The Main Stream Media (MSM) is going bonkers trying to refute the Swift Boat Vets but the sunami is already crossing the ocean and will be breaking on the shore soon.


http://humaneventsonline.com.edgesuite.net/unfit_video2.html

Wow. I just can't imagine being a POW and hearing someone says these things and then having them used against you while you are captive.

P.S. People have finally figured out JFK's initials. John Fonda Kerry.

Hey, Ho, Kerry sign the One _Eight_O!

IMO President Bush had the Michael Moore 9/11 movie to deal with and kerry has this Swift boat thing. Both appear to be motivated by outside sources and have some weakpoints. Time will tell if this is actually malitious and deceitful. Im not buying just yet.

The strategy the veterans devised would ultimately paint John Kerry the war hero as John Kerry the "baby killer" and the fabricator of the events that resulted in his war medals. But on close examination, the accounts of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' prove to be riddled with inconsistencies. In many cases, material offered as proof by these veterans is undercut by official Navy records and the men's own statements.

Several of those now declaring Mr. Kerry "unfit" had lavished praise on him, some as recently as last year.

Kinda strange that its coming up just in time for election.

In many cases, material offered as proof by these veterans is undercut by official Navy records and the men's own statements. Several of those now declaring Mr. Kerry "unfit" had lavished praise on him, some as recently as last year.The offical Navy records are simply the after-action reports filed by Kerry himself after he fabricated (embellished) them to get his medals. Hopefully the military has/will change the way it handles records like this so that no unscrupulous person can create or change them by oneself.

As far as lavishing praise. These were all public ceremonies where decorum calls for appropriate (politically correct) behavior. To attack someone then would make you look like an a-hole. So I can understand why a guy several years ago would say, ya, they were all great guys.

Kerry brought this all down on himself. Trotting out his "band of brothers" at the convention and running on a military platform when he is one the biggest traitors this country has ever produced. Kerry has been an opportunist all his life.

The only reason, and I mean the only reason he is still standing is because the Main Stream Media is trying desperately to prop him up. If this was a conservative that had done all this, the media would be going at him like hungry dogs. Instead, they are defending him at all cost. If anyone was ever confused about the liberal bias in this country, here it is for all to see.

The only way to get to the bottom of all this is to have Kerry sign the Form 180 document, releasing all his records. He won't do it and the media will not ask for it because if he does, the lies and distortions will be there for all to see and he will be forced out of the race.

The only reason this has surfaced at election time is because he has the potential to be Commander in Chief and he is unfit to be so. His actions during and after Vietnam clearly demonstrate that. In fact, I would argue that he should be in jail for colluding with the enemy while a member of our armed forces. He is a disgrace to all Americans, veterans or not.

WASHINGTON - Newly obtained military records of one of Sen. John F. Kerry's most vocal critics, who has accused the Democratic presidential candidate of lying about his wartime record to win medals, contradict his own version of events.

In newspaper interviews and a best-selling book, Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy Swift boat alongside Kerry in Vietnam, has strongly disputed Kerry's claim that the Massachusetts Democrat's boat came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory on March 13, 1969. Kerry won a Bronze Star for his actions that day.

But Thurlow's military records, portions of which were released yesterday to The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, contain several references to "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at "all units" of the five-boat flotilla. Thurlow won his own Bronze Star that day, and the citation praises him for providing assistance to a damaged Swift boat "despite enemy bullets flying about him."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5751284/


"A simmering feud between the Bush and Kerry campaigns over a TV ad that denigrates Sen. John Kerry’s Vietnam war record moved toward the boiling point Friday as the Democratic nominee filed a complaint with federal officials that accused the president’s re-election campaign of breaking the law.

Kerry’s complaint to the Federal Elections Commission about the ads produced and aired by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth alleges "overwhelming evidence” that the veterans group is “coordinating its expenditures on advertising and other activities designed to influence the presidential election with the Bush-Cheney Campaign,” Kerry spokeswoman Allison Dobson told NBC News. "
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5771731/

Wanna talk about Flip Flopping?


Taken from the NY Times

NY Times Claims Conspiracy in Swift Boat Vets' Anti-Kerry Ad


NewsMax.com

Friday, Aug. 20, 2004
In a front page report on Friday, the New York Times lends support to Sen. John Kerry's claim that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVFT)are a front for the Bush-Cheney campaign.


According to the newspaper, "A series of interviews and a review of documents show a web of connections to the Bush family, high-profile Texas political figures, and President Bush's chief political aide, Karl Rove."

The New York Times says the accounts given by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth "prove to be riddled with inconsistencies," and it then details those inconsistencies - basically dismissing the Swift Boat vets' charges against Kerry without pressing Kerry himself for answers.


The Times charges:

Many of the vets criticizing Kerry now have praised him in the past, calling him a "good man," his silver star action "an act of courage," and saying Kerry was "beyond reproach" and "among the finest of those Swift Boat drivers."

Bob Perry, top donor to Republicans in the state of Texas, has given $200,000 to SBVFT. Perry is a close friend of Bush adviser Karl Rove.

