The John Kerry Post of the Day

My latest discovery about my favorite cheese-eating surrendermonkey-looking Ketchup King cum Presidential candidate:

He's gay.

Okay, just kidding. That only works when you're a Governor trying to deflect attention from other scandals.

But Kerry is a flip-flopper. I know, you're shocked. But while Kerry's supporters will tell you that he's actually "nuanced" (the scientific-term is wishy-washy), it's tough to explain away lines like this in a Fox News report, as reported by Jim Geraghty at the Kerry Spot:

KERRY: I proudly, and I think rightly, voted against this prescription drug bill that the president has put in place that hurts seniors in this country.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE)

FOX NEWS' CARL CAMERON: But in fact, when the final vote occurred, Kerry skipped it. Since then, he has repeatedly pledged to undo much of the measure in order to start all over from scratch. He accused the GOP, in turn, of misrepresenting his plan.

KERRY: You know, I keep hearing the distortions of the other side, are just stunning. You know, they say I want to repeal it. No, I don't want to repeal it. I want to fix it.

CAMERON: But the truth is he did promise to repeal it.

KERRY, IN NEW HAMPSHIRE EARLIER THIS YEAR: If I am president, I pledge to you we will repeal that phony bill.

I'm not sure what's worse -- the fact that he failed to show up and vote, the fact that he lied about his vote, or the fact that he expected to get away with contradictions about what he plans to do. But maybe I'm just missing the nuance -- maybe he wants to repeal the bill, then fix it. Or the opposite.

The GOP doesn't need to misrepresent his plan -- he can handle that all on his own.

Try Not to Read This Before Dinner

Featured Instigator Kevin Downing continues to do my work for me, with the story about the 480 lb. woman who died after spending six years on her couch:

Gayle Laverne Grinds, 40, died Wednesday, after a failed six-hour effort to dislodge her from the couch in her home. Workers say the home was filthy, and Grinds was too large to get up from the couch to even use the bathroom.

Everyone going inside the home had to wear protective gear. The stench was so powerful they had to blast in fresh air.

A preliminary autopsy on the the four-foot, ten-inch woman lists the cause of death as "morbid obesity." But officials want to know more about the circumstances inside the home.

Republicans are Punks!

Right-wing compatriot NC provides us with the news that punk rockers have now gone so counter-cultutre, they're supporting Bush. Or at least this guy is:

There is one tattooed, mohawked New Yorker who knows how to outrage the
punk scene: Nick Rizzuto - and he votes Republican.

"Conservative punk is not generally what people think of when they hear of
a punk," says Rizzuto. A smart, articulate 22-year-old, he founded the
Conservative Punk website six months ago, and has since received hate mail from
disgusted punks, excited phone calls from the Republican party and intrigued
coverage from the US media. To his critics he's a crank bringing punk's good
name into disrepute - but to his supporters he's the fearless voice of a
formerly silent minority.

...It's this frustration with the punk scene's liberal orthodoxy that fires
the conservative punks. "You could say we're anti-anti-establishment," says
Michale Graves, Conservative Punk columnist and frontman of Gotham Road. "I
think in American mainstream culture the cool thing to do now is to hate the
government and speak out against the war."

It's certainly easy to see how a Republican musician might feel like a
scorned minority. Johnny Ramone, punk's sole big-name Republican, became the
right-wing's answer to Michael Moore or the Dixie Chicks when the Ramones were
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame two years ago, and he announced
from the podium: "God bless President Bush, and God bless America." The
right-wing website Free Republic recently attempted to out "conservative"
celebrities; its brief list of confirmed Republican musicians outside the
country-music scene comprises Ramone, anti-drugs/pro-NRA rock veteran Ted
Nugent, and actor/songwriter Vincent Gallo.

Rizzuto insists there are many more who are reluctant to make their
opinions public. "I'm very wary of mentioning these guys on the record,
especially in a European newspaper. They have to worry about being blacklisted
from playing certain clubs and from playing Europe altogether." This may sound
paranoid but Graves says his European tour was cancelled after the promoter read
a New York Times article about his politics.

...From a certain angle, punk's individualistic creed and
me-against-the-world rhetoric overlap with conservative values. "On some level
punk is inherently libertarian," says Greenwald. "You don't tell me what to do,
I won't tell you what to do, I'm just going to worry about myself." Follow that
logic and Bush's bullish approach to foreign policy - basically, screw what
anyone else says, I'll do what I like - seems quintessentially punk.

Such thinking is anathema to most punks. While Punkvoter's Rock Against
Bush CD can boast the likes of Offspring and Sum 41, Rizzuto concedes that the
few bands that support Conservative Punk, including Drawback, Style Over
Substance and Nation of Suspects, aren't exactly household names. But this
demographic, however small, is promising territory for Republicans. Right-wing
commentators have coined phrases such as "gonzo conservative" and "South Park
Republican" to describe young voters who like tattoos, swearing and Donald
Rumsfeld. Conservative Punk has already inspired sympathetic sites such as
GOPunk and Anti-Anti-Flag, and Rizzuto hopes to compile a benefit CD in aid of
Students for a Free Iran.

The best part is the section where Gotham Road's frontman mentions that his Euro tour was cancelled on account of his politics. If that ever happened here, people would be screaming to the high heavens and blaming John Ashcroft for it.

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.

The John Kerry Post of the Day

My latest discovery about my favorite cheese-eating surrendermonkey-looking Ketchup King cum Presidential candidate:

You know, Kerry's supposed to be the smart candidate in the election, according to the conventional wisdom. Yet the Master of Indecision has now been tricked by the President, a man whom most of Kerry's base believes is dumber than any other President. Good thing Kerry's not up against that noted Rhodes Scholar Bill Clinton.

Now the Preteneder to the Ketchup Throne is in trouble for responding to President Bush's challenge -- specifically, Bush has requested that Kerry clarify his position on Iraq. This would be a good thing, since Kerry's position has been anything but consistent. But Bush recently challenged Kerry on whether he would have still voted to authorize force against Hussein, knowing what he does now about WMD. As usual, Kerry debated it for some time before responding, as noted by everyone's favorite left-wing dishrag...

Across the weekend, the Kerry campaign debated how Mr. Kerry should respond. "There were a lot of ideas," said one official, "from silence, to throwing the question back in the president's face."

But the decision, in the end, was Mr. Kerry's. He chose to take the bait on Monday at the edge of the Grand Canyon. Asked by a reporter, he said he would have voted for the resolution - even in the absence of evidence of weapons of mass destruction - before adding his usual explanation that he would have subsequently handled everything leading up to the war differently.

