK]

You want pictures of John F.Kerry,you got them. With another "war hero".

[Sue]

I still have nightmares on how close we came to this tool being president.

[RichatUF]

Patrick R. Sullivan-

This is a Belder Blog post going through the controversy at the time-lots of links to the original article.

[PeterUK]

This is a nice one of John F.Kerry getting a big "Thank you" from the Vietnamese

[PeterUK]

Of course John F.Kerry has always had patriotic friends John and Jane Fonda

[PeterUK]

Here is a shot of John F.Kerry training for his naval career.

[Rick Ballard]

"I still have nightmares on how close we came to this tool being president."

I never thought he had a prayer (I sure thought Gore did). I rate Obama as a much weaker candidate than Kerry, primarily because he has much weaker support among the <$50K white group. Kerry did OK with female side of that group and Obama doesn't.

It will be interesting to see if the PUMA movement really takes off. If it does, then Obama can kiss off a fair percentage of the >$50K female contingent as well as the white <$50K group as a whole.

McCain just needs to pound a drill and build energy policy.

[kim]

Pete, the caption of the photo with Jane Fonda calls Kerry a 'former Vietnam vet'. The unconscious ironies are always so good.
============================

[centralcal]

what does the PUMA acronym stand for?

[kim]

Party Unity My Ass, the rallying cry of the Clintonites.
=====================

[Rick Ballard]

Party Unity My Ass - seems that the Red Witch's covens aren't backing down.

[kim]

TexasDarlin, she of the birth certificate fervor, is a roaring PUMA.
=======================================

[kim]

I am PUMA, hear me roar.
================

[kim]

I served on a site council for an elementary school in a slot reserved for a parent of a past student, and I was once described as a 'former parent'. I got a big laugh out of that one.
======================================

[MikeS]

Kerry's personal records would go along way to clearing things up. It's hard to remember stuff from almost 4 decades ago. I don't believe any of the witnesses are purposely lying.

I haven't seen any of Kerry's physical scars. They don't seem to keep him from wind surfing and snow boarding. His psychological scars are more obvious, but there is no telling when they happened.

My personal opinion is that even if the man had won the Congressional Medal of Honor 3 times, it wouldn't balance out the crap he pulled when he got home.

[kim]

Whoa, TexasDarlin now thinks the image at Kos of the birth certificate has been modified since first posted to put evidence of an embossed seal on it. Remember, he who shall not be named tried to give us the embossing the other night. What say JMH?
========================================

[JM Hanes]

Whenever Kerry gets to bask in the glow of the New York Times, you can be pretty sure Kate Zernike is supplying the glow. Obama seems to have had Kerry on the mind too, when he instructed us on the proper treatment of veterans: "And let me also add that no one should ever devalue that service, especially for the sake of a political campaign, and that goes for supporters on both sides." Do you suppose McCain is wishing McCain/Feingold had outlawed coordination with the MSM yet?

Zernike's piece also merits a "Name That Party" badge. Who turned an honest search for truth into a verb for smear? I believe we've got Democrats to thank for that, no?

[Pagar]

I don’t know about anyone else, but every time I hear the term “swift boat”, I think of those few great Americans who had already risked their lives in fighting for America in Vietnam. Americans who again answered the call in 2004 to step forward and stop John Kerry (the American who did more than any other American to insure that North Vietnam was able to declare America defeated in Vietnam) from completing the efforts he made in the 1970s and since to defeat America.

The term Swift Boat Vets means freedom for America. May God bless them, every one.

[PaulL]

Patrick R.: The part about Harvard Law rejecting Kerry because of his bad military record, that was news to me as well.

[BumperStickerist]

There's a common denominator to John Kerry's and John McCain's service in Vietnam.

Each officer given the opportunity to walk away from their mission and return stateside:

John Kerry after receiving his third purple heart

John McCain after the USS Forrestal incident

John Kerry chose to leave; McCain did not.

That's always been my central beef with Kerry - he was a combat officer who walked away from the troops under his charge prematurely.