Several other Bush associates are affiliated with the SBVFT group, including Harlan Crow (trustee of Bush Library), Margaret Wilson (former Bush General Counsel) and Tex Lexar (ran as Lt. Gov. on ticket with Bush in 1994).

SBVFT investigators misled interviewees when researching Kerry Biographer Douglas Brinkley's book.

One of the authors of "Unfit for Command" (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/8/4/134116.shtml), Jerome Corsi, should be discredited because he has said anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic things, for which he has apologized, on a "right-wing" Website.

The Times says the SBVFT's argument "founders" because of Corsi and other contradictions, including a Dr. Letson's claim that he treated Kerry for his Purple Heart wound the SBVFT says was self-inflicted. The Times reports that the then-medic does not appear on Kerry's medical records.

SBVFT haven't been able to satisfy questions about their accusation regarding Kerry, so they are "focused primarily on the one allegation in the book that Mr. Kerry's campaign has not been able to put to rest: that he was not in Cambodia at Christmas in 1968, as he declared in a statement to the Senate in 1986," the Times writes. The Swift Boat Veterans' Lonsdale responded to the Times by telling the Old Grey Lady, " Mr. Lonsdale explained it: "We won the battle. Kerry went home and lost the war for us."

Thursday, Aug. 19, 2004 11:04 p.m. EDT

Washington Post: Record Supports Kerry Claim, Maybe



Claims by a fellow naval officer that John Kerry lied about being under fire in the incident that led to his Bronze Star medal were challenged by Thursday's Washington Post.


The Post obtained the military records of Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Swift Boat that was present during the action, for which he also was recommended for a Bronze Star.


The newspaper reports that the records cast doubt on the former lieutenant junior grade's assertions that there was no enemy fire when Kerry fished Special Forces officer James Rassmann out of the water.

Thurlow, who commanded a Navy Swift Boat alongside Kerry's craft in Vietnam, strongly disputes Kerry's claim that his boat came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory on March 13, 1969.

Two other Swift Boat skippers present during the incident also say they have no recollection of enemy fire.

The incident began when one of the Swift Boats was crippled by a mine, at which observers on the scene say Kerry's boat turned and fled, throwing Rassmann overboard.

Kerry then brought the craft back and pulled Rassmann out of the water. Kerry and Rassmann say that they were under enemy fire at the time.

For much of the episode, Kerry was not in a position to know first hand what was happening on Thurlow's boat, as Kerry's boat had fled down the river after the mine exploded. He later returned to provide assistance to the stricken boat.

Thurlow's records, portions of which were released to the Washington Post under a Freedom of Information Act request contain several references to "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at "all units" of the five-boat flotilla, the Post reported.

In the citation accompanying Thurlow's Bronze Star he is praised for providing assistance to a Swift boat damaged by a mine "despite enemy bullets flying about him." indicating that there was enemy fire being directed at the Swift Boats. Thurlow is a leading member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a 254 member group of Vietnam veterans angered by Kerry's anti-war activities when he came home from Viet Nam.



The group has aired a television advertisement attacking Kerry's war record.

Thurlow's account of the incident is also cited in John E. O'Neill's new best seller, "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry," which the Post says will hit No. 2 on the newspaper's best-seller list this weekend.

The book accuses Kerry of "fleeing the scene" and lying repeatedly about his role.

Kerry has repeatedly insisted that his 50-foot patrol boat came under fire from the banks of the Bay Hap river after the mine explosion. According to Kerry and members of his crew, the firing continued as Kerry leaned over the bow of his boat to rescue Rassmann.

Thurlow, however, swore in a recent affidavit that Kerry was "not under fire" when he fished Lt. Rassmann out of the water. He described Kerry's Bronze Star citation, which says that all units involved came under "small arms and automatic weapons fire," as "totally fabricated."

"I never heard a shot," Thurlow said in his affidavit, which was released by Swift Boats Veterans for Truth.

According to the Post, two other Swift Boat skippers who were directly involved in the incident, Jack Chenoweth and Richard Pees, have said they do not remember coming under "enemy fire."

The document recommending Thurlow for the Bronze Star noted that all his actions "took place under constant enemy small arms fire which LTJG THURLOW completely ignored in providing immediate assistance" to the disabled boat and its crew. The citation states that all other units in the flotilla also came under fire.

"It's like a Hollywood presentation here, which wasn't the case," Thurlow told the Post last night after being read the full text of his Bronze Star citation. "My personal feeling was always that I got the award for coming to the rescue of the boat that was mined. This casts doubt on anybody's awards. It is sickening and disgusting."

Thurlow added that he would consider his award "fraudulent" if coming under enemy fire was the basis for it. "I am here to state that we weren't under fire," he said. He speculated that Kerry could have been the source of at least some of the language used in the citation.

Members of Kerry's crew along with Rassmann back Kerry's account of the action.

Rassmann says he has vivid memories of being fired at from both banks after he fell into the river and as Kerry came to his rescue.

The Post reported that the Bronze Star recommendations for both Kerry and Thurlow were signed by Lt. Cmdr. George M. Elliott, who received reports on the incident from his base in the Gulf of Thailand.