Mr. Bush, sensing he had ensnared Mr. Kerry, stuck in the knife on Tuesday, telling a rally in Panama City, Fla., that "he now agrees it was the right decision to go into Iraq." The Kerry camp says that interpretation of Mr. Kerry's words completely distorted the difference between a vote to authorize war and a decision to commit troops to the battlefield.

Mr. Kerry's answer is being second-guessed among his supporters, some of whom argued that he should have been more wary of the trap.

"I wish he had simply said no president in his right mind would ask the Senate to go to war against a country that didn't have weapons that pose an imminent threat," said one of Mr. Kerry's Congressional colleagues and occasional advisers.

Senator Biden argued that Mr. Kerry is being "asked to explain Bush's failure through his own vote. I saw a headline that said 'Kerry Would Have Gone to War.' That's bull. He wouldn't have. Not the way Bush did. But that wasn't the choice at the time - the choice was looking for a way to hold Saddam accountable."

Such distinctions don't exactly ring as campaign themes. On Wednesday, Vice President Cheney did his best to worsen Mr. Kerry's troubles. He issued a statement noting that Mr. Kerry "voted for the war" but turned against it "when it was politically expedient" and now has his aides "saying that his vote to authorize force wasn't really a vote to go to war."

"We need a commander in chief who is steady and steadfast," he said.

As Jim Geraghty at the Kerry Spot noted, Kerry's own advisors are now arguing about the issues, especially since the Deaniac base will be upset over Kerry's seeming concession that going to war was the right thing to do.

Of course, the Times tries to rescue Kerry by claiming that he has been "relatively consistent" in explaining his position on Iraq. Relative to what? His claims about trips to Cambodia? The only thing consistent on Kerry is his use of really good hair care products. To be fair, this is a virtue he shares with many modern-day Democrats. But it's not a good reason to vote for someone.

Wait, I forgot. He served in Vietnam!!!

Another Piece of Our Childhood Bites the Dust

This is just wrong:

Pounded by competition from discount retailers and increasingly shunned by
kids moving on to fancy cell phones and iPods at younger ages, Toys R Us (TOY)
says it might shed its toy business in a major restructuring.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this would forever kill the song, "I don't want to grow up, I'm a Toys R Us kid." What a terrible indictment of our society. Won't somebody please think of the children?

The Perfect Milestone Post

Featured Instigator Kevin Downing steals post #100 on the blog. In and of itself, this is a milestone that may someday rank alongside the great moments in American history, such as the signing of the Declaration of Independance, Lee's surrender at Appomattox, and the time Dylan McKay interrupted Donna Martin's debutante party on 90210.

But Kevin finds the perfect post, from the blog of James Maule, a law professor at Villanova University, who hit upon the perfect way to introduce tax law to his students on his blog Mauled Again in a post dated July 18th (you'll need to scroll down):

Tax is complicated. But it's not the most complicated thing.

Friends who have studied nuclear physics claim tax is more complicated.
Einstein said something to that effect, too. Puts my friends in good
company.

Yesterday I watched a cricket match, and my cousin (many times removed)
explained the basics and some of the more advanced rules. Baseball it isn't
(though some of the terminology is the same).

Whoever invented cricket died, and then reincarnated as the inventor of
income tax.

Perhaps if I begin the basic tax class with a cricket rules lesson, the
students will be thrilled to ease up with a study of the Internal Revenue Code,
its regulations, and all the law associated with it.

As Kevin noted, he thought I would "find it interesting due to your occupation, your heritage, your choice of undergrad school, and of course, your love of cricket." Not to mention my love of blogging. As for my love of cricket, who can't love a sport where people use terms like "golden duck" and "wicket maiden"?

Apparently, this tale appearred in the Wall Street Journal today, although I'm not looking for it at present. Better yet, thanks to feedback from an Aussie reader, Maule today noted some differences from cricket, but it ends with this statement:

Oh, yeah, I said "guy" as though I'm assuming that it was a male who invented
cricket and the income tax. Well, it WAS men (not just one) who were
responsible. I don't know what cricket would have been had it been invented by
women, as I'm still trying to figure out what it is. As for the income tax, who
knows? I think it would have been different, but probably no less complicated.

Not that I'm disputing historical fact, but the tax code has only become more complex over the last few decades... as more and more women became part of the legislative bodies that enact the Code, not to mention as more and more women presumably became employees of the Treasury Department and the IRS, which administer the Code.

Clearly, the two things are completely unrelated.

The Washington Post Jumps On Kerry's Bandwagon

I've officially decided that today needs to be "Bash the Washington Post Day" here at my little hole in the cyber-universe. The Swift Boat Vets editorial -- no, wait, Kerry Campaign ad is a better term for it -- is shameful for a major newspaper. The Post says the following, in an editorial entitled "Swift Boat Smears":

DEMOCRATIC nominee John F. Kerry has made his tour of duty in Vietnam -- a stint in which he earned three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star -- a centerpiece of his presidential campaign. To the extent, then, that there are legitimate questions about Mr. Kerry's behavior -- either in Vietnam or back home as a prominent antiwar activist -- those are fair game. Mr. Kerry's four-plus months in Vietnam made for an unusually short tour. He used his third Purple Heart to go home early, and his wounds were relatively superficial. Some veterans remain understandably bitter about Mr. Kerry's antiwar statements; indeed, the candidate himself has said he would rephrase some of his more cutting accusations about U.S. troops committing war crimes.

But a new assault on Mr. Kerry -- in an ad by a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and in a new book -- crosses the line in branding Mr. Kerry a coward and a liar. This smear is contradicted by Mr. Kerry's crew mates, undercut by the previous statements of some of those now making the charges and tainted by the chief source of its funding: Republican activists dedicated to defeating Mr. Kerry in November.

...The most potentially damning accusation in the ad concerns the the best-known episode of Mr. Kerry's service, in which he saved the life of Jim Rassmann after the Special Forces officer was blown off Mr. Kerry's Swift boat by a mine explosion. Three people quoted in the ad, all of whom say they were present that day, March 13, 1969, assert that Mr. Kerry ordered his craft to flee the danger and turned around to rescue Mr. Rassmann only after the shooting stopped. "John Kerry lied to get his Bronze Star . . . I know, I was there, I saw what happened," says Van O'Dell, a retired Navy enlisted man. "His account of what happened and what actually happened are the difference between night and day," says Jack Chenoweth, who commanded a different Swift boat. "When the chips were down, you could not count on John Kerry," says Larry Thurlow, another Swift boat commander.