Because he could.

You can't "SwiftBoat" that.

-

[Sue]

Patrick & Paul,

I heard that during the time it was going on, but I never knew for sure if it was rumor or truth.

[PaulL]

The very important thing to keep in mind is that all the records of Kerry's less-than-honorable discharge were destroyed after Carter's order. There will never be an official record that reflects the original. All we can ever get will be the later, "honorable" records that Carter ordered.

It is a crime with strong penalties for those in the know to even discuss the original records. There was a hint back in 2004 that someone (was it an Admiral?) was going to reveal the truth in spite of that but he apparently thought better of it.

[Sue]

I'm listening to a dem strategist on H&C and he is outraged at the hypocrisy! Outraged, I tell ya'. And the irony is thick, but Mr. Outgraged doesn't get it.

[Sue]

The sneer in his voice when he says the name Bud Day is a sight to behold.

[Rocco]

I remember the Lowell Sun ripped him to pieces in the early years. Might be some gems in those archives.

[clarice]

I think this is the shrewd weasley at his finest and if it works the way I think it will, we won't have to put up with this running dog again.

[narciso]

Who are these people, Beers, Clark, McPeak, they are like a bad parody of the limousine leftist in the McCarry novels. They not only
insult the sacrifices that McCain made, but they wanted to be rewarded for it; in some perverse sort of patriotism; which borders on treason. It's interesting that Barak's Independence speech on patriotism, echoes the Time Magazine cover this week. Luce isn't just rolling over, he's doing triple somersaults in his grave. Aravosis, the one who misatributed the Pakistani ISI's leaks in 2004 to the Bush administration; which ended up collapsing the "Crevice investigation" and used this argument to
blame the administration for the London bombing. Doesn't he realize, if we loose, his head is on a gibbet or worse. The Bin Laden hunt story; of course, leaves out the
success in nabbing Hamzi Rabia, Anas al Liby, at least one of the Al Masri's

[BumperStickerist]

Aaaaannnnnndddddddd....

lest we forget ...

Of the 'Band of Brothers' that Kerry had on stage with him for his "Reporting for Duty" ironic foreshadowing moment, the black current-pastor hadn't actually, you know, served *IN THE BOAT* with Kerry.

Or, actually, with Kerry at all, since Kerry'd gone by the time the guy showed up.

oops.

-

That said, Kerry was shot at by Vietnamese people who meant to kill him, so I don't question Kerry's personal courage. I do question Kerry's need to gild the lily of his military service.

[BumperStickerist]

Lastly, and this is for Tom ...

... I would bet good money, possibly euros, that Markos Himself will be in the rafters of the DNC Convention with a Bowie Knife clenched in his teeth at the ready.

The Balloons Will Fall on Time. This Time.

Oh Yes.

Ballons Will Fall

[RichatUF]

PaulL-

There will never be an official record that reflects the original. All we can ever get will be the later, "honorable" records that Carter ordered.

Not exactly. If Kerry had his discharge upgraded, he would have been issued a DD-215 (discharge correction or upgrade) with the original DD-214 attached. The form itself (DD-214 or 215) has 7 copies that go to different places, wonder if anyone thought to poke around Massachusetts VA to see if another copy (it would be copy 6 or 7, its been a while) is laying around in an old dusty file.

[JM Hanes]

Kim:

I say I may be wrong on the seal issue. As soon as I can throw together a few images for photobucket and check what the other folks out there are saying, I'll post an update with URLs here.

[Tom Maguire]

Patrick R.: The part about Harvard Law rejecting Kerry because of his bad military record, that was news to me as well.

I will split the difference with Sue - I recall the rumor but didn't think anyone had claimed a Harvard source backing it.

However! Here is the Lipscomb piece from Nov 1, 2004:

Mr. Kerry has said, "I applied to Harvard, Boston University, and Boston College. I was extremely late. Only BC would entertain a late application."