Elliott is a supporter of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and has questioned Kerry's actions in Vietnam. He refused repeated requests from the Post for an interview, charging that he was misquoted by the Boston Globe as having refuted his original testimony about Kerry's Silver Star.

Thurlow and other anti-Kerry veterans have repeatedly charged that Kerry was the author of an after-action report that described how his boat came under enemy fire, but Kerry campaign researchers dispute that assertion. As a result, the Post admits that and there is no convincing documentary evidence to settle the argument. As the senior skipper in the flotilla, Thurlow might have been expected to write the after-action report for March 13, but he said that Kerry routinely "duked the system" to present his version of events.

Records Counter a Critic of Kerry
Fellow Skipper's Citation Refers To Enemy Fire

By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 19, 2004; Page A01


Newly obtained military records of one of Sen. John F. Kerry's most vocal critics, who has accused the Democratic presidential candidate of lying about his wartime record to win medals, contradict his own version of events.

In newspaper interviews and a best-selling book, Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy Swift boat alongside Kerry in Vietnam, has strongly disputed Kerry's claim that the Massachusetts Democrat's boat came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory on March 13, 1969. Kerry won a Bronze Star for his actions that day.

But Thurlow's military records, portions of which were released yesterday to The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, contain several references to "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at "all units" of the five-boat flotilla. Thurlow won his own Bronze Star that day, and the citation praises him for providing assistance to a damaged Swift boat "despite enemy bullets flying about him."

As one of five Swift boat skippers who led the raid up the Bay Hap River, Thurlow was a direct participant in the disputed events. He is also a leading member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a public advocacy group of Vietnam veterans dismayed by Kerry's subsequent antiwar activities, which has aired a controversial television advertisement attacking his war record.

In interviews and written reminiscences, Kerry has described how his 50-foot patrol boat came under fire from the banks of the Bay Hap after a mine explosion disabled another U.S. patrol boat. According to Kerry and members of his crew, the firing continued as an injured Kerry leaned over the bow of his ship to rescue a Special Forces officer who was blown overboard in a second explosion.

Last month, Thurlow swore in an affidavit that Kerry was "not under fire" when he fished Lt. James Rassmann out of the water. He described Kerry's Bronze Star citation, which says that all units involved came under "small arms and automatic weapons fire," as "totally fabricated."

"I never heard a shot," Thurlow said in his affidavit, which was released by Swift Boats Veterans for Truth. The group claims the backing of more than 250 Vietnam veterans, including a majority of Kerry's fellow boat commanders.

A document recommending Thurlow for the Bronze Star noted that all his actions "took place under constant enemy small arms fire which LTJG THURLOW completely ignored in providing immediate assistance" to the disabled boat and its crew. The citation states that all other units in the flotilla also came under fire.

"It's like a Hollywood presentation here, which wasn't the case," Thurlow said last night after being read the full text of his Bronze Star citation. "My personal feeling was always that I got the award for coming to the rescue of the boat that was mined. This casts doubt on anybody's awards. It is sickening and disgusting."

Thurlow said he would consider his award "fraudulent" if coming under enemy fire was the basis for it. "I am here to state that we weren't under fire," he said. He speculated that Kerry could have been the source of at least some of the language used in the citation.

In a telephone interview Tuesday evening after he attended a Swift Boat Veterans strategy session in an Arlington hotel, Thurlow said he lost his Bronze Star citation more than 20 years ago. He said he was unwilling to authorize release of his military records because he feared attempts by the Kerry campaign to discredit him and other anti-Kerry veterans.

The Post filed an independent request for the documents with the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, which is the central repository for veterans' records. The documents were faxed to The Post by officials at the records center yesterday.

Thurlow and other anti-Kerry veterans have repeatedly alleged that Kerry was the author of an after-action report that described how his boat came under enemy fire. Kerry campaign researchers dispute that assertion, and there is no convincing documentary evidence to settle the argument. As the senior skipper in the flotilla, Thurlow might have been expected to write the after-action report for March 13, but he said that Kerry routinely "duked the system" to present his version of events.

For much of the episode, Kerry was not in a position to know firsthand what was happening on Thurlow's boat, as Kerry's boat had sped down the river after the mine exploded under another boat. He later returned to provide assistance to the stricken boat.

Thurlow, an oil industry worker and former teacher in Kansas, said he was angry with Kerry for his antiwar activities on his return to the United States and particularly Kerry's claim before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that U.S. troops in Vietnam had committed war crimes "with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

" 'Upset' is too mild a word," said Thurlow, a registered Republican, of his reaction to Kerry then. "He did it strictly for his own personal political gain, and it directly affected every single one of us as we were trying to put our lives together."

Two other Swift boat skippers who were direct participants in the March 13, 1969, mine explosion on the Bay Hap, Jack Chenoweth and Richard Pees, have said they do not remember coming under "enemy fire." A fourth commander, Don Droz, who was one of Kerry's closest friends in Vietnam, was killed in action a month later.

The incident featured prominently in an anti-Kerry television ad produced by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth earlier this month. "John Kerry lied to get his Bronze Star," says Van Odell, a gunner on PCF-23, one of the boats that came to the rescue of the stricken boat. "I know. I was there."