If accurate, this would demolish a central part of the picture of Mr. Kerry as Vietnam hero. But the weight of the evidence supports Mr. Kerry. Mr. Rassmann, having had no contact with Mr. Kerry for the previous 35 years, came forward during the primaries to tell the story of how Mr. Kerry, braving enemy fire and with an injured arm, pulled him back on board. "John came up to the bow, and I thought he was going to get killed because he was so exposed," Mr. Rassmann recalled. Other surviving crew mates corroborate that account. "I was there," crew mate Del Sandusky told CNN. "I saw the bullets skimming across the water. I saw the firefight gun flashes from the jungle. I know the firefight and the ambush we were in." Another crew mate, James Wasser, told ABC: "What boat were you riding on? Because you weren't there -- we were."

It's also relevant to know who's underwriting this advertising campaign. The biggest single donor so far to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth isn't a Swift boat veteran but one of the leading Republican donors in Texas. Houston builder Bob J. Perry gave the group $100,000, accounting for the bulk of the $158,000 in receipts it has reported. It's fair to ask whether truth is at the top of this group's agenda.

Okay, let's start with the fact that the Post completely ignores the fact that one claim of the Swift Boat Vets -- regarding Kerry's lie about going into Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968 -- has already been proven. Take a look at Kerry's speech, as reprinted at Just One Minute, which has the cite to the speech he gave on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1986:

Mr. President, I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by 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, that says to me, before we send another generation into harm's way we have a responsibility in the U.S. Senate to go the last step, to make the best effort possible in order to avoid that kind of conflict.

Keep in mind, Kerry was using this "searing memory" as evidence for why we should limit aid to the Contras fighting the Communist dictator in Nicaragua -- i.e., he was citing his personal experience in Vietnam as a rationale for a policy decision. We'll leave aside the issue of whether he sees memories of Vietnam every time we deploy American troops for another discussion. Also, Kerry also repeated his claim about excursions into Cambodia on at least one more occasion, as evidenced by the AP article cited by Just One Minute. What's worse, he did it in the context of hearings on POW/MIA Affairs, using his personal experience as anecdotal evidence that U.S. troops may have been left behind at war's end:

This conclusion that the government failed to account for all its soldiers, sailors and fliers did not come easily for the 48-year-old senator. Through two decades of political activism since he returned from Vietnam, first as an opponent of the war, then as a lawmaker, Kerry has remained studiously neutral on the POW-MIA question.

Veterans groups and researchers of varying credibility raised allegations and published photographs suggesting that Americans might still be languishing in Southeast Asian stalags. Bereaved family members pleaded with lawmakers to rescue loved ones they were convinced were still alive. Kerry said only that there was evidence that needed to be explored."I've always said there's evidence. But I'm not going to draw any conclusions about this until we do a sound, sensible job," Kerry said in an interview. "This conclusion was drawn from documents which no one saw 10 years ago."

But for Kerry, who spent six violent months commanding a patrol boat on the Mekong River, there's always been a ring of truth to allegations of abandoned Americans. By Christmas 1968, part of Kerry's patrol extended across the border of South Vietnam into Cambodia."We were told, `Just go up there and do your patrol. Everybody was over there (in Cambodia). Nobody thought twice about it," Kerry said.

One of the missions, which Kerry, at the time, was ordered not to discuss, involved taking CIA operatives into Cambodia to search for enemy enclaves."I can remember wondering, `If you're going to go, what happens to you,"' Kerry said.

But here today, we have the truth. Unfortunately, it takes a British paper to report it, rather than the Post or the left-wing dishrag known as the New York Times. Today's Telegraph writes:

Yesterday, however, the Kerry campaign was left in verbal knots after a new book accused the senator of inventing stories about being sent, illegally, over the border into neutral Cambodia.

The Kerry campaign responded, initially, that Mr Kerry had always said he was "near" Cambodia. Then a campaign aide said Mr Kerry had been in the Mekong Delta "between" Vietnam and next-door Cambodia - a geographical zone not found
on maps, which show the Mekong river running from Cambodia to Vietnam.

The book, Unfit for Command, is based on recollections from dozens of veterans who served in the same naval unit as Mr Kerry, including crewmen on small patrol craft under his direct command.

... In newspaper articles, interviews and at least one Senate speech, Mr Kerry has claimed that he spent Christmas 1968 inside Cambodia, at a time when even the US president was publicly denying that American forces were inside that country.

He has cited the missions as a psychological turning point, when he realised that American leaders were not telling the truth to the world about the war in south-east Asia.

Michael Meehan, a Kerry campaign adviser, told ABC Television: "The Mekong Delta consists of the border between Cambodia and Vietnam, so on Christmas Eve in 1968, he was in fact on patrol . . . in the Mekong Delta between Cambodia and Vietnam. He was ambushed, they fired back, he was fired upon from both sides, from the Cambodian side of the border and the Vietnam side during that day in 1968."

It remains to be seen how serious an impact the row has on the Kerry campaign.

It remains to be seen if the press here in the U.S. ever reports it. Maybe they can't ignore it forever, epecially since Unfit for Command is #1 on Amazon's best-seller list right now. But let's quickly list the problems with Meehan's statement:

1. It's geographically impossible, as the Telegraph points out.

2. Kerry's own crewmates, the ones everyone cites as evidence for why the Swift Boat Vets are wrong on their other claims, state that they were not in or near Cambodia on Christmas Eve.

3. Kerry's statements say he was in Cambodia, not merely near it.

But the Post doesn't even touch the Cambodia issue. Instead it focuses on the conflict between the Swift Boat Vets account and that of the men on Kerry's boat. This is important, but it's also important to note that Kerry has his so-called "Band of Brothers" of approximately 10 men backing him. The Swift Boat Vets have far more people providing conflicting accounts of what Kerry did, both that day and other days. And the claim of these men cannot be simply dismissed by stating they were not on the same boat. As has been repeatedly stated, several boats were part of the engagement in question -- and the detailed accounts provided by others in other boats, which were less than 50 yards away, conflict with the accounts of those on Kerry's boat. They're not testifying as to what people on the boat said to one another -- they're testifying as to whether a firefight was still taking place, and whether other boats were still in the area. Presumably, they could observe these things at least as well as the people on Kerry's boat. How can the Post claim that "the weight of the evidence supports Mr. Kerry" in light of this? Is the O.J. jury writing this editorial?

Finally, let's get one thing straight -- it doesn't matter who financed the ad if the ad is true. And Kerry has not refuted its truth. God forbid the Post ever covers claims by liberal groups like Moveon.org and refutes them by mentioning the group's funding by billionaire Bush-hater George Soros.

In the end, the Post, as Instapundit put it, is working on Kerry's behalf by "spending another chunk of their diminishing credibility to help this guy. Hope they still think it was worth it in a few years." By then, they'll be the New York Times.

