Post Vietnam Kerry
John Fund:
"John Kerry mentions his service in Vietnam so frequently that it has become a running joke on the campaign press plane. He seldom if ever mentions his postwar activities as a national coordinator and principal spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a group he says he quit in 1971 because he was concerned about its radical agenda. One reason may be that a credibility gap has started to widen over his antiwar history, and he clearly doesn't want to discuss it at length. His campaign is issuing misleading and evasive statements on his antiwar service in a way that would do the Pentagon spinners of the Johnson and Nixon administrations proud.
"In fact, Mr. Kerry acts as if he can't remember much about the VVAW at all. This month his campaign several times said he "never, ever" attended a Kansas City meeting of antiwar leadership where members discussed and voted on an assassination plot against pro-war U.S. senators. Then, when confronted with FBI surveillance records of the meeting, the campaign acknowledged his presence as 'an historical footnote.' Mr. Kerry told a Boston radio station the whole story was 'such ancient history.' It was time to move on.
"Not so fast. Mr. Kerry's campaign has done more than contradict itself. It has been in full coverup mode. John Musgrave, one of the six witnesses who placed Mr. Kerry at the Kansas City meeting, says the head of Veterans for Kerry, John Hurley, called him twice and pressured him to change the story he had already told a Kansas City Star reporter about the 1971 meeting.
...
"...Jack Kelly, a respected military columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, believes many journalists are 'more interested in defeating President Bush than in providing readers with potentially important information which reflects poorly on Sen. John Kerry.'
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"...He said that 200,000 Vietnamese a year were 'murdered by the United States of America.'
"A Kerry spokesman now distances the candidate from the word 'murdered,' saying he 'never suggested or believed and absolutely rejects the idea that the word applied to service of the American soldiers in Vietnam.' But as the New Hampshire Sunday News put it, if he wasn't saying U.S. soldiers murdered 200,000 people a year, then who in the world could he have meant? The USO?
"Mr. Kerry now says he was relying on the 'highly documented and highly disturbing' stories he heard at a Detroit conference funded by Jane Fonda. The Naval Investigative Service later found that some of the most grisly testimony there was given by false witnesses.
"Even Daniel Ellsberg, the famous leaker of the Pentagon Papers, rejected the argument that the most horrible U.S. atrocity in Vietnam, My Lai, was in any way a normal event. But Mr. Kerry spent over a year rehashing the Detroit hearsay allegations in speeches and on national television even though he had no personal knowledge of the events.
...
"Normally, one shouldn't make too much of Mr. Kerry's inability to recall in detail events of 33 years ago, even though they were the most formative of his political career. But he has "misremembered" a lot of key facts about the period. The circumstantial evidence indicates that he is desperate to avoid discussion of those days. ..."
John Fund:
"John Kerry mentions his service in Vietnam so frequently that it has become a running joke on the campaign press plane. He seldom if ever mentions his postwar activities as a national coordinator and principal spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a group he says he quit in 1971 because he was concerned about its radical agenda. One reason may be that a credibility gap has started to widen over his antiwar history, and he clearly doesn't want to discuss it at length. His campaign is issuing misleading and evasive statements on his antiwar service in a way that would do the Pentagon spinners of the Johnson and Nixon administrations proud.
"In fact, Mr. Kerry acts as if he can't remember much about the VVAW at all. This month his campaign several times said he "never, ever" attended a Kansas City meeting of antiwar leadership where members discussed and voted on an assassination plot against pro-war U.S. senators. Then, when confronted with FBI surveillance records of the meeting, the campaign acknowledged his presence as 'an historical footnote.' Mr. Kerry told a Boston radio station the whole story was 'such ancient history.' It was time to move on.
"Not so fast. Mr. Kerry's campaign has done more than contradict itself. It has been in full coverup mode. John Musgrave, one of the six witnesses who placed Mr. Kerry at the Kansas City meeting, says the head of Veterans for Kerry, John Hurley, called him twice and pressured him to change the story he had already told a Kansas City Star reporter about the 1971 meeting.
...
"...Jack Kelly, a respected military columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, believes many journalists are 'more interested in defeating President Bush than in providing readers with potentially important information which reflects poorly on Sen. John Kerry.'
...
"...He said that 200,000 Vietnamese a year were 'murdered by the United States of America.'
"A Kerry spokesman now distances the candidate from the word 'murdered,' saying he 'never suggested or believed and absolutely rejects the idea that the word applied to service of the American soldiers in Vietnam.' But as the New Hampshire Sunday News put it, if he wasn't saying U.S. soldiers murdered 200,000 people a year, then who in the world could he have meant? The USO?
"Mr. Kerry now says he was relying on the 'highly documented and highly disturbing' stories he heard at a Detroit conference funded by Jane Fonda. The Naval Investigative Service later found that some of the most grisly testimony there was given by false witnesses.
"Even Daniel Ellsberg, the famous leaker of the Pentagon Papers, rejected the argument that the most horrible U.S. atrocity in Vietnam, My Lai, was in any way a normal event. But Mr. Kerry spent over a year rehashing the Detroit hearsay allegations in speeches and on national television even though he had no personal knowledge of the events.
...
"Normally, one shouldn't make too much of Mr. Kerry's inability to recall in detail events of 33 years ago, even though they were the most formative of his political career. But he has "misremembered" a lot of key facts about the period. The circumstantial evidence indicates that he is desperate to avoid discussion of those days. ..."
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