The Bronze Star controversy is also a major focus of an anti-Kerry book by John E. O'Neill, "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry," which will hit No. 2 on The Post's bestseller list this weekend. The book accuses Kerry of "fleeing the scene" and lying repeatedly about his role.

Members of Kerry's crew have come to his defense, as has Rassmann, the Special Forces officer whom he fished from the river. Rassmann says he has vivid memories of being fired at from both banks after he fell into the river and as Kerry came to his rescue. The two had an emotional reunion on the eve of the Iowa Democratic caucuses in January, an event that some political analysts believe helped swing votes to Kerry at a crucial time.

The Bronze Star recommendations for both Kerry and Thurlow were signed by Lt. Cmdr. George M. Elliott, who received reports on the incident from his base in the Gulf of Thailand. Elliott is a supporter of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and has questioned Kerry's actions in Vietnam. But he has refused repeated requests for an interview after issuing conflicting statements to the Boston Globe about whether Kerry deserved a Silver Star. He was unreachable last night.

Money has poured into Swift Boat Veterans for Truth since the group launched its television advertisement attacking Kerry earlier this month. According to O'Neill, the group has received more than $450,000 over the past two weeks, mainly in small contributions. The Dallas Morning News reported yesterday that the organization has also received two $100,000 checks from Houston home builder Bob Perry, who backed George W. Bush's campaigns for Texas governor and for president.

Bush campaign officials have said they have no connection to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which is not permitted to coordinate its activities with a presidential campaign under federal election law.




© 2004 The Washington Post Company

Kerry says Bushbroke the lawin TV ad dispute
President's campaigndenies ties to vets' group

MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 7:10 p.m. ET Aug. 20, 2004

A simmering feud between the Bush and Kerry campaigns over a TV ad that denigrates Sen. John Kerry’s Vietnam war record moved toward the boiling point Friday as the Democratic nominee filed a complaint with federal officials that accused the president’s re-election campaign of breaking the law.

Kerry’s complaint to the Federal Elections Commission about the ads produced and aired by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth alleges "overwhelming evidence” that the veterans group is “coordinating its expenditures on advertising and other activities designed to influence the presidential election with the Bush-Cheney Campaign,” Kerry spokeswoman Allison Dobson told NBC News.

The complaint comes at the end of a week in which Kerry himself accused Bush of having the Swift Boat veterans do “his dirty work” and media reports have exposed connections between Bush, his family and other high-profile Texas politicians. In a Thursday speech, the Massachusetts senator said: “The fact that the president won’t denounce what they’re up to tells you everything you need to know.”

Steve Schmidt of the Bush campaign said charges that Bush is in league with the veterans’ group are “absolutely and completely false. The Bush campaign has never and will never question John Kerry’s service in Vietnam.” But the Bush campaign has, in fact, refused to specifically disavow the Swift Boat veteran’s ad, in which fellow Vietnam veterans say Kerry acted dishonorably to win the Bronze and Silver Stars and three Purple Hearts that he was awarded for his service in Vietnam.

Formal ties would be illegal
Any formal ties between the Bush campaign and the veterans group would be against the law. Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth is organized as a non-party, independent political group under section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, and coordination between a 527 group and a presidential campaign is illegal.

The Republican National Committee and the Bush-Cheney campaign filed a similar complaint last March that accuses the Media Fund, America Coming Together and several other anti-Bush groups of illegal use of so-called soft money (unlimited donations) and of illegal coordination with the Kerry campaign. And three campaign finance watchdog groups also have filed FEC complaints against the Swift Boat veterans group.

Any legal resolution of the matter would likely take months, if not years, campaign law experts told MSNBC.com.

In a campaign shadowed by the war on terrorism and in Iraq, Kerry’s valorous combat experience is a cornerstone of his campaign. After using the Democratic National Convention to improve his poll ratings on national security, Kerry remained silent as the criticism led to growing indications — much of it anecdotal, some in polling, party officials say — that his gains were eroding.

His medals are supported by Navy documents and the memories of all but one of the swift boat crewmates who served beneath Kerry, then a Navy lieutenant. The anti-Kerry group includes several veterans who say they witnessed Kerry’s actions from nearby swift boats.

Although the ad was released early in the month and created a stir then, more contention over it erupted this week when Kerry made his “dirty work” remarks at a Boston campaign stop. Those remarks came the day after the Washington Post published a story that showed official military records countered the statements made by one of Kerry’s most vocal critics, Larry Thurlow. Thurlow has disputed Kerry’s Bronze Star-winning assertion that he came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory. But Thurlow’s own military records contained several references to small arms fire that day, according to The Washington Post.

Thurlow said in a statement Thursday that his records were based on Kerry’s account.

Knowing several news organizations, including the Post, were investigating the claims of anti-Kerry veterans, the Democratic campaign swung into action late Wednesday — rewriting the candidate’s speech to a firefighters’ union overnight, flying two of his swift boat colleagues to Boston and producing a new campaign commercial, despite earlier plans to stay off the air until September.