The John Kerry Post of the Day

My latest discovery about my favorite cheese-eating surrendermonkey-looking Ketchup King cum Presidential candidate:

Apparently, John Kerry paid the hospital bill for an alien. No, I'm not kidding. Check out the story at The National Debate, which presents what Jim Geraghty at the Kerry Spot labeled "the weirdest single bit of campaign news this year."

The 1995 sci-fi craptacular Species, which was mostly notable for the great "acting" of Natasha Henstridge while generally wasting the talents of Ben Kingsley and Michael Madsen, features an alien who is raised in captivity and then breaks out, looking to breed. Since the alien resembles Natasha Henstridge, it should have been pretty easy to find a suitor, even with government agents tracking her to try and destroy her (and that includes the chick from CSI, so you know the government brought out the heavy guns).

What does this have to do with our favorite Botoxed Bosox fan? Well, in the movie, a Good Samaritan helps out the alien beauty after she's hit by a car, not only making sure she makes it to the hospital and survives, but also paying her medical bills with his credit card. This leads her to go home with him, where her efforts to use him for breeding purposes abruptly ends in violent death.

The Good Samaritan character is named... John F. Kerry.

Okay, IMDB lists the name as John Carey, but the middle initial is used in the movie, and the pronunciation is dead-on. And he pays her medical bills, for crying out loud -- maybe this is the way Kerry intends to pay for his proposed health care plan!

Maybe this is why Teresa got so ticked off the other night. In case you didn't hear, the Kerrys got seperate hotel rooms in Arizona Sunday night. At the very least, this probably continues a proud Democratic tradition begun by the first JFK.

Then again, maybe John spent the night in Cambodia.

One Way to Help Your Kids

Apparently the pronunciation of your name helps determine how sexy you are. Which will not help one bit if you look like me.

The Swift Boat Saga, Part III

I was planning an extended rant on this later this week, but I'm breaking it up and publishing the parts I get done each night at home (yes, I have no life). But here's the thing: there's a lot of evidence these guys have offered to back up their claims, and the Kerry camp's response has been, to say the least, inadequate.

There's so much here it's hard to keep track. The responses by the Kerry camp and the liberal left have revolved around (a) ad hominem attacks, (b) questioning the veracity of the accounts of these veterans because they didn't serve on Kerry's boat, and (d) suing the organization. None of these statements effectively refutes the claims of the Swift Boat Vets.

Let's start with Jim Rassman's editorial in the Journal yesterday. I won't question Rassman's service, or the fact that Kerry saved him from drowning. But here's the thing -- why does he question the motives and statements of those on the other side? Here's part of his editorial:

Now, 35 years after the fact, some Republican-financed Swift Boat Veterans for Bush are suddenly lying about John Kerry's service in Vietnam; they are calling him a traitor because he spoke out against the Nixon administration's failed policies in Vietnam. Some of these Republican-sponsored veterans are the same ones who spoke out against John at the behest of the Nixon administration in 1971. But this time their attacks are more vicious, their lies cut deep and are directed not just at John Kerry, but at me and each of his crewmates as well. This hate-filled ad asserts that I was not under fire; it questions my words and Navy records. This smear campaign has been launched by people without decency, people who don't understand the bond of those who serve in combat.

First, they're the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, not the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush.

Second, the sponsorship of their advertisement has little to do with the accounts of the people who have given their first-hand accounts of what they witnessed of John Kerry's conduct, both on the day Kerry pulled Rassman out of the water and the rest of Kerry's four months in Vietnam.

Third, Rassman claims these statements contradict his account and Navy records. That's all well and good, but there's more people contradicting Kerry's accounts than confirming them. And Kerry won't release all of his military records, which may shed light on some of these issues.

Fourth, Rassman can't refute most of the claims of people who served with Kerry for far longer than he did. As Bob Novak noted when discussing the book Unfit for Command:

The book's weakness is support for Kerry's presidential campaign by his swift
boat crewmates, presumably people who knew him best. O'Neill told me that these
former sailors served with Kerry no more than five weeks. Jim Rassmann, now part
of the Kerry presidential campaign, was a Special Forces lieutenant spending a
few days with Kerry when he fell or was knocked off the swift boat while under
fire and was fished out of the Mekong River by the future candidate.

Fifth, why shouldn't we question this stuff? The press spent plenty of time this winter questioning Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard. Hell, they did it four years ago, as noted by CNN:

In its report, the Los Angeles Times said it found no evidence that either Bush or his father, former President George Bush, had personally tried to influence or pressure anyone to get the younger Bush a place in the Texas Guard. Bush's father was a congressman from Houston at the time.

But the Times also found that despite a long waiting list nationwide, Bush easily got in the Guard and received a commission as a second lieutenant, despite lacking the credentials many other candidates had, such as ROTC experience. He also had no previous aviation experience.

"He was a son of privilege, his father was a man of means, political means, and if he was Joe Schmo trying to get into the Guard ... it wasn't going to happen," said Richard Serrano, author of the Times story.

"His name didn't hurt, obviously," retired Col. Charles C. Shoemake, who served with Bush, told the Times.

Texas Air National Guard historian Tom Hail also told the Times that the fast-tracking of Bush through the ranks was unusual. "I've never heard of that," Hail said. "Generally, they did that for doctors only, mostly because we needed extra flight surgeons."

However, the Dallas Morning News, which also looked into Bush's military record, reported that while Bush's unit in Texas had a waiting list for many spots, he was accepted because he was one of a handful of applicants willing and qualified to spend more than a year in active training flying F-102 jets.

Bush, a Yale University graduate, has said he joined the Air National Guard rather than volunteer for Army combat duty because he wanted to learn how to fly jet fighters like his father, who was a fighter pilot in World War II. "He said he wanted to fly just like his daddy," Bush's commander, Col. Walter B. "Buck" Staudt, told the Times. "Nobody did anything for him. There was no ... influence on his behalf."

The Times reported that many of Bush's former colleagues and superiors in the Guard remember him as a bright young leader who worked hard. "He did the work. His daddy didn't do it for him," said retired Maj. Willie J. Hooper.

The circumstances of Bush's service have been questioned repeatedly, and no one's discovered a shred of proof that he skipped out on his service, or that his daddy pulled the strings for him. But that was fair game for the press, even though Bush has never cited his service in the Guard as a reason we should elect him President. John Kerry, meanwhile, has repeatedly referenced Vietnam as a reference for his character. Now we have a number of people who dispute his accounts and think that's he not to be trusted. The press will eventually be forced to look into this, even if they want to ignore the story.

