The Swift Boat Saga, Part IV

We covered Cambodia and the Washington Post's refusal to cover this story yesterday. We won't even pretend that the left-wing dishrag will consider this news that's fit to print. But let's give credit where credit is due, as more and more papers are forcing this story into the mainstream. The New York Sun, slowly but surely establishing itself as the Fox News-style counterpart to the left-wing dishrag, published this editorial Wednesday:

Mr. Kerry has repeatedly claimed he was in Cambodia.In the October 14,1979, issue of the Boston Herald-American, Mr. Kerry wrote,“On more than one occasion, I, like Martin Sheen in ‘Apocalypse Now,’ took my patrol boat into Cambodia. In fact, I remember spending Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real.”

Speaking in the Senate on March 27, 1986, Mr. Kerry said, “I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared — seared — in me.”

A June 16, 2003, dispatch in the Boston Globe recounts the Christmas Eve action and reports, “To top it off, Kerry said, he had gone several miles inside Cambodia, which theoretically was off limits.”

A June 1, 2003 profile in the Washington Post has Mr. Kerry carrying around, in a secret compartment of his briefcase, what the candidate described as, “My good luck hat,Given to me by a CIA guy as we went in for a special mission in Cambodia.”

Yet the more-or-less authorized history of Kerry in Vietnam, Douglas Brinkley’s 2004 book “Tour of Duty,”puts Mr.Kerry’s action on Christmas Eve in Vietnam “as they were approaching the Cambodian border”and “not far from the Cambodian border” and “only miles from the Cambodian border” and “getting close to Cambodia.” “Tour of Duty” never places Mr. Kerry in Cambodia during the young lieutenant’s four-month tour in Vietnam. The book says that in October of 1968,the U.S. Navy “took great pains” to observe the border.

And Mr. Kerry’s reference in the Herald-American to “President Nixon” is strange. On Christmas Eve of 1968, the president of America was Lyndon Johnson. Nixon’s secret bombing of Cambodia did not begin until after he took office in early 1969.

...Mr. Kerry did the right thing in going to Vietnam as a young man. He fought for a noble cause, and we have seen no evidence so far that his service there was anything less than honorable.All of which is why his reluctance to clarify the facts on the Cambodia issue is so puzzling, and why the point strikes us as worth pressing.

The last point expresses the Kerry conundrum perfectly. His service is the basis of his run for President; as we've discussed, he definitely isn't relying on his Senate voting record or his time as Mike Dukakis' Lt. Governor. As a result, significant contradictions in his Service record need to be explained. Kerry has employed his tale regarding Cambodia in public policy debates, as noted above, and he has commented that the memory of Christmas Eve in Cambodia is "seared in me." This isn't a trivial detail from his war experience -- it's one Kerry seems to regard as a turning point in his life. If he's making it up, then his credibility suffers another hit -- and keep in mind that the credibility of him and his crewmates is the only real answer to the other charges put forth by the Swift Boat Veterans.

Of course, the Kerry camp has apparently realized this, as they have now scrambled to put together a response, with Kerry's biographer Doub Brinkley at the forefront, as noted by Drudge:

John Kerry historian Doug Brinkley is rushing a piece for the NEW YORKER: to set-the-record-straight on Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia tale, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

Kerry has turned to author Brinkley for a "modification" after it was exposed that Kerry was not in Cambodia during Christmas of 1968, as he once claimed from the Senate floor.

The Brinkley piece for the NEW YORKER will now say that Kerry was not in Cambodia during Christmas, but rather in January, publishing sources tell DRUDGE.
Since the early 1970s, Kerry has spoken and written of how he was illegally ordered to enter Cambodia. Kerry mentioned it in the floor of the Senate in 1986 when he charged that President Reagan’s actions in Central America were leading the U.S. in another Vietnam.

Don't be surprised if Kerry refuses to release his records on January 1969. And don't be surprised if the press only starts to cover this story after the New Yorker publishes its piece.