The 30-second ad features a former Green Beret (http://msnbc-editor/Editor/5762373) saying Kerry saved his life under fire. “He risked his life to save mine,” Jim Rassmann says.

On Friday, another newspaper report detailed ties between the veterans' group, Bush and his family, other high-profile Texas politicians and Bush’s chief political aide. The piece, in the New York Times, also listed inconsistencies in some of the veterans' own public statements on their regard for Kerry.

How the group known as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth "came into existence is a story of how veterans with longstanding anger about Mr. Kerry's antiwar statements in the early 1970s allied themselves with Texas Republicans," The Times said.

"A series of interviews and a review of documents show a web of connections to the Bush family, high-profile Texas political figures and President Bush's chief political aide, Karl Rove," the Times reported. "Several of those now declaring Mr. Kerry 'unfit' had lavished praise on him, some as recently as last year.

As Kerry denounced the criticism as “lies about my record,” aides privately acknowledged that they and their boss had been slow to recognize the damage being done to his political standing.

Three Purple Hearts, Bronze and Silver Stars
Kerry won three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and Silver Star for Vietnam War combat. Bush served stateside in the Texas Air National Guard. Both men say the other served honorably, but their supporters are pouring tens of thousands of dollars into television ads and other tactics to insist otherwise.

MoveOn.org, a liberal group funded by Kerry supporters, is airing an ad accusing Bush of using family connections to avoid the Vietnam War.

Kerry advisers said they had heard from several Democratic politicians that voters were starting to ask questions about the candidate’s war record. The politicians urged him to fight back. Internally, there was an initial reluctance from senior advisers for Kerry to respond — because they believed that Bush would condemn the critical ad, or that the allegations would blow over.

As for the candidate himself, this was personal, aides said. He had heard the group was raising money for more ads, and was tired of his integrity being assaulted.

“Thirty years ago, official Navy reports documented my service in Vietnam and awarded me the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts,” Kerry said. “Thirty years ago, this was the plain truth. It still is. And I still carry the shrapnel in my leg from a wound in Vietnam.”

Kerry aides said they will maintain the offensive through surrogates, if not Kerry himself. Democrats welcomed the response.

“Out of desperation, the Bush campaign has picked the wrong fight with the wrong veteran,” said Jim Jordan, former Kerry campaign manager who now runs an outside group airing ads against Bush. “Today’s the start of the mother of all backlashes.”

Kerry surrounded himself with friendly veterans and union workers to criticize the group airing the ad against him.

Bush and the White House refused to condemn the anti-Kerry ad, which stopped airing this week. When Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., asked Kerry to condemn the MoveOn.org ad, Kerry quickly did so — though he has personally raised questions about Bush’s Vietnam-era service.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which is funded in large part by Bob Perry, a Texas Republican, has knocked the Democratic nominee's campaign off stride with a small but effective advertising buy in the battleground states of Ohio, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The group spent about $500,000 on the ad, but its allegations that Kerry exaggerated his combat record to win medals have been on the Internet, the 24-hour cable channels and, most recently, the nation's major television networks and newspapers.

Bush leads in veterans' votes
During the week ending Aug. 8, 966,000 people visited the anti-Kerry group's Web site, 34,000 fewer than those who visited Kerry's official site, according to Nielsen/Net Ratings. The new CBS poll found Kerry winning 37 percent of veterans' votes to Bush's 55 percent. (The two were tied at 46 percent after last month's Democratic National Convention, where Kerry highlighted his service.)

"They have been very effective at using the August lull to drive a story" in news outlets, said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.). Kerry, who planned to conserve resources by not buying television ads this month, will spend at least $180,000 to respond, his aides said.

Emanuel said Kerry has an opportunity to "turn this and backfire it on the White House," which is what the Democratic nominee began trying with his remarks Thursday. The campaign wants to convince voters that Bush and Rove are behind the effort, at least in spirit.

Perry, a Houston home builder, initially contributed $100,000 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and recently gave another $100,000. Perry has given millions of dollars to GOP efforts over the years, including $46,000 to Bush's gubernatorial campaigns in 1994 and 1998. He gave $2,000 to Bush's re-election campaign this year, records show. Seven of the 10 initial financial contributors to the veterans group have given to Bush's campaign this year, according to PoliticalMoneyLine.

Yet many of the veterans affiliated with the anti-Kerry effort do not have obvious relationships with the Bush campaign, nor do some of its donors.

Tad Devine, a top Kerry strategist, said Bush's refusal to condemn the content of the ad suggests an alliance. If Bush had, "that would have changed the whole chemistry of this debate," he said.

The dispute is unlikely to end soon. John O'Neill, a member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and author of the anti-Kerry book "Unfit for Command," said the group raised nearly $500,000 from 10,000 donors in recent days.

The group released a new ad Friday, which hammers the Democrat for his war claims and his war protests after he left Vietnam, especially his claim that U.S. soldiers committed war crimes.
Kerry’s campaign was quick to release this response: "This is another ad from a front group funded by Bush allies that is trying to smear John Kerry. The newest ad takes Kerry's testimony out of context, editing what he said to distort the facts. He testified as a 27 year-old Vietnam veteran. He opposed a war that, at that point, cost over 44,000 lives of the 58,245 names that are on the Vietnam Memorial wall. It says a lot that the president refuses to condemn this smear. The American people want to hear how we're going to cut health care costs and strengthen the economy, not smears."