A final point to Rassman's editorial. He's got his account of that day. The Swift Boat Vets have theirs. Their account, at the very least, shows they're willing to back up their charges, and have meticulously documented it, as they indicated in their letter to station managers responding to the Kerry campaign:

As recounted in the attached affidavits of three on-scene participants (and
verified by many others present) Kerry's operating report, Bronze Star story,
and subsequent "no man left behind" story are a total hoax on the Navy and the
nation. As recounted in the affidavits of Van Odell (Exhibit 6), Jack Chenoweth
(Exhibit 7), and Larry Thurlow (Exhibit 10) (and verified by every other officer
present and many others), a mine went off under PCF 3 -- some yards from Kerry's
boat. The force of the explosion disabled PCF 3 and knocked several sailors,
dazed, into the water. All boats, except one, closed to rescue the sailors and
defend the disabled boat. That boat -- Kerry's boat -- fled the scene. After a
short period, it was evident to all on the scene that there was no additional
hostile fire. Thurlow began the daring rescue of disabled PCF 3, while Chenoweth
began to pluck dazed survivors of PCF 3 from the water. Midway through the
process, after it was apparent that there was no hostile fire, Kerry finally
returned, picking up Rassman who was only a few yards from Chenoweth's boat
which was also going to pick Rassman up. Each of the affiants (and many other
Swiftees on the scene that day) are certain that Kerry has wholly lied about the
incident. Consider this: How could the disabled PCF abandon the scene of the
mine? Why did Kerry have to "return" to the scene?

Kerry's account of this action, which was used to secure the Bronze Star
and a third Purple Heart, is an extraordinary example of fraud. Kerry describes
"boats rcd heavy A/W and S/A from both banks. Fire continued for about 5000
meters." Exhibit 17. In other words, the boats went through a double gauntlet at
about 50 yards distance that was 3.2 miles long (comparable to Seminary Ridge at
Gettysburg on two sides), and yet none of the other boats within feet of Kerry's
boat heard a shot or suffered an injury after the PCF 3 mine explosion, except
for John Kerry's buttocks rice wound of earlier origin.

Clearly, Van Odell is right when he says, "John Kerry lied to get his
Bronze Star . . . I know. I was there. I saw what happened." As Jack Chenoweth
swore, "his account of what happened and what actually happened are the
difference between night and day." Most poignantly, Larry Thurlow, whose brave
actions saved the PCF 3 boat that day after Kerry fled, has the right to say,
"When the chips were down, you could not count on John Kerry."

This is, in the end, the start of the storm. Next time, we'll discuss Cambodia.

Note: A tip o' the hat to the Captains Quarters Blog, which has done a far better job detailing this than I do, as well as Instapundit.

This Guy's Prom Night was Worse than Yours

The Phillipines are definitely off the list of potential vacation destinations after reading this story:

A man and his two sons have been arrested on suspicion of murdering a neighbor and then eating parts of his body after he tripped over a woman relative at a dance, Philippine police said on Tuesday.

The three men are suspected of stabbing neighbor Benjie Ganoy to death last month in a remote village in the southwestern island of Palawan. They ate his ears, tongue and arms after roasting the body over a fire, provincial police chief Michael Garraez said.

"They stabbed him repeatedly, cut off the man's ears, pulled out his tongue and ate it," Garraez told Reuters by telephone. He was quoting a sworn statement by a witness, who said he had been forced to eat some flesh taken from the victim's arms.

Garraez said there was no tradition of cannibalism in the area.

Better update the list of local customs, chief.

Why Can't He Just Give Up?

Castro Turns 78 Rolling Back Capitalism in Cuba.

Seriously, what idiot opens an article like that? Capitalism's been dead in Cuba for 45 years, thanks to the rabid jerkweed dictator. What's he rolling back now, the last shred of spirit left in people's bodies? Oh, wait...

Castro released simmering social pressures by letting tens of thousands of
Cubans take to sea in flimsy rafts bound for the United States.

Also in response to the economic crisis, from 1993 he reluctantly allowed
limited private enterprise and legalized the U.S. dollar to ease economic
hardship, while opening up Cuba to tourism and foreign investment.

A decade later, Cuba's one-party Communist government is retrenching and
reasserting state control over the economy. It has cut back permits for private
traders and small businesses and has begun strengthening its hold over state
corporations, especially in tourism, the island's main source of hard currency.
There, military officers have moved into key posts.

Foreign investment has slowed to a trickle, and discouraged investors
complain they don't feel welcome anymore as officials move to reverse
market-oriented reforms.

Western observers said Castro was shocked by the rapid move to capitalism
and growing social differences he witnessed in China last year.

"There is no coincidence that a lot of this has happened since he visited
China. Many people say he was horrified with what he saw," said a European
ambassador. "He is the sort of man who does not want to see his legacy
diluted in his lifetime," the diplomat said, adding that Castro was probably
unaware of the extent of social decay in Cuba.

Cuba's free education, health care and social safety net are seen as a
model by many poor developing countries. Its literacy and infant mortality rates
are on a par with rich nations.

Castro's critics say that comes at the expense of freedom. Most Cubans are
forced to scrape a living together, cope with bad housing and poor public
services. Furthermore, they cannot leave Cuba at will and dissent is stamped
out, the critics say.

You know, only the media would try and claim that Castro's Socialist nightmare was a model for anything. And Castro found China's capitalist steps horrifying, but I'll bet he sent a congratulatory telegram for Tianamen Square.

Here's hoping that by the time Fidel's birthday rolls around again, this dinosaur is consigned to the dustbin of history and the people of Cuba are living in freedom.

The John Kerry Post of the Day

My latest discovery about my favorite cheese-eating surrendermonkey-looking Ketchup King cum Presidential candidate:

I'd spend more time addressing the Swift Boat Saga, but that may take more time than I have. Instead, let's analyze the Kerry Cold War record, courtesy of Joshua Muravchik at the LA Times, with a tip o' the hat to the Key Monk:

The Cold War also provides our best measuring stick for estimating how Kerry might perform as commander in chief, and in that conflict Kerry's instincts were always awry. Had the country heeded his counsel, we might not yet have won it.

Many leaders had a hand in Washington's Cold War triumph, but Ronald Reagan's contributions were pivotal, and Kerry opposed every one of them. Reagan's defense buildup disabused Soviet leaders of any hope that they could ultimately come out ahead of the United States. Kerry derided these military expenditures as "bloated" and "without any relevancy to the threat." In particular, Reagan's plan to seek a missile defense system against Soviet ICBMs and NATO's decision to station new missiles in Europe to counteract the new Soviet deployment there rendered futile the Kremlin's vast investment in nuclear supremacy. Instead of these measures, Kerry advocated that we adopt a one-sided "nuclear freeze."