It is hard to see why Mr. Kerry had to file an "extremely late" application since he lost the congressional race in Lowell, Mass., the first week of November 1972 and was basically doing nothing until he entered law school the following September of 1973.A member of the Harvard Law School admissions committee recalled that the real reason Mr. Kerry was not admitted was because the committee was concerned that because Mr. Kerry had received a less than honorable discharge they were not sure he could be admitted to any state bar.

Well, OK. Some old links here - I mainly remember that Cecil Turner was not buying, which seemed like a good horse to ride.

[RichatUF]

I goofed my last comment-seems that DD-214's are 8 pages not 7 and that copy 5 goes to the Labor Department (beats me?), and I'm looking to see if that was the case back in the 70's when Kerry got discharged.

The Truth is out there.

[kim]

JMHanes, that certificate is turning into a real palimpsest. Heh.

The admiral reconsidered at the last moment, I believe the eve of the eve of the election, and didn't spill the beans.
=====================================

[bad]

If not Kerry would certainly just release the information and make a big deal of the $1mm going to charity.

You are a much nicer person than I, GMax. I assumed if Kerry could get his hands on a cool million he would augment his pocket money since Teresa keeps him on a short leash.

[bad]

JMH The link that Clarice provided to yessir yassar showed the original certificate as different than the one provided on Obama's campaign website. The obvious difference was that where the certicicate number in upper right hand corner (as we viiew it) was blocked on the campaign website, Yassir showed an unfilled box.

[PaulL]

Rich,

Are you saying that there could be an old record of the less-than-honorable discharge that still exists somewhere?

The way I recall it is that all the old records are supposed to be destroyed. It defeats the purpose of creating a new, honorable discharge if there's ever an old, less-than-honorable one attached to it. Then it would be a wink-wink situation.

[Cecil Turner]

. . . which seemed like a good horse to ride.

Thanks for that. But I'd point out my specialty was ops, not admin. I don't have any particular insight on this subject, though some of the inferences drawn by those who claim the record shows an OTH discharge are clearly unsupported. I suspect the answer (as to why he doesn't want to release his records) is something else. It's possible there may be something there, but if so, it hasn't yet been demonstrated. And this is one of those things where you don't want to be out in front of the facts.

[RichatUF]

PaulL-

Are you saying that there could be an old record of the less-than-honorable discharge that still exists somewhere?

The Form DD-214 as I said is 8 pages, one can go to the state of the home of record (in his case MA I think , there is a block to check), one goes to the VA, one goes to Labor, the servicemember gets Copy 1 (with the characterization block) and Copy 4 (without a characterization block), and a few stay in the jacket. Since the issue under consideration is an administrative process, not a legal appeal, the correction/upgrade would be attached to his original DD-214. I'm doubtful of Lipscomb story regarding the amnesty board however.

I'm still looking around to see when Labor starting collecting DD-214's and I don't know if that sort of information could be requested from MA.

The one he posted to his website was most likely fake, but had the service dates close enough that no one would look into it further and was close enough that it would pass muster with the AP or anyone else he needed to show.

Suppose that was a bit long winded, but yea, if he got a less-than-honorable discharge and was foisting off a handful of doctored documents, the real documents from that era exist is some file somewhere-the government is, if nothing else, a packrat. Bill Clinton never thought he'd see his Col. Holmes letter over twenty years later either.

[Sara]

Remember that correcting an official record happens in Washington, but how long was the original in circulation first? As I recall, we needed my husband's DD-214s for a number of different reasons back in the '70s and over the years since. Getting a mortgage, any VA or GI Bill benefits, a job, any government work, college ap, whatever. I'll bet there are dusty copies in somebody's old basement files somewhere.

When did he get his original discharge? How many years between that time and Carter coming into office? What was he doing in those years? Did he use his GI Bill? Did he buy a house with his VA loan? Did he seek any medical treatment thru the VA?

I know that the ex of one of my friends had a "less than honorable" and he blamed his inability to get a decent job on that fact? I asked how perspective employers knew and he said, it is in my file, whatever that means. Credit report? I don't really know, but I do know that in the early 1970s people were far more interested in a person's draft status and service record than they are now.

