Deafening Silence
The Professor notes that Matt Yglesias is the first of the heavyweight leftybloggers to acknowledge the existence of John Kerry's "Kurtz Khronikles" story:
in my experience these damaging-looking allegations have a way of turning out not to be true, a fact that never seems to get as much coverage as the initial allegation. But it certainly looks bad from here, and I haven't seen a good explanation yet, perhaps because there isn't one. It's a little hard to see what could possibly be the motive for a Kerry lie on this front, which makes it plausible that there's a reasonable explanation, but also a little freaky if there does turn out to be one. Personally, I've never maintained that John Kerry had a George Washington-esque level of honesty (see, e.g., my article about how Kerry is basically lying about his trade policy) so my world won't be shaken to the core if this turns out to be a fib.
Fair enough. Matt can be a sensible guy...
But how sure are we, really, that Kerry wasn't on a covert, illegal cross-border action in Cambodia and that fact isn't reflected in the official record because it was covert and illegal? Or are people who know their 'Nam history well (i.e., not me) quite certain that there were no such actions during the relevant time period?
...and a silly one.
Seriously, anything is possible - big country, little boat.
But Hugh has that answer, from yesterday's interview with one of Kerry's former boatmates:
HH: Now let me start with some basics. I said you served two tours in Vietnam. Can you tell me what years those were?
SG: 1966 to 1967 and then in 1968 and 1969, when I served with Kerry.
HH: What months did you serve with Senator Kerry?
SG: November through January. Here's what I did. I served two months and two weeks of his four month, 12 day tour.
HH: Alright. Why did you leave off in january. What happened in January?
SG: That was my rotation time.
HH: OK. When you were on the boat, did you ever go into Cambodian waters?
SG: Absolutely not. That was a physical impossibility to go inside Cambodian waters.
HH; Why?
SG: They had four or five, at all times, boats, plus they had it wired with wire, they had concrete pylons down so that thee only time they could get through it was at high tide, and that was just so the sampans and the people that trafficked back and forth could get through.
HH: Now you served with him on Christmas Eve 1968, correct?
SG: That is correct.
HH: What did you do on Christmas Eve 1968?
SG: Well, I damn sure wasn't in Cambodia, I'll tell you that.
HH: (Laughter) Do you remember?
SG: We were basically just down in the lower part of the Sa Dec. just patrolling.
So I'll meet Matt halfway; there
could, certainly, be a reasonable explanation.
It's just that there are fewer and fewer possibilities, the longer this story drags on.
Posted by Mitch at
August 11, 2004 07:30 AM
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Unfortunately for Matt Yglesias, the inconsistencies are all from Kerry himself. His words on the Senate floor, and his contemporaneous journal. They conflict with each other. So Kerry is not telling the truth, either in recent biographies, or for the previous 25 years.
And of course, Nixon was not President at Christmas 1968. I was only a not quite teen then, but I don't remember Johnson issueing denials of troops in Cambodia.
Posted by: loren at August 11, 2004 09:35 AMKevin Drum has a timeline up that looks somewhat less damning that you would indicate. At best, the righty bloggers have hit upon a Bush national guard story--one where there may be some evidence, but no proof. And I thought in the case of Dear Leader that the absence of proof was proof of absence?
At any rate, I know you all think this is going to bring Kerry down. It won't. My prediction holds: absent shocking new evidence, this story will die, probably by the weekend.
Posted by: Jeff Fecke at August 11, 2004 10:22 AMUse of the phrase "Dear Leader" in reference to the President is a clear violation of Godwin's Law. Please cease and desist.
Posted by: mitch at August 11, 2004 10:49 AMNot even a nice try, Jeff. How could you blow right by the major sticking point in Kerry's story - the fact that you couldn't even get into Cambodia on account of the concrate pylons and boats on sentry duty to prevent exactly that sort of thing, plus the fact that the barrier was 50 miles downstream from Cambodia?
I don't think this is going to bring Kerry's campaign to a screeching halt. I do think it pokes a big hole in his fresh new Vietnam War Hero image, which he seems to think is going to paper over twenty years of hardcore Loony Left behavior. Nine out of ten Vietnamese-Americans haven't forgotten what John Kerry did to them and their relatives, and a lot of us who had family go to Vietnam haven't forgotten how John Kerry took a very public dump on our relatives, either. He would have been better off sticking to the Deaniac positions he started with - at least it would have been halfway honest of him.
Posted by: Kevin at August 11, 2004 11:05 AMSilly. Obviously, Kerry carried his swiftboat on his back overland to get around the pylons and other measures on the river. Once he takes on a mission, that mission gets DONE, baby!
Posted by: Brian Jones at August 11, 2004 03:54 PMRobert Duvall's Air Calvary helicopters lifted Kerry's boat over the pylons into Cambodia. They were playing Wagner's "Flight of the Valkyries" on big speakers and everything. It was really cool.
Posted by: Gideon at August 11, 2004 07:52 PMYeah, this is just like "some Bush National Guard story" Jeff Fecke. I've read that phrase used by you more than once on the postings here tonight. It's NOTHING like that no matter how many times you say so.
Posted by: Colleen at August 11, 2004 10:01 PM