Reagan also showed the Soviets that history was not necessarily on their side by ousting the erratic communist regime in Grenada and arming anti-communist guerrillas to challenge the leftist oligarchs of Nicaragua. Kerry condemned the U.S. action in Grenada as "a bully's show of force," and he opposed our support for guerrillas in Nicaragua as vociferously as anyone in the Senate, even traveling to Managua to try to cut a deal with Sandinista strongman Daniel Ortega to thwart Reagan's policy.

Reagan also put the U.S. on the ideological offensive when he branded the Soviet Union an "evil empire." But Kerry's harshest words were reserved for our own country, which he accused — during his years as an antiwar leader — of "crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

Not only in the Cold War but also in other events that foreshadowed today's challenges, Kerry consistently got it wrong. In 1986, Reagan bombed Moammar Kadafi's residence when intelligence intercepts showed that the Libyan dictator was behind the terrorist bombing of a nightclub full of American soldiers in Germany. Kerry denounced the U.S. retaliatory strike as "not proportional." And when Saddam Hussein swallowed Kuwait in 1990, Kerry opposed using force to drive him out, calling instead for reliance on economic sanctions.

All in all, in his 20 years in the Senate, Kerry ranks as one of the five most dovish or liberal members on foreign policy if you tally up the key votes selected by the liberal advocacy group, Americans for Democratic Action. Is it any wonder that Kerry is seeking to focus voters' attention on his courage as a Navy officer rather than his judgment as a political leader?

I guess now we have a better understanding of why Kerry's many years in the Senate went virtually unmentioned during his acceptance speech at the Boston Botox Party. In all seriousness, this record shows an astonishingly liberal viewpoint during the Cold War. The freeze movement might have been considered respectable at the time, but history has demonstrated that the advocates of the "Nuclear Freeze" were dead wrong. The opposition to the first Gulf War also demonstrates a man who's unable to take decisive action, even after an ally has been attacked. Rest assured that in John Kerry's America, Saddam would not only have been building WMD, he would have had extra oil from Kuwait as his financing.

Maybe we shouldn't pick on John too much. After all, he does have to deal with Teresa on the campaign trail, as CNN noted...

Think it's been a long trip for Teresa? On a slow pass through Arizona last
night, Teresa took the microphone and said, "Hello, Nevada!" Kerry leaned into
his fatigued wife quickly and said, "Arizona." "Oh, Arizona!" she replied.
"We're in Arizona. We're still in Arizona. and we are going to Nevada. If you've
been in as many places as we've been in in the past 12, 13 days, even if you
have a map, the hours make you mix them all up."

I'd be sympathetic to a woman who's clearly out of her element... except that this lady's spent her adult life married to politicans. She should be used to it by now. But hey, at least she can duck out of the pressure-cooker if Kerry somehow wins. It's not like the First lady has a high profile or anything.

Terror Cat

This story makes me wonder what would have happened if the co-pilot was allergic to cats. I guess the pilots felt they had to land when the cat entered the cockpit, since they feared it might be a bomb, much like Halle Berry's Catwoman.

The Swift Boat Saga, Part II

The Swift Boat Vets have responded to the DNC letter. And unlike the generalized allegations in the ad (and the ad hominem attacks the Kerry campaign has responded with), there's some specific and damning allegations in here:

Kerry's third Purple Heart was his ticket home. It also was much of the basis of his Bronze Star, repeating "his bleeding arm" and shrapnel wound from the mine story. The problem is that his operating report was a total lie since Kerry's shrapnel wound "in the buttocks" came not from a mine at all as he falsely reported, but at his own hand. Larry Thurlow, an officer on shore with Kerry that day, recounts that Kerry's shrapnel wound came not from any mine, but from a self-inflicted wound when Kerry (with no enemy to be seen) threw a concussion grenade into a rice pile and stayed too close. See Exhibit 10, ¶ 3. This "brown rice" incident with rice/shrapnel lodged in Kerry from his own grenade is also recounted by James Rassman, a Kerry supporter and "the no man left behind" on page 105 of John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography By The Boston Globe Reporters Who Know Him Best, by Michael Kranish, Brian C. Mooney, and Nina J. Easton (New York: Public Affairs, 2004) (the "Kranish book"). See Exhibit 21.

Most surprisingly, John Kerry himself (while falsely reporting to the Navy and public that he suffered a shrapnel wound from a mine explosion so as to get a third Purple Heart and go home) reflected in his own journal that his buttocks' wound came, not from any mine but, rather, from a grenade tossed into a rice cache by himself or friendly troops (in the absence of any enemy fire). "I got a piece of small grenade in my ass from one of the rice bin explosions." Exhibit 15, Tour, at 313; see also Exhibit 15, Tour, at 317. "Kerry . . . also had the bits of shrapnel and rice extracted from his backside." See also the sworn statement of participants that there was no hostile fire (Exhibits 6, 7, and 10). It also should be noted that the rice extracted from Kerry's backside could hardly be the result of an underwater mine, as Kerry claimed in his operating report.

The conclusion is inescapable: that Kerry lied by reporting to the Navy that he had been wounded by shrapnel in his backside from an enemy mine when in reality he negligently wounded himself and then lied about the wound in order to secure a third Purple Heart and a quick trip home.

It gets worse when you see what people are saying about the book Unfit for Command. Check out Bob Novak's piece in the Chicago Sun-Times:

The book's strength is the vehemence of testimony by swift boat veterans, alleging that Kerry ''gamed'' the system to win decorations and later betrayed comrades by charging war crimes. Typical is the quote by Bob Hildreth, commanding an accompanying boat: ''I would never want Kerry behind me. I wouldn't want him in front of me either. And I sure wouldn't want him commanding our kids in Iraq and Afghanistan.'' Some 200 ''Swiftees'' on May 4 signed a letter to Kerry demanding full release of his service records.

The book's weakness is support for Kerry's presidential campaign by his swift boat crewmates, presumably people who knew him best. O'Neill told me that these former sailors served with Kerry no more than five weeks. Jim Rassman, now part of the Kerry presidential campaign, was a Special Forces lieutenant spending a few days with Kerry when he fell or was knocked off the swift boat while under fire and was fished out of the Mekong River by the future candidate.

The ''band of brothers'' was organized by Kerry, according to this book. It tells of a 2003 telephone call to Adm. Roy Hoffmann, who commanded swift boats in Vietnam, telling him he was running for president. Hoffmann, mistakenly thinking it was former Sen. Bob Kerrey, ''responded enthusiastically.'' Once the admiral realized it was John Kerry, ''he declined to give Kerry his support.''

Unfit for Command sends a devastating message, unless effectively refuted. Perhaps most disturbing are allegations that Kerry's combat decorations are unjustified. His first Purple Heart, the book alleges, was accidentally self-inflicted. His commander, Grant Hibbard, is quoted as saying: ''I didn't recommend him for a Purple Heart. Kerry probably wrote up the paperwork and recommended himself.'' Full release of documents demanded by his critics could settle this claim quickly if it is unwarranted.