NBC's Felix Schein, the Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5771731/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5771731/)

Here is my question..........

WHen will all of us, not just those of us here, but all of us, really start talking about the issues? Honestly, what happened40 years ago, be it the sift boat stuff or if bush actually did his duty back then, is meaningless to me TODAY. What will either do for the economy, for our security, to help put more americans to work, to increase the average american wage, health care, the enviroment, the deficit, etc etc....... THESE are important issues, not what happened 40 years ago when the guys were 20 years old.

Honestly, and I blame both candidates for this............ SO far most of this election campaign has been MEANINGLESS GARBAGE in my opinion............ How will either of these guys make my life better, safer and more enriched?

08-05) 12:51 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --

Republican Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, called an ad criticizing John Kerry's military service "dishonest and dishonorable" and urged the White House on Thursday to condemn it as well.

The White House declined.

"It was the same kind of deal that was pulled on me," McCain said in an interview with The Associated Press, comparing the anti-Kerry ad to tactics in his bitter Republican primary fight with President Bush.

The 60-second ad features Vietnam veterans who accuse the Democratic presidential nominee of lying about his decorated Vietnam War record and betraying his fellow veterans by later opposing the conflict.

"When the chips were down, you could not count on John Kerry," one of the veterans, Larry Thurlow, says in the ad. Thurlow didn't serve on Kerry's swiftboat, but says he witnessed the events that led to Kerry winning a Bronze Star and the last of his three Purple Hearts. Kerry's crewmates support the candidate and call him a hero.

The ad, scheduled to air in a few markets in Ohio, West Virginia and Wisconsin, was produced by Stevens, Reed, Curcio and Potham, the same team that produced McCain's ads in 2000.

"I wish they hadn't done it," McCain said of his former advisers. "I don't know if they knew all the facts."

Asked if the White House knew about the ad or helped find financing for it, McCain said, "I hope not, but I don't know. But I think the Bush campaign should specifically condemn the ad."

McCain, chairman of Bush's campaign in Arizona, later said the Bush campaign has denied any involvement and added, "I can't believe the president would pull such a cheap stunt."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan declined to condemn the ad. He did denounce the proliferation of spending by independent groups, such as the anti-Kerry veterans organization, that are playing on both sides of the political fence.

"The president thought he got rid of this unregulated soft money when he signed the bipartisan campaign finance reform into law," McClellan said. A chief sponsor of that bill, which Bush initially opposed, was McCain.

In 2000, Bush's supporters sponsored a rumor campaign against McCain in the South Carolina primary, helping Bush win the primary and the nomination. McCain's supporters have never forgiven the Bush team.

McCain said that's all in the past to him, but he's speaking out against the anti-Kerry ad because "it reopens all the old wounds of the Vietnam War, which I spent the last 35 years trying to heal."

"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.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/08/05/politics1020EDT0544.DTL

WASHINGTON - Newly obtained military records of one of Sen. John F. Kerry's most vocal critics, who has accused the Democratic presidential candidate of lying about his wartime record to win medals, contradict his own version of events.

But Thurlow's military records, portions of which were released yesterday to The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, contain several references to "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at "all units" of the five-boat flotilla.
This will have to be told hundreds and hundreds of times until the media finally gets it. John Kerry wrote the after-action report that the medals were awarded on. Pretty simple. He embellished the story to get a medal and this time he actually included someone else for some of the glory. There was no fact checking. Kerry was the only officer. Military brass expected that their officers would be writing up TRUE conflict reports. So of course the report says what it does. Kerry wrote it.


"A simmering feud between the Bush and Kerry campaigns over a TV ad that denigrates Sen. John Kerry’s Vietnam war record moved toward the boiling point Friday as the Democratic nominee filed a complaint with federal officials that accused the president’s re-election campaign of breaking the law.

More B.S. - The swift boat vets have made it very clear that this dispute is between Kerry and vets that he denigraded. Thats it. They do not want him to be Commander in Chief. They would have taken money from anybody to get their message out. Even George Soros, who has given over $4,000,000 to the Democrats and admitted willing to spending $20,000,000 to defeat Bush. Get your wallet out George Soros. Your going to need every penny.

http://www.lincolnvscadillac.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1040&stc=1
Is that John Kerry, Kerry F. Kerry or John Fonda Kerry they listed?

Hahaha Joey. I'll save this one for November 2nd. The Democratic Underground was responsible for that poll result. And it an NBC poll to boot.:eek2: Saved in archives.

Here is my question..........

WHen will all of us, not just those of us here, but all of us, really start talking about the issues? Honestly, what happened40 years ago, be it the sift boat stuff or if bush actually did his duty back then, is meaningless to me TODAY. What will either do for the economy, for our security, to help put more americans to work, to increase the average american wage, health care, the enviroment, the deficit, etc etc....... THESE are important issues, not what happened 40 years ago when the guys were 20 years old.

