Question for you, Mitch.

We are now several weeks into a national story/debate featuring Vietnam, mentions of secret Navy Seal missions, and crys of Republican dirty tricks. How is it possible that we have not been treated to enless "expert opinion" from our own (sometime) resident Vietnam vet/former Seal/dirty trick victim? Does the fact that NOBODY has solicited Jesse's thoughts on this matter - and you have to believe he's jumping up and down somewhere trying to volunteer them - mean his voyage to irrelevancy is finally complete?

Kerry's military records are right here, Mitch:

Do try to keep up.
/jc

Alas, your blog cut off the link I attached to Kerry's military records. One more time:

Bush, however, refuses to release his DD214, which would indicate the circumstances under which he was discharged, and also clear up whether he actually earned his Air Force Outstanding Unit Award and the Small Arms Expert Marksmanship ribbons, which he's wearing in numerous photographs, but no other records reflect he ever earned.

Keep comparing Bush and Kerry on the military, records, Mitch.

It's a sure winning strategy for you.
/jc

For those of you who haven't met him, /jc is often known as "Slash". He's a Democrat in the same way that Jesse Ventura is a buffoon; completely and unabashedly. Also one of the funniest guys I know, and definitely the funniest government employee I've met. He's a lawyer, and that's all I'll say.

Being a lawyer, he's quite talented at providing creative misdirection when he's on the defensive, to stall and befuddle the argument. This is what we're seeing here.

Slash: we want to see his *medical* records. There's been no release; I don't suspect we'll see any. We also want to see records that he was *in* Cambodia - specifically, "five miles" inside, and/or carrying loads of guns to anti-communist rebels in that then-anti-communist nation, and/or carrying a hatless CIA agent.

By the way, you can post links - you just have to post the whole code string. It works.

And please, please tell me that the Dems are going to make a stink about finding paperwork for a *marksmanship* medal. Military people; how likely is the military to keep any reference to the paperwork to a marksmanship meda 35 years after the fact? I don't know - it's a genuine request for info here - but I suspect the answer is "er, almost completely unlikely".

Show me the proof on Cambodia, or show yourself to the buffet table. The crow is divine.

Re: Ventura

Jesse is totally off Google's radar. Surely some podunk paper would have interviewed him by now. After all he knows how SEALs run covert-op missions and always gives colorful quotes.

I think the real reason he is silent is simple: He knows that Kerry's SEALs-on-Swifts stories to total BS and he doesn't want to torpedo his favorite candidate.

Well, let's make one thing clear: SEALs DID operate on Swift boats. Read any of the accounts of the Brown Water Navy in action, most will mention some form of operation with the SEALs or another. SEALs used PCFs as a water-taxi to get them around the coast and interior rivers.

However...

1) Most of those operations were *in* the RVN, where the Navy had some business being, rather than in Cambodia, where at the time they had none.

2) I'm still awaiting credible, objective proof that the SEALs opted to use a noisy, twin-diesel boat with a silhouette like a Winnebago, commanded by a hot-shot Yalie ninety-day-wonder Lieutenant J.G. with less than two months in-country for a *covert*, *illegal* mission inside Cambodia.

I won't quibble one iota with Kerry about his Silver Star or the Purple Hearts - I'll let the Swifties who were there, and Bob Dole, do that. I've been waiting two weeks for someone - ANYONE - on the left to address Kerry's time "in" Cambodia. Seems to me if there were a factual explanation, we'd have heard it by now.

The truth is usually simple enough to get right on the first take.

Mitch, the Cambodia issue has been settled. Kerry was wrong about being in Cambodia in December of 1968. He was there in January and February of 1969. Yes, I know it was "seared--seared" blah blah blah. He was off by one month.

Now, if the most damning thing the Swifties have come up with is that John Kerry was off by one month, then I would suggest we accept that and move on. Ronald Reagan claimed to have liberated Europe, despite the fact that he got no closer to Europe than Los Angeles during World War II. He managed okay.

John Kerry was off by one month on the Cambodia issue. Everything else the Swifties have come up with has been pretty much blown out of the water. If this is the best the right can do--and given the hyperventilation, I think it is--then you've got no prayer. John Kerry will win in a walk, because while the right is numbly mumbling "seared," the left will remember what matters, which is OBL and the WOT and Gulf War II: The Vengeance. And we will vote based on that.

No, I know the Christmas issue has been "settled" (Kerry admitted he was wrong). I'm looking for proof he was actually *in* Cambodia AT ALL. EVER.