Kerry's got a problem. For all the mainstream press complaints about Bush's military records earlier this year, it's going to become a problem if Kerry doesn't make his records available as well.

Ah, Unity... or So We Thought

One of our few loyal readers lets me know that we weren't the only folks who noticed so-called journalists waving the pom-poms for John Kerry last week at the "Unity" rally, as noted in Thursday's Kerry Post of the Day. Editor and Publisher Magazine had this to say:

John Temple, editor of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, praised the meeting overall and said he was "inspired" by it -- but noted in a column that the partisanship (evidenced by "cheering and whistling" during Kerry's speech) was "something I had never experienced in a crowd of journalists."

Helen Ubinas, another attendee, wrote in The Hartford (Conn.) Courant that she was "in the minority, as it were" who acted like "a professional, not a partisan" in responding to Kerry. There was snickering during Bush's address and the crowd rose at the end, "but not for much longer than it took to head to the door." Ubinas' explanation: Kerry connects with the "advocacy side" of Unity journalists. But showing preference for one candidate, she added, "is the ultimate betrayal -- to everyone."

Akilah Johnson, a reporter at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Delray Beach, Fla., told USA Today, "It was a little awkward for me. I guess a lot of people were acting like citizens, not reporters." Unity President Ernest Sotomayer pointed out that many Unity members, including those who were covering the event or planned to report on it later, did not cheer. Those who did, he said, are "people who vote, and they have a right to express themselves" when they're not working.

But Seattle Times reporter Florangelea Davila told her paper, "It was so offensive
and awful, and I hated it. It was clearly inappropriate. It was ridiculous." Houston Chronicle Suburban Editor Pete McConnell said he was "embarrassed" by the crowd reactions to Bush and Kerry: "As a group we should have kept ourselves in check."

You know, most of the those adjectives, like "offensive", "ridiculous", "awkward" and "awful", would apply to the New York Times. Jokes aside, it's good to see that some journalists who would normally spend time bashing Fox News for a lack of objectivity realize their own limitations.

The John Kerry Post of the Day

My latest discovery about my favorite cheese-eating surrendermonkey-looking Ketchup King cum Presidential candidate:

The L.A. Times has an article today that pretty much destroys Kerry's secret plan for bringing allies in to help out in Iraq:

Many allied countries may welcome a new team in Washington after years of
friction with the Bush administration. But foreign leaders are making it clear
they don't want to add enough of their own troops to allow U.S. forces to scale
back to a minority share in Iraq, as Kerry has proposed.

Allies say they are ready to consider further financial aid and other help
for the fragile new Iraqi government. But some officials overseas already are
fretting about Kerry's talk of burden-shifting.

"Some Europeans are rather concerned that Mr. Kerry might have expectations
for relief [from abroad] that are going to be hard to meet," said one senior
European diplomat in a statement echoed in several capitals.

In an interview with The Times last week, Kerry said that by building up
international support, it would be a "reasonable goal" to replace most U.S.
troops in Iraq with foreign forces within his first term. There are now about
140,000 U.S. troops stationed there, or 88% of a total international force of
about 160,000.

In the last several days, Kerry has begun arguing that he could
substantially reduce the number of U.S. troops within the first six months of a
Kerry administration. In an interview with National Public Radio on Friday,
Kerry said: "I believe that within a year from now, we could significantly
reduce American forces in Iraq, and that's my plan." The proposal could be
accomplished by increasing the number of foreign troops and boosting the size of
the Iraqi security force, Kerry aides say.

Yet some key countries have already ruled out providing troops, and others
are badly strained from the deployments they have already made.The French and
German governments have made clear that sending troops is out of the question.
British officials have made no such categorical statement, but they have
expressed concern that their troops are overstretched.

Although Japan has supplied a 550-member noncombat force as a symbol of its
international commitment, analysts there see little chance the nation would
agree to send more.Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, Andrei Denisov,
ruled out a commitment of troops. "We are not going to send anybody there, and
that's all there is to say," Denisov said."

From the major European countries, there's simply not a lot of available
troops out there, for both practical and political reasons," said Christopher
Makins, president of the Atlantic Council of the United States, which supports
U.S. engagement abroad. Many allied countries have a limited number of troops
suitable for the Iraq mission, and most of those are already deployed on other
missions, including in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Africa, Makins said.

Dana Allin of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London
said, "I think there's no question, in general, you'll find it easier to get
cooperation from allies if there is a new [U.S.] administration." But Allin
added that if new troops were to be sent to Iraq "it's unclear where they would
come from."

Kerry has at times said he would particularly like to bring in troops from
Arab countries. But diplomats, including those from Arab nations, say they
consider the scenario unlikely. The Iraqi interim government has for months
excluded the possibility of any peacekeeping troops coming from immediate
neighbors, in part because the Iraqi people would be suspicious of neighbors'
intentions.

What I love are the opinions that cooperation would be easier with foreign governments, but we still wouldn't get any troops. What would they send us? Get-well cards?

In other words, if Kerry is elected, the world will be friendlier. They won't help us, but they'll smile at us.

And the left makes fun of the nations who joined the coalition. At least they sent troops. Our great allies in Germany and France would lend us their moral support. Since they're morally bankrupt, that should be exceedingly helpful.

Perhaps They Should Have Remained Lost Boys

It's scary to think that Corey Feldman has had the better career of the two Coreys. It's even scarier to see this picture of the two of them together.

The Swift Boat Saga

First, we had the Swift Boat Veterans ad ripping John Kerry. Plenty of people, with John McCain in the forefront, attacked the ad. The RNC and the Bush campaign declared hands off, but as the SF Chronicle explained, there was room for disagreement:

"I deplore this kind of politics," McCain said. "I think the ad is
dishonest and dishonorable. As it is, none of these individuals served on the
boat (Kerry) commanded. Many of his crew have testified to his courage under
fire. I think John Kerry served honorably in Vietnam. I think George Bush served
honorably in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War."

Retired Adm. Roy Hoffmann, head of the Swift Boat group, said they
respected McCain's "right to express his opinion and we hope he extends to us
the same respect and courtesy, particularly since we served with John Kerry, we
knew him well and Sen. McCain did not."

McCain himself spent more than five years in a Vietnam prisoner of war
camp. A bona fide war hero, McCain, like Kerry, used his war record as the
foundation of his presidential campaign.

The Kerry campaign has denounced the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, saying
none of the men in the ad served on the boat that Kerry commanded. Three
veterans on Kerry's boat that day -- Jim Rassmann, who says Kerry saved his
life, Gene Thorson and Del Sandusky, the driver on Kerry's boat, said the group
was lying.