[JM Hanes]

With profuse apologies to TM for this inordinately long off topic post, but having apparently lit a match on the Obama birth certificate issue, I feel compelled to put out at least one of the sundry fires, on the issue of the embossed seal. Unfortunately, I have to split up the links to avoid the spam catcher, so images are here and sources in a subsequent post. There's a confusing profusion of images floating around at this point, these are the relevant ones:

In this June 18th Tampbay article, Amy Hollyfield supplied what is essentially a thumbnail of an uncropped certification image labeled "[Courtesy of the Obama campaign]" There is no link to a larger image of that document in the article itself, but commenters at Polarik's blog pointed to a full size version of the same uncropped image under a Tampabay URL. I don't know where/if the larger version was originally cited, but at this point, after rooting around, it appears that the only version the site now supplies directly is a low res cropped version that Hollyfield posted on June 27th and sourced to Fight the Smears.

I'm not sure why Fight the Smears' chose to post only a reduced version of the document themselves. It could easily have been an design decision centered on streamlining the site. The version they apparently supplied to Hollyfield is actually slightly larger than the one they ultimately used on their own site.

Earlier on June 12th, Kos posted a cropped, but otherwise full sized image of the Certification, which I believe he later sourced explicitly to the Obama campaign.

With the exception of the image Hollyfield got from Fight the Smears, Photoshop identifies all the images from both Kos and Hollyfield as having precisely the same creation date and time: 6/12/08, 8:42:36 AM, so we can assume they represent the same original image regardless of whether the image was cropped or reduced. At full size and resolution, both the Kos and Hollyfield documents display the same partial ghosting of a seal when run through Photoshop's "Find Edges" filter, an effect that becomes more noticeable if you dramatically increase the contrast. I'm willing to assume that the gimp software now in circulation is, in fact, enhancing details that exist in the original image. While that doesn't resolve the questions that preceeded the issue of the seal, I was clearly wrong about what ought to be visible to the naked eye in a scan.

Photoshop does not register a distinct creation date/time for either the image at Fight the Smears or the image that FTS apparently supplied to Hollyfield. It just substitutes the date & time of my downloads insteads. Both have been cropped in much the same fashion as the original Kos image, but are much reduced in size. For comparison: The Kos doc is 2427 pixels x 2369 pixels. The Hollyfield version from FTS is 811 x 786. The version posted at FTS is even smaller at 585 x 575. It's not the least bit surprising that any lingering evidence of seal disappears in the course of such dramatic downsizing, but having learned my lesson above, I made a copy of Kos's original, reduced it to similar sizes and ran the filter to confirm it.

I suspect Polarik may be attaching far too much significance to the EXIF data, as well as the absence of ghosting on reductions. My own scanner is set up to scan images directly into Photoshop, so the fact that an image registers as a Photoshop document is not inherently suspicious. I agree that the perfectly rectangular black redaction block does look like a Photoshop redaction as opposed to a mechanical redaction on the scanned document itself. Barring a nefarious motive, the fact that it was done post-scan with software wouldn't strike me as potentially significant, if it weren't for the timing which does strike me as odd.

Kos's document was created on June 12th at 8:42:36 AM. According to the header on his site, he posted it at 08:44:37 AM PDT, some two minutes later. It's conceivable that it was created at 8:42:36 in Chicago or Washington, but such coincidental timing strikes me as unlikely, and simply raises a different set of questions. It is, however, a necessary coincidence for the larger story to make sense. Even if you knew a document were on its way, two minutes is just not enough time to accomplish the necessary sequence from: scanning the original & redacting the certificate number on one end, then transmitting it to Kos, who crops it, writes it up (or even drops it into a pre-written entry) and then uploads and posts it to the web. I'm assuming that Kos would not have taken it upon himself to redact the Certificate #, if the Obama campaign had provided him an unredacted copy, but that doesn't alter the sequencing problem one way or another.