Nobody - NOBODY - has presented any evidence other than a few passages from Brinkley's hagiography. *There is none* currently in the public domain.

If I were Kerry's spinmeister, seeing the unplanned hemorrhage of cash this issue is causing, I'd have had the *actual* dates, and corroborating evidence, out there before the public before the Swifties' book hit the stands. That evidence is not out yet, two weeks into the fracas, and you have the likes of Edwards and the other minions attacking the messengers using ever-more-ridiculous attempts at misdirection.

When all it would take would be some empirical proof that John Kerry was *in* Cambodia, carrying spooks and guns; a unit history, boat log, some officer or crewman who was involved (they can't all be Republican attack dogs, can they?), a hatless spook - ANYTHING.

Democrats persist in believing that Brinkley's book is prima facie evidence. It is not.

Ooops - where I said "I'd have had the *actual* dates, and corroborating evidence, out...", that presumed, of course, that any such evidence exists.

Now, I'm not a smart slick Ivy-league beltway insider - but I know that the truth is usually an easier and more consistent story than some elaborate smokescreen.

So - where's the truth?

Very well. I'll provide proof that Kerry was in Cambodia if you can provide proof that Bush actually showed up for all his required TANG duties.

You can't provide the latter, and indeed, you've argued persuasively that you shouldn't have to. The best evidence suggests Bush performed adequately to achieve an honorable discharge; asking Bush to prove that he was in Alabama when no documentation appears to be forthcoming is silly. One can believe Bush wasn't in Alabama, but one can't prove it--and the burden is on the accuser, not on the accused.

Similarly, I don't know if documentary evidence exists that John Kerry was in Cambodia. I do know some evidence suggests he was, and some says he wasn't. The burden is not on John Kerry to prove he was there--it is on those who accuse him of lying to prove it. One can believe Kerry wasn't in Cambodia, but one can't prove it.

Now, when deciding whether to trust Kerry or the Swifties, note that even you, Mitch, have given up trying to argue the medal arguments they advanced. Why? Because by any rational measure, the Swifties have not just failed to prove their case, they've been proven wrong. Documentary evidence supports Kerry's version of events, and shows that the Swifties have been guilty of, in some cases, outright fabrication.

So on the one hand, you have a group of people who have been caught lying several times, who have made one assertion that has not yet been disproved. On the other hand, you have a sailor who has been proven right at every turn save one, who is being asked to prove he was in a country he wasn't supposed to be in (which America nevertheless was in, in a major way. Go watch The Killing Fields.)

I know who I trust more; I know who you trust more, too. But Mitch, you're asking the wrong people to provide proof. Until the Swifties demonstrate that on Cambodia they were right (other than all those other times, when...well...they were lying), I'm not going to give a fig what they say. Instead, I'd like a campaign that focuses on actual issues.

Mitch, I've taken TANG off the table long ago; there's simply no prook GDub was a "deserter," and whether he did or didn't fufil his obligations, he got an honorable discharge. So unless you've got something more substanative than "Hey! Kerry hasn't proven beyond a shadow of a doubt where he was on January 14, 1969!" I'd suggest that you start giving me reasons why any of this matters more than arguments regarding the way your guy has run the country over the last four years.

The fact that you'd rather argue about whether Kerry was in Cambodia or eight miles away tells me everything I need to know about Bush's record as a President--and confirms that I'm backing the right guy.

There is an easy way for Kerry to prove his 'facts': Sign SF-180.

Jeff,

Your comment is wrong on so many levels:

For starters; leaving aside any empirical proof of Bush's presence at AANG drills (I say it's been proven, the left covers its ears and goes "Nya nya"), at no point has the President EVER said "I'm qualified to be your president because I was a crackerjack F102 jock". In March, the Dems were chortling with glee, though - I heard at least one say "Kerry's experience at crisis leadership *dwarfs* the president's" because of Vietnam. So - if significant parts of that experience were made up from whole cloth, what DOES that say about the experience that's been the cornerstone of his career?

Second: No, Jeff, you provide proof of Kerry's presence in Cambodia, NO MATTER WHAT Bush's TANG record was. If the President dropped dead tomorrow of natural causes (calm down, Slash, it's hypothetical), Kerry's alleged lies would still be fully germane.

Corroborable evidence of any mission to Cambodia - documentary, eyewitness, SOMETHING - WILL exist. If the mission ever happened, anyway.

