Say Anything Blog

During the Viet Nam war they were handing out awards like candy. They only mean that you saw combat and were unlucky enough to get wounded or imprisoned. I am sure that every POW received a Bronze Star. That does not qualify them to be in charge of the nation’s defense. I would rather see a war hero like Kerry in power than a crochety old foul mouthed man like McCain. Oh, BTW. Did you hear that McCain had thought about becoming a Democrat several years ago?

Kerry a war hero.  I am still laughing at that one.  Please, tell me another joke.  I like to laugh early on a Saturday, and you are so good at jokes.

atease

atease

Yeah, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard anyone saying that Kerry was more of a hero than McCain. I don’t think even Kerry himself could swallow that much bullshit.

During the Viet Nam war they were handing out awards like candy. They only mean that you saw combat and were unlucky enough to get wounded or imprisoned.

What an ass. Way to minimize the sacrifices and achievements of our soldiers. Seriously though, could you be a bigger douche?

Wastashiwa.  You are wrong.

I am sure that every POW received a Bronze Star.

Communism is evil

watashiwa: I’m sure you have a few functional brain cells, as you can type! But, ”war hero” John Kerry??
What did you want to be when you grew up? A proctologist???

Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

What an ass. Way to minimize the sacrifices and achievements of our soldiers. Seriously though, could you be a bigger douche?

People said the same thing about Kerry.  I don’t recall anyone ever taking to task those individuals (like swiftboat iiars) who were Republicans.

Both sides are wrong for doing it, aren’t they?  Or is it OK to trash Kerry’s war record but not McCains?

swiftboat liar

Definition: One who says the “swiftboaters” were lying.
See also: “delusional”, “sore losers”, & “Ketchup heiresses”!
Hannitized: Many of us were born at night, but it wasn’t last night! There is ample proof that the swiftboaters were far more credible than John “Rose Thorn Purple Heart” Kerry!
Please, Move On, and try fighting the next war, not the ones you lost abjectly.

Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

“We’re aware of many of the things that 527s have done … where unlimited amounts of money can pour into negative campaigns such as we saw against John Kerry and his combat record, as we saw against (former Georgia Sen.) Max Cleland … they’re really very not accountable to anyone. At least I have to say ‘I’m John McCain and I approve this message.’”

In an August 5 interview with the Associated Press, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), “a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, called the ad criticizing John Kerry’s military service ‘dishonest and dishonorable’ and urged the White House on Thursday to condemn it as well.”

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth did not serve alongside Kerry

In the new ad, members of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth claim that they “served with John Kerry.” Hannity & Colmes co-host Sean Hannity echoed the false claim, saying that the veterans in the ad are “the people that know him best,” and referred to them as “some of his fellow crewmates.” Even Pat Halpin, who was filling in for co-host Alan Colmes, called them “some of John Kerry’s crewmates.” Scarborough echoed Swift Boat Veterans’ misleading claim that they “served with John Kerry in Vietnam.”

While the veterans attacking Kerry in the ad are veterans of the Vietnam War and may have served at the same time as Kerry, as The New York Times reported on August 5, the Kerry campaign noted that “none of the men had actually served on the Swift boats that Mr. Kerry commanded.” Adm. Roy F. Hoffman, one of the veterans in the ad, has even “acknowledged he had no first-hand knowledge to discredit Kerry’s claims to valor,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on May 6, “and said that although Kerry was under his command, he really didn’t know Kerry much personally.”

In contrast, many of the veterans who have appeared on the campaign trail with Kerry did serve alongside him. The Wall Street Journal’s Albert R. Hunt noted in his August 5 “Campaign Journal” column, titled “Sham Charges Against a War Hero” (subscription required): “Indeed, 10 of the 11 men who served on his two swift boats all have sworn by John Kerry; nine living members were in Boston [for the Democratic National Convention].”

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth’s Republican ties

As Media Matters for America previously noted, on May 4, Salon.com’s Joe Conason detailed Swift Boat Veterans for Truth’s ties to the Republican Party. In addition to pointing out that the group’s founder, John O’Neill, has long-standing ties to the GOP that can be traced back to the Nixon administration, Conason also reported that among the people behind Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is “veteran corporate media consultant and Texas Republican activist Merrie Spaeth, who is listed as the group’s media contact.”