It seems far more likely that 8:42:36 represents the image Kos created for posting, not the original he received. A formatting conversion from a PDF to a JPEG for posting to the web would, for example, would result in a "new" image, with a new creation date which he would easily have time to crop and insert into a post he'd also had time to prepare before the conversion. Karen Tumulty, at Time Magazine, did tell us that Fight the Smears planned to post a PDF of the birth certificate on their new site, so they presumably have one. That scenario seems almost unremarkable, until you start to wonder why Amy Hollyfield would be posting a jpeg produced by Kos and crediting the Obama campaign for it. The only explanation that gets her off the hook for doing that is if the JPEG were produced at 8:42:36 AM in a different time zone by the Obama folks. If that's who sent her the JPEG she originally posted, however, why would she present a much reduced version from Fight the Smears as though it were more conclusive than what the campaign had already supposedly provided? And why hasn't the ostensible PDF even been mentioned, let alone, shown up, anywhere. Has anyone other than Kos and Hollyfield mentioned being on this particular mailing list?

It could all be a matter of somebody taking somebody's word for something, and not wanting to admit it when challenged, but there's definitely something missing here. Probably best not to quote me, though :) And on that note, I would like to take this opportunity to announce my retirement from the truther business forthwith. It's exhausting!

[JM Hanes]

Amy Hollyfield, June 18th
Polarik's comments
Amy Hollyfield. June 27th
Kos, June 12th

[JM Hanes]

Looks like you max out with captcha at four links.
Polarik, on EXIF data

[kim]

TNX, so much. It's all in a night's work.
=======================

[centralcal]

Thank you for the work, jmh.

I am stilled puzzled by the Race=African bit however.

[cathyf]

I am stilled puzzled by the Race=African bit however.

That's something that is a little hinky... The original claim is that there are just a few standardized races used on the form -- "caucasian non-hispanic", "caucasian hispanic", "black", "other". But, as anyone who has ever been to Hawaii can tell you, if those are the catagories, then 99.9% of Hawaiians are "other"! (A friend from college is half Hawaiian and half Chinese, as she put it, "the hard way" -- each of her parents is half Hawaiian and half Chinese. Hawaii is said to have the highest rate of racially mixed marriages in the country.) And "Hawaiian" matters a lot, because children of native Hawaiian descent can attend the Kameamea Schools (best school in the state) for free. When somebody posted her real birth certificate as a sample to compare against, her mother's race was shown as "caucasian hawaiian" and father's race as "caucasian". So I'm betting that the racial classification was NOT a list that you chose from, it was a line you filled out, and Ann Dunham put down "African" on the line.

[kim]

I'm right behind cf at the window. That explains the hinkiest part of it to me. Well, except for the need to Photoshop.
=======================

[kim]

Why establish authenticity with an embossed seal and disauthenticate with Photoshopping?

As we all should have learned, except a political filter intervened, from the sorry case of Rather, a copy can never be authenticated without provenance. Fake, but accurate, did not work then, and will not work now. Has Kos been to any rodeos, lately?
===========================================

[kim]

Fake, but accurate.

And that's the memo, er, uh, meme.
=======================

[centralcal]

I agree, cf, that filling in the blank is plausible.

[kim]

That should be an easily checked fact, too. Not quite as easy as checking a box, but knowledge of forms of that era must exist.
==========================

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Okay, it looks like the Harvard source isn't new, but the former Sec. of the Navy is.

[richard mcenroe]

They WILL offer proof but they HAVEN'T.

Uh-huh.

[SWarren]

Lipscomb's last column just before election day 2004:

A former officer in the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps Reserve has built a case that Senator Kerry was other than honorably discharged from the Navy by 1975, The New York Sun has learned.
...............