By the way - your repeated statements that the Swifties "have been caught lying" is, I'll be kind, an exaggeration. There are certain questions of chronology, details remembered wrongly, yadda yadda. In the end, though, the key question is, "Did Kerry exaggerate his war record (putting himself in places and on missions he never went on), his accomplishments (claiming credit for Peck's firefight, exaggerating his medal claims), his sacrifice (the extent of his injuries, and whether the injuries caused him to go home earlier than with other veterans; there was apparently not a consistent "three injuries and you're going home" policy; if there had been, a lot of soldiers who shot themselves in the foot, might not have), and his exposure to action (when he signed up for Swift boats, they were a fairly safe and cushy assignment) and so on. It's on the table because, if true, it's his only qualification for office. If not true...

By the way, I'm not recusing myself from discussion the circumstances behind Kerry's medals because I don't think there's a case; I'm doing it because as a non-Veteran, it's not my place. We have real veterans doing that. It's a great call for the Dem's bluff; after years of bellowing "chickenhawk" every time a Republican sounds off about war, they're faced with a group of guys who have more cojones than 99.9% of the party - and all the chickendoves can do is bleat about political connections, like you're not supposed to have them to voice an opinion!

Finally - it doesn't matter if Kerry was eight miles from Cambodia, eight feet, or eight time zones; being "almost" on an illegal, spook-carrying, gun-running secret mission is like beingt "almost" a virgin; it doesn't count.

You're backing the wrong man, Jeff. In a rational world, we wouldn't need the Swifties to tell us this; Kerry is an empty suit, vapid Yalie, an Ivy-league silver spooner with no redeeming life experience, a politician of no demonstrable heft, peddling a platform of baked wind, that doesn't deign to go into ANY specifics. All he has is his war record, and if we elect president based on war record then both George HW Bush and Bob Dole would have won in landslides.

John Kerry is no Bob Dole.

Mitch,

The DD-214 should reflect all ribbons and medals, etc. The personnel clerks go through the officer's records probably all computerized now) and note those awards. So if it is on the DD-214, trhen it probably was in the records at discharge.

Mitch says:

"...an empty suit, vapid Yalie, an Ivy-league silver spooner with no redeeming life experience, a politician of no demonstrable heft, peddling a platform of baked wind, that doesn't deign to go into ANY specifics...."

Uh, Mitch? That's your guy. I mean, that's absolutely your guy. That's practically Bush's biography.

I was lookin' at the BC04 website the other day, and the lack of specifics for the next four years is astounding. Kerry at least has a plan on his web site. Bush doesn't even bother to do that.

Look, I won't convince you and you won't convince me. But the fact is that Kerry does have more to recommend him than his service in Vietnam. (For one thing--and yes, it's Vietnam-related--Kerry's work with McCain on closing the books on the POW/MIA debate was nothing short of magnificent. With great grace and dignity, the two Senators managed to bring some semblance of closure to Vietnam, which has allowed American and Vietnam to begin rapproachment--which, in turn, has brought Vietnam into the pantheon of countries which may not be allies, but aren't enemies, either.) Yes, Kerry has used Vietnam as a rhetorical tic, but then again, when you run for a party that the right decries as full of traitors, you have to show your willingness to fight somehow.

Again and again, I keep coming back to this: I don't give a flying you-know-what if Kerry is lying about Cambodia. Ronald Reagan wasn't even on the same continent that he claimed he was on during World War II, and nobody has given me an argument on why that's different, or why either thing matters.

If you believe John Kerry will be bad for America, by all means, vote for Bush. But drop this charade where you think the SBVAK arguments are the most important in the history of the world. They aren't--and you know it.

And I, for one, am done. I've spent enough time responding to charges of liars and charlatans. I support Kerry for many reasons, none of which have to do with what he was doing 35 years ago. He's a better leader than George W. Bush--and I say this confidently, looking at what a horrible job our current President has done. It has nothing to do with Vietnam, or TANG, or DWIs or Winter Soldiers. It has everything to do with the fact that at the most basic level, our President has failed to show competence. And we can't have another four years of incompetence in Washington.

Oh, and for the record, here's Fred Kaplan's notes on Christmas in Cambodia (http://slate.msn.com/id/2105529/):

That book—according to Drudge's account of it—places Kerry in Sa Dec, 50 miles away from Cambodia, on Christmas Eve, and seemingly at peace. "Visions of sugarplums really do dance through your head," Kerry wrote in his diary that night, "and you think of stockings and snow and roast chestnuts and fires with birch logs and all that is good and warm and real."