Honestly, and I blame both candidates for this............ SO far most of this election campaign has been MEANINGLESS GARBAGE in my opinion............ How will either of these guys make my life better, safer and more enriched?I feel sorry for all Democrats because this is Kerry's doing. He decided to not talk about the issues when the trotted out the band of brothers at the convention and pissed off alot of people claiming he was a war hero. If I had been there, I would be foaming at the mouth and probably would have a heart attack. Some people have no conscience. I guess that explains why his only "kill" was a young wounded Vietnamese limping away that he shot in the back.

What happened 35 years ago is critical to the future of this nation. I can think of 5 good reasons. Do we really want a glory hound, a fabricator, treasonist and manipulator as our Commander in Chief? Do we want a person who hasn't done anything in his 20+ years in political office?

1) He asks for 5, not 1, 5 deferments. Gets put on a boat out in the ocean. Sees that swift boats are pretty cool, and says to himself, pretty cake job, I think I'll do that. No combat. After all, the original JFK was on a boat. Cool. Wrong, 2 weeks later, swiftees are in the middle of it. Too late to back out. Better bring my camcorder so I can film some nice footage for the future. Why didn't he record all those atrocities he says he saw? He could have easily walked in into all those countryside villages he burned down and taken film. Humm. Wonder why not? Because they didn't happen. HE HAD A CAMCORDER THERE. WHY NOT SHOOT SOME FOOTAGE OF THE ATROCITIES!!!!!!!!

2) Took events and embellished them or outright lied to make himself look good. Found out a way to get out early. 3 purple hearts. Downright didn't deserve 2 of them, SELF INFLICTED, not sure on the 3rd. Nor the Silver Star. Turned tale and ran and just happened to pick up the guy he knocked off the boat after gunning the engines to flee.

3) Goes to Paris while an officer in the military and meets with the very Communists that are killing our own soldiers. He committed treason. He should be in jail, not running for office.

4) Happened to marry for money, not once, but twice. What kind of person marries someone for money? What a p.o.s. that person must be. Not once, mind you, but twice.

5) Has been one of the most liberal (out of step with America) Senators and has nothing to show on his resume after 20 years. Now he has secret plans that he will reveal after the election to save the country.

He won't sign the Department of Defense Form 180 which will show him to be a fraud.

All he has to do is sign the Form and put all this behind him. Pretty simple.

Heard of a great sign for the Kerry rallies.

on one side

This
VET
aint
FONDA
Kerry

on the other

Admitted
war criminals
aren't eligible
for President

I feel sorry for all Democrats because this is Kerry's doing. He decided to not talk about the issues when the trotted out the band of brothers at the convention and pissed off alot of people claiming he was a war hero. If I had been there, I would be foaming at the mouth and probably would have a heart attack. Some people have no conscience. I guess that explains why his only "kill" was a young wounded Vietnamese limping away that he shot in the back.

What happened 35 years ago is critical to the future of this nation. I can think of 5 good reasons. Do we really want a glory hound, a fabricator, treasonist and manipulator as our Commander in Chief? Do we want a person who hasn't done anything in his 20+ years in political office?


Its kinda funny, I can tell someone is a very biased republican. Lemme guess you read/heard the swift boats ads and you were convinced from the start they were true! No need for proof. Well I feel for ppl who read something and without any real knowlege on it assume its true. I mean I cant sit here and say I know its false for sure, but im smart enough not to assume everything I read is true. But for republicans im sure you all are just praying its true or you can hopefully convince enough people it is. Sure ya can make it known those statements are out there... Its great to have debate and all, but it drives me crazy when ppl just find the latest spam out about someone and post it all over and make statements like its proven fact. To me that is ignorance...

Here are the Top 10 contributors to the 527's that Kerry is only now whining about. Keep in mind that $62,000,000 has already been spent to criticize and impune George Bush by 527 pacs committed to the election of a Democratic president.

Click on their name to see who they contributed to.

Hint, only number 10 has contributions linked to Republican causes. Talk about the hypocrisy.

What I love is that the Swift vets can turn out commercial after commerical and not even have to put them on TV to be seen.

http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527indivs.asp?cycle=2004

This will have to be told hundreds and hundreds of times until the media finally gets it. John Kerry wrote the after-action report that the medals were awarded on. Pretty simple. He embellished the story to get a medal and this time he actually included someone else for some of the glory. There was no fact checking. Kerry was the only officer. Military brass expected that their officers would be writing up TRUE conflict reports. So of course the report says what it does. Kerry wrote it.
But Thurlow's military records, portions of which were released yesterday to The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, contain several references to "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at "all units" of the five-boat flotilla.Who wrote Thurlow's records? Kerry was NOT the only officer present.

"military records of Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy swift boat alongside Kerry in Vietnam,"

"Kerry won a Bronze Star for that event, as did Thurlow, with citations that referred to heavy "enemy fire" from small arms and automatic weapons. "


To me, this is looking more and more like Thurlow is the gloryhound. After all, this guy has his own Bronze Star for that day, so if Kerry's is unearned, isnt Thurlow's?