Another retired Navy Reserve officer, who served three tours in the Navy's Bureau of Personnel, points out that there should also have been a certified letter giving Mr. Kerry a choice of a reserve reaffiliation or separation and discharge. If Mr. Meehan is correct and all the documents are indeed on the Web site, the absence of any documents from 1972 to 1978 in the posted Kerry files is a glaring hole in the record.

he applicable U.S. Navy regulation, now found at MILPERSMAN 1920-210 "Types of Discharge for Officers," lists five examples of conditions required to receive an honorable discharge certificate, four required to receive a general discharge "not of such a nature as to require discharge under conditions other than honorable," and seven for "the lowest type of separation from the naval service. It is now officially in all respects equivalent to a dishonorable discharge.

"Kerry spokesmen have also repeatedly said that the senator has an honorable discharge. And there is indeed a cover letter to an honorable discharge dated February 16,1978,on the Kerry Web site. It is in form and reference to regulation exactly the same as one granted Swiftboat Veterans for Truth member Robert Shirley on March 12, 1971, during a periodic "reduction in force (RIF)" by the Naval Reserve. The only significant difference between Mr. Kerry's and Mr. Shirley's is the signature information and the dates.

n a RIF, officers who no longer have skills or are of an age group the Navy wishes to keep in reserve are involuntarily separated by the Navy and given their appropriate discharge. This is a normal and ongoing activity and there is no stigma attached to it.Kerry spokesman David Wade did not reply when asked if Mr. Kerry was other than honorably discharged before he was honorably discharged.

"Mr. Meehan may well be right and all Mr. Kerry's military records are on his Web site," Mr. Sullivan said. "Unlike en listed members, officers do not receive other than honorable, or dishonorable, certificates of discharge. To the contrary, the rule is that no certificate will be awarded to an officer separated wherever the circumstances prompting separation are not deemed consonant with traditional naval concepts of honor. The absence of an honorable discharge certificate for a separated naval officer is, therefore, a harsh and severe sanction and is, in fact, the treatment given officers who are dismissed after a general court-martial.

"With the only discharge document cited by Mr. Kerry issued in 1978, three years after the last date it should have been issued, the absence of a certificate from 1975 leaves only two possibilities. Either Mr. Kerry received an "other than honorable" certificate that has been removed in a review purging it from his records, or even worse, he received no certificate at all. In both cases there would have been a loss of all of Mr. Kerry's medals and the suspension of all benefits of service.Certainly something was wrong as early as 1973 when Mr. Kerry was applying to law school.
....cont'd

(Link under my name)
The SEC/NAV in 1973 was John Warner. Maybe after he retires this year, he will write his memoirs.

[Sara]

I would have to go back to my two blog posts on this subject to remember, but I thought there were a couple of other problems that had to do with wording. Doesn't the known legit birth certificate have slighting different wording for some of the field names and the certificate type and document type?

I was going to get my Granddaughter's birth certificate for comparison. She was born in Hawaii, but they were moving the last couple of weeks and my daughter couldn't send anything until they got unpacked and could find it and got their cable hooked up so they had internet access in the new home.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Lipscomb wrote on Oct. 13, 2004:

The Secretary of the Navy at the time during the Nixon presidency is the current Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator John Warner (R.-Va.). John Ullyot, a spokesman for the Senator, said, "Senator Warner has no recollection that would either confirm or challenge any representation that Senator Kerry received a less than honorable discharge."

[Davod]

" While people like Clinton and JFK had minimal Washington experience and performed quite well. There is just no correlation with experience and success."

Taken from one of the comments to the Lipscombe post. The writer obviously knows little of JFKs history.

From November 1946 until January 1961 Kennedy was either a Congressman or a Senator.

WRT Clinton's performance, there is an argument to be made that it was the Republican takeover that provided the impetus for movement in the economy, hence Clinton's success..

[liontooth]

From the letter to Pickens:

Finally, the continued insistence that Kerry has not released his full military record
is refuted by the Navy, which has publicly certified he has, and by three
newspapers which have independently received signed releases and reviewed
those records.

3 newspapers have received 'signed releases' from who? Kerry? Have the authors of the letter to Pickens even seen Kerry's entire record?

And the charge has been, "Kerry hasn't released his full record TO THE PUBLIC".