That passage is on Page 219 of Brinkley's book. But O'Neill, Drudge, and the other sneerers choose to ignore the 10 preceding pages—the opening pages of a chapter called "Death in the Delta." On Christmas Eve 1968, Brinkley writes, Kerry and his crew:

headed their Swift north by the Cho Chien River to its junction with the My Tho only miles from the Cambodian border. … Kerry began reading up on Cambodia's history in a book he had borrowed from the floating barracks in An Thoi. … He even read about a 1959 Pentagon study titled "Psychological Observations: Cambodia," which … state[d] that Cambodians "cannot be counted on to act in any positive way for the benefit of U.S. aims and policies." [Italics added.]

Brinkley also quotes from Kerry's diary: "It was early morning, not yet light. Ours was the only movement on the river, patrolling near the Cambodian line." [Italics added.] Brinkley continues: "At a bend just as they were approaching the Cambodian border, two [U.S. river-patrol boats] met the Swift." Then, again from Kerry's diary: "Suddenly, there is an explosion and a mortar lands on the bank near all three boats." The next few pages detail a ferocious firefight, one part of which involved (as his diary noted) "the ridiculous waste of being shot at by your own allies."

Only a few hours later, in the evening, did Kerry's boat reach the stationing area of Sa Dec. "The night for once is comforting," Kerry wrote in his diary, "and you take a Coke and some peanut butter and jelly and go up on the roof of the cabin with your tape recorder and sit for a while, quietly watching flares float silently through the sky and flashes announce disquieting intent somewhere in the distance." It is in this context that Kerry then wrote, in a letter to home, about "visions of sugarplums" and thinking of "snow and roast chestnuts."

So let's review the situation. On Christmas Eve 1968, Kerry's Swift boat and at least two river-patrol boats were doing something unusual (Kerry wrote that he'd never been so far in-country) at least in the vicinity of the border—"near the Cambodian line," as he put it in his diary. And Kerry had with him a book that described a Pentagon study on psychological operations against Cambodia.

It is certain that by this time, the United States had long been making secret incursions across the border. [...]

The Daniel Boone teams entered Cambodia all along its 500-mile frontier with South Vietnam from the lonely, craggy, impenetrable mountain forests in the north, down to the well-populated and thickly reeded waterways along the Mekong River. [Italics added.]

We know that Kerry's boat and two others were in those reeds on Christmas Eve '68.

The Cambodian special forces' incursions—which were conducted without the knowledge, much less approval, of Congress—were escalating around that time. Just over a month later, on Feb. 9, 1969, Gen. Creighton Abrams, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, requested a B-52 bombing attack on a Communist camp inside Cambodia. (Richard Nixon, the new president, approved the plan on March 17; the first strikes of Operation Breakfast—the secret bombing of Cambodia—started the next day.) Shawcross writes that special forces were always sent across the border to survey the area for targets just before an air operation.

Did Kerry cross the border or just go up to it? We may never know for sure. Not much paperwork exists for covert operations (officially, U.S. forces weren't in Cambodia). Nor is it likely that a canny Swift-boat skipper (and Kerry was nothing if not canny) would jot down thoughts about such covert operations in a diary on a boat that might be captured by the enemy.

The circumstances at least suggest that Kerry was indeed involved in a "black" mission, even if he had never explicitly made that claim. And why would he make such claims if he hadn't been? It was neither a glamorous nor a particularly admirable mission—certainly nothing to boast of.

But one thing is for sure: Lieut. Kerry did not spend that Christmas Eve just lying around, dreaming of sugarplums and roasted chestnuts. He had plenty of time to cover the 40 miles from the Cambodian border to the safety of Sa Dec (he did command a swift boat, after all). More to the point, the evidence indicates he did cover those 40 miles: He was near (or in?) Cambodia in the morning, in Sa Dec that night.

* * *

Now I know that's not the ironclad proof you're requiring of Sen. Kerry. But it shows that at the very least, there is good evidence that Kerry may have been in Cambodia on Christmas Eve, 1968.

So unless you have proof he wasn't (and Mitch, bloviate all you want: the burden of proof lies with the accuser, not the accused), kindly move on. Because this foolish debate is the worst kind of unseriousness--and it demeans our political process.

On December 23 1968 the US government suceeded in gaining the relase of 11 servicemen who had been held for 5 months by the Cambodians. The official version is that they inadvertantly entered Cambodia--- who knows the truth about that. But to believe that the Navy would send 2 days later a identifiable boat with a very loud engine into Cambodia boggles the mind. No crew members have backed him up --although they say one will come forward soon. (that guy must have a lot of pressure on him) Kerry's lying and only showing how pathelogically he is disturbed on the Viet Nam issue.
Jon Pod. in the New York Post gives another compelling reason to believe that this is all an exaggeration and fabrication by Kerry. He certainly would have used this when he was leading the antiwar movement and so far no one has come up with anything indicating that he did.