As MMFA has documented, both Hannity & Colmes co-host Alan Colmes (on May 28) and FOX chief political correspondent Carl Cameron (on May 4) reported the group’s Republican ties on FOX News Channel; on May 4, Scarborough mentioned criticism of O’Neill’s “dirty tricks” for the Nixon administration. While Scarborough did mention on August 4 that the group was part of the “Republican counteroffensive” “prepar[ing] to release blistering attacks in John Kerry’s Vietnam record,” Hannity completely ignored the group’s ties to the GOP.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth doctor did not sign Kerry’s medical record

Neither Hannity nor Scarborough bothered to note that Dr. Louis Letson, who is featured in the ad claiming to have treated Kerry for the wound that earned him his first Purple Heart and claiming that it was undeserved, was not the medical official who signed Kerry’s medical records for the wound. The Kerry campaign noted this fact in a report in The New York Times and a report in the Los Angeles Times that surfaced when Letson first unleashed this attack in May.

In criticizing the ad, McCain told the Associated Press, “‘It was the same kind of deal that was pulled on me’… referring to his [McCain’s] bitter Republican primary fight with President Bush,” according to the AP. As Conason reported on May 4, “The ‘swift boat’ veterans attacking John Kerry’s war record are led by veteran right-wing operatives using the same vicious techniques they used against John McCain four years ago.” Conason explained that Spaeth (the group’s media contact) participated during the 2000 Republican primary contest in TV ads that “falsely attack[ed]” McCain’s environmental record in California, New York, and Ohio.

McCain might have been referring as well to attacks on his military record by Ted Sampley and Thomas Burch, both Vietnam veterans, during the 2000 primary season. As Media Matters for America previously reported, Sampley hounded McCain as a “Manchurian Candidate”—suggesting that the decorated veteran and former prisoner of war was a brainwashed communist agent—and was convicted for misdemeanor assault related to an attack on one of McCain’s legislative aides. Sampley is the leader of a group called Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry. During the 2000 Republican primary in South Carolina, Burch, according to a February 22 report in the Chicago Tribune, “stood with George W. Bush at his side and accused Sen. John McCain of Arizona of opposing health care for Persian Gulf war veterans and blocking efforts to locate POW-MIAs, saying the former prisoner of war “came home from Vietnam and forgot us.”

Thank you for not reading this. (sorry to burrow your line RBB)

I would never vote for McCain or anyone for POTUS and Commander-In-Chief because they had been a POW and/or won many medals. I will vote against Obama and the Hildabeast and accept McCain as the sort-of conservative candidate. He does not deserve my enthusiastic support, while the other two do deserve my disgust for their socialist leanings and especially for Obama because he is dangerously naive about the world.

As to Kerry and the Swiftboat group, Kerry was a self-promoter even in Vietnam to push for his medals because of his political ambitions, he padded his war time resume, he turned his back on his brothers-in-arms and he met with and gave and and comfort to an enemy of the U.S. while we still had soldiers in the field. He deserved prison for treason, not a Senate seat!

No matter the age or state of health, for a military man it is always glorious to tilt at windmills, rescue a fair Dulcinea and be a gallant knight in armor in a glorious cause.

H, good find on the McCain quote.

It illustrates why nutters hate him so much.

Excuse me, you were saying?

Hey! How about that Howard Dean! It’s amusing to see all the leftards rally around John Kerry as the ignore the judgment of the head of the D.N.C.! Newsflash! Kerry isn’t going to be the nominee! (Unless we could build a Draft Kerry movement! Draft Kerry! Wouldn’t that be a pip?)
In the meantime, go hijack someone else’s thread!

Howard Dean? Howard Dean, anyone???

Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

People said the same thing about Kerry.  I don’t recall anyone ever taking to task those individuals (like swiftboat liars) who were Republicans.

Both sides are wrong for doing it, aren’t they?  Or is it OK to trash Kerry’s war record but not McCains?

I agree with you. When the swiftboaters attacked Kerry in 2004, I disagreed with them. Though I must add that Kerry did open the door by making it the center of his campaign. McCain’s done similar, but hasn’t played it up as much as Kerry. Either way, I don’t think its right to trash anyone’s record without solid evidence. It’s also worth mentioning that the swiftboaters attacked McCain during the 2000 GOP primaries. They have an agenda and I don’t think they’re beyond fabricating or exaggerating evidence.

But the larger issue here is that Watshiwa didn’t just minimze an individual’s record, but everyone who served in Vietnam. That’s a pretty big generalization.

Unlike Kerry, John McCain did not return from Viet Nam and make outrageous, unsubstantiated charges against his fellow soldiers. More than anything else, it was that shameful act on Kerry’s part which triggered Swiftboat.

"Here lies, in honored glory, an American soldier, known but to God.”

The times, they are a-changin’...
Bob Dylan

Yea, pp, anybody that tries to backstab their mates is about as low as one can get, and that pretty well describes Kerry.

You don’t have to be a moron to be a liberal Democrat but it sure helps.