They say Kerry was injured, and Rassmann called the group's account "pure
fabrication."

The general counsel for the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National
Committee sent television stations a letter asking them not to run the ad
because it is "an inflammatory, outrageous lie" by people purporting to have
served with Kerry.

Hoffmann said none of the 13 veterans in the commercial served on Kerry's
boat but rather were in other swiftboats within 50 yards of Kerry's. The group
claims that there was no gunfire on the day Kerry pulled Rassmann from a muddy
river in the Mekong Delta and that Kerry's arm was not wounded, as he has
claimed.

Let's start with McCain's complaint, because while it's understandable, it's also off-base. McCain complains that none of these guys served on Kerry's boat... but all served on other boats, served with him and knew him. McCain cites the folks on Kerry's boat as evidence of his honorable service, but others who served with him and possibly knew him just as well are calling his character into question. Is McCain saying they are not entitled to their opinion? Probably not, but what he is saying is that we shouldn't consider their opinion. That seems too dismissive.

Second, allow me to quibble with the Chronicle's claim that McCain made his Vietnam service the foundation of his campaign. Anyone who likes McCain will tell you that the centerpiece of his campaign was his force of personality, and the perception that he offered strong leadership. His war experience was ONE example of that, as was his work in the Senate. In the end, McCain's willingness to stick his neck out on the issues cost him a legitimate shot in the primary -- he stood against key GOP constituencies. Kerry has kissed the butt of every key Democratic constituency and ignored his Senate record to focus exclusively on his Vietnam record.

Third, we have the DNC letter, which can be seen here, telling stations not to run the ad. The letter itself is deceptive -- it claims the ad states that these men served on Kerry's swiftboat, which it did not (it also claims the statements made in the ad are libelous, although I always thought spoken words would qualify as slander). Unlike the statements by people like Rassman contesting the statements in the ad, this goes pretty far. Put it this way -- if the Bush campaign tried similar tactics to respond a questionable ad about the President's Guard service, we'd be reading about right-wing censors and John Ashcroft leading the Gestapo.

To me, the DNC is being hoist on its own petard, having spent much of the year gleefully watching 527 groups bash President Bush. As usual, we have whining about "dirty tricks" instead of legitimate responses. The left always complains about coordinated attacks by the right, but look at the response of David Brock's Media Matters for America, the left's rather pedestrian answer to the more established Media Research Center. MMFA opted to attack Jerome Corsi, the author of Unfit for Command, the Swift Boat vets' new book on Kerry's service in Vietnam, which is currently #2 on Amazon's bestseller list. As Jim Geraghty of the Kerry Spot at National Review pointed out, Corsi's quotes are no more outrageous than Michael Moore's fabrications. Expect plenty of attacks on the people making the allegations, rather than responses to the allegations.

Geraghty, by the way, has this stunning excerpt from Unfit for Command:

Kerry also described, for example, for the Boston Herald his vivid memories
of his Christmas Eve spent in Cambodia:

"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."

Problem One: Nixon hadn't taken office yet.

Problem Two: "During Christmas 1968, he was more than fifty miles away from Cambodia. Kerry was never ordered into Cambodia by anyone and would have been court-martialed had he gone there. During Christmas 1968, Kerry was stationed at Coastal Division 13 in Cat Lo. Coastal Division 13’s patrol areas extended to Sa Dec, about fifty-five miles from the Cambodian border...

All the living commanders in Kerry’s chain of command—Joe Streuhli (Commander of CosDiv 13), George Elliott (Commander of CosDiv 11), Adrian Lonsdale (Captain, USCG and Commander, Coastal Surveillance Center at An Thoi), Rear Admiral Roy Hoffmann (Commander, Coastal Surveillance Force Vietnam, CTF 115), and Rear Admiral Art Price (Commander of River Patrol Force, CTF 116)—deny that Kerry was ever ordered to Cambodia...

At least three of the five crewmen on Kerry’s PCF 44 boat—Bill Zaldonis, Steven Hatch, and Steve Gardner—deny that they or their boat were ever in Cambodia. The remaining two crewmen declined to be interviewed for this book.

The Cambodia incursion story is not included in Tour of Duty [the book on Kerry's war years by Douglas Brinkley]. Instead, Kerry replaces the story with a report about a mortar attack that occurred on Christmas Eve 1968 “near the Cambodia border” in a town called Sa Dec, some fifty-five miles from the Cambodian border.

Somehow, Kerry’s secret illegal mission to Cambodia, which he recounted on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1986, is now a firefight at Sa Dec and a Christmas day spent back at the base writing entries in his journal.

Is any of this relevant to Kerry's potential for serving as President? Once again, it depends on how important his service in Vietnam is to the question.

The John Kerry Post of the Day

My latest discovery about my favorite cheese-eating surrendermonkey-looking Ketchup King cum Presidential candidate:

Sorry, but Friday came and went, and John Kerry did nothing foolish.

Okay, just kidding. But we do have a follow-up to Thursday's quote where Kerry jumped on the Michael Morre bandwagon to criticize Bush for waiting seven minutes and reading to kids before throwing on his cape and racing out the door. Newsmax.com has interesting revelation about Kerry's own actions on September 11th, as per a transcript from Kerry on Larry King Live on July 8th of this year:

I was in the Capitol. We’d just had a meeting—we’d just come into a leadership meeting in Tom Daschle’s office, looking out at the Capitol. And as I came in, Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid were standing there, and we watched the second plane come in to the building. And we shortly thereafter sat down at the table and then we just realized nobody could think, and then boom, right behind us, we saw the cloud of explosion at the Pentagon. And then word came from the White House, they were evacuating, and we were to evacuate, and so we immediately began the evacuation.

That all sounds pretty good, except for hanging out with Boxer and Reid (I imagine an afternoon watching repeated airings of Gigli might be more entertaining). But here's the thing: the South Tower was hit a full 40 minutes before the Pentagon.

40 freaking minutes? They sat around looking at each for 40 minutes? Spare me the criticism, Senator. Even your wife agrees, as noted by the Washington Post:

The candidate's wife, on the other hand, is not so sure an abrupt response would have been the right one. "I think the president behaved correctly in terms of being quiet amidst stunning news like that in a classroom of kids," she told the host of MSNBC's "Hardball With Chris Matthews" during an interview before the Democratic National Convention last month. "You know, what can you do? It takes you a couple of minutes to digest what you have just heard. And then he was... not in his White House and in his office with all of his people. He was in the school in Florida."

Can someone get the Senator a nice parting gift, please, and boot him off the national stage before he insults our intelligence any further?