Jeff,

Before I start, I'm going to borrow the most irritating writing device you use. Call it aversion therapy.

First - I've read the Brinkley-via-Kaplan piece. It's what I was referring to in my earlier comment, about being "Almost" in Cambodia. I was "almost" in East Germany, and I "almost" got a talk show gig in New York in 1988, and I "almost" met Marisa Tomei to fall madly in love with me (if only I'd gotten within fifty feet of her - hey, closer than Kerry got to Cambodia). Kerry's claims are a pathetic rear-guard action, and you know it (heh heh).

As to comparative leadership: Kerry has *no* leadership skills. Being a hero thirty years ago doesn't correspond to "leadership", and if the Swifties are correct, he wasn't a good leader in the Navy. In any case, whatever Bush's background (and he wasn't the supercilious empty suit Kerry was), he HAS led this nation, and led it well, during four of the most difficult years this nation has faced. Yeah, I know - the Atrios crowd has drunk the koolaid, and will continue chanting "Bush is a disaster" like a mantra for the rest of their lives, like those Japanese soldiers that held out on Pacific islands until the seventies. But the fact is Bush has led us well, and (heh heh) you know it, Jeff!

Many other claims, and no time to address them all - but this is NOT some supercilious diversion. The people get their say, and the Swifties, inconvenient as they are to Kerry's agenda, are the people. And for all of Atrios' dopplegangers' chanting, the fact is that not one "lie" has been discovered, and the Swifties are drawing serious factual blood, and the effects it's having on the Kerry kampaign are just beginning to sink in.

And you know it!

(Maybe you'll banish that bit from your vocabulary now...)

By the way - even the most committed acolyte of Arios has to admit that going from "I spent Christmas Eve file miles inside Cambodia, which is seared seared in my memory" to "I cruised along the Cambodian coast and then coiled back in Sa Dec" is a bit of a departure, right? Like, if a Republican had done it you'd be generating sarcastic one-liner stingers at a rate that would beggar the laws of physics?

And you know it!

Just to be clear, Jeff - exactly which of Kerry's Cambodia stories are we now charged with disproving? The goalposts have moved so many times it's a little hard to keep it all straight.

After 30 years, a group of vets asserted that none of Kerry's crew and nobody in the chain of command supported his claim of having been in Cambodia on Christmas Eve (ie: they offered no "proof", according to you). The Kerry campaign's first response was to deny that he had ever claimed to be in Cambodia. When shown Kerry's own words they took two days to come up with a "clarification", moving the date to late January or early February, then to the "Christmas season". Next, Brinkley asserts various missions involving CIA, Seals, and Green Berets. It then surfaces that Kerry himself has talked of "running guns to anti-communists" and "special missions" with the CIA. The problem is, to this point NO ONE has come forward to corroborate any of this (Brinkley quoting from Kerry's journal doesn't count as corroboration).

This scenario is no different than Kerry's claim of support from "foreign leaders". Once again, Kerry makes a claim, refuses to offer specifics, twists, turns and changes his story when questioned and is expressly contradicted by the very people whose support Kerry purports to hold. This isn't rehashing ancient history, this is the cornerstone of his campaign (we'll be more "Respected in the World").

Think this is "foolish debate, the worst kind of unseriousness"? OK, fine. The Bush campaign is more than willing to discuss Kerry's senate career. So why isn't Kerry?

Why does Kerry's dd214 list his silver star with combat V (for valor) and his citation does not?
Who's typing up these records?

Jeff stated earlier that Kerry's work on closing the books on the POW/MIA debate was "nothing short of magnificent".

These folks would beg to differ.

http://www.powmiafamiliesagainstjohnkerry.com/

Care to start trashing widows and survivors Jeff?

Remember, as defenders of F911 kept assuring us, the important thing is that such challenges "encourage debate on the issue".

Yeah, if we believe that right-wing tool Sidney Schanberg in that conservative howler-monkey organ the Village Voice, Kerry closed the books on the POW/MIA issue the same way the crew of the Titanic "closed the books" on the people thrashing about in the icy water.

http://www.shotinthedark.info/archives/000183.html

I meant, of course, the "lifeboat crews" on the Titanic...