Swift Boat Accounts Incomplete And Flawed
Clashes Roil Kerry Campaign

By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 22, 2004; Page A01


When John F. Kerry rescued James Rassmann from the Bay Hap River in the jungles of Vietnam in March 1969, neither man could possibly have imagined that the episode would become a much-disputed focus of an American presidential campaign 35 years later.

For Kerry, then a green and gangly Navy lieutenant junior grade and now the Democratic challenger to a wartime Republican president, that tale of heroism under fire has become integral to his campaign. A centerpiece of public rallies, videos and a new campaign advertisement last week, it has helped distinguish the candidate from his Democratic primary rivals and from President Bush, who spent the war at home as a member of the Texas Air National Guard.

For the Massachusetts senator's critics, who include three of the five Swift boat skippers who were present that day, the incident demonstrates why Kerry does not deserve to be commander in chief. They accuse him of cowardice, hogging the limelight and lying. Far from displaying coolness under fire, they say, Kerry was never fired upon and fled the scene at the moment of maximum danger.

Establishing the facts 35 years later is complicated not merely by fading memories and sometimes ambiguous archival evidence, but also by the bitterly partisan nature of the presidential campaign.

An investigation by The Washington Post into what happened that day suggests that neither side has been entirely forthcoming, and that each has withheld information from the public record.

Two best-selling books have formed the basis for public discussion of the events of March 13, 1969, as a result of which Kerry won a Bronze Star and his third Purple Heart. The fullest account of Kerry's experience in Vietnam is "Tour of Duty" by prominent presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. It was written with Kerry's cooperation and with exclusive access to his diaries and other writings about the Vietnam War. "Unfit for Command," by John E. O'Neill, who succeeded Kerry as commander of his Swift boat, and Jerome R. Corsi, lays out a detailed attack on Kerry's record.

The Post's research shows that both accounts contain significant flaws and factual errors. This reconstruction of the climactic day in Kerry's military career is based on more than two dozen interviews with former crewmates and officers who served with him, as well as research in the Naval Historical Center here, where the Swift boat records are preserved. Kerry himself was the only surviving skipper on the river then who declined a request for an interview.

On the core issue of whether Kerry was wounded under enemy fire that day, thereby qualifying for a third Purple Heart, the Navy records clearly favor Kerry. Several documents, including the after-action report and the Bronze Star citation for a Swift Boat skipper who has accused Kerry of lying, refer to "all units" coming under "automatic and small-weapons fire."

The eyewitness accounts, on the other hand, are conflicting. Kerry's former crew members support his version, as does Rassmann, the Special Forces officer rescued from the river. But many of the other skippers and enlisted men who were on the river that day dispute Kerry's account and have signed up with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a public advocacy group that has aired television advertisements accusing Kerry of lying about his wartime service.

From an outsider's perspective, the flotilla of five 50-foot Swift boats that followed the Bay Hap River that humid March day has spawned two competing webs of loyalty. One group is fiercely loyal to Kerry and frequently appears with him at campaign events. The other group dislikes him intensely and is doing everything it can to block his election.

Many Swift boat veterans opposed to Kerry acknowledge that their disgust with him was fueled by his involvement in the antiwar movement. When they returned from Vietnam, they say, they were dogged by accusations of atrocities. While Kerry went on to make a prominent political career, they got jobs as teachers, accountants, surveyors and oil field workers. When he ran for president, partly on the strength of his war record, their resentment exploded.

At one level, an attempt to establish what happened during a Vietcong ambush on the Bay Hap River 35 years ago is a simple search for facts. At another, it is the story of the divisions that tore the United States, and its armed forces, into two opposing camps at the time of the Vietnam War -- tensions that have resurfaced with a vengeance during the current political campaign.

"The old wounds have been reopened, and they still bleed," said Larry Thurlow, one of Kerry's accusers, who was awarded a Bronze Star for heroism for going to the rescue of a boat that was rocked by a mine explosion that day. He says he got involved with the anti-Kerry campaign organized by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth because Kerry's distortion of the truth about the Vietnam War "makes me madder than hell."

"We decided we aren't going to take it anymore."

Boats Thrown Into Fight



When Kerry signed up to command a Swift boat in the summer of 1968, he was inspired by the example of his hero, John F. Kennedy, who had commanded the PT-109 patrol boat in the Pacific in World War II. But Kerry had little expectation of seeing serious action. At the time the Swift boats -- or PCFs (patrol craft fast), in Navy jargon -- were largely restricted to coastal patrols. "I didn't really want to get involved in the war," Kerry wrote in a book of war reminiscences published in 1986.

The role of the Swift boats changed dramatically toward the end of 1968, when Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt Jr., commander of U.S. naval forces in South Vietnam, decided to use them to block Vietcong supply routes through the Mekong Delta. Hundreds of young men such as Kerry, with little combat experience, suddenly found themselves face to face with the enemy.

Taking a 50-foot aluminum boat up a river or canal was replete with danger, ranging from ambushes to booby traps to mines. Kerry and his comrades would experience all these risks on March 13, 1969. The purpose of the mission was twofold: to insert pro-government forces upriver in a group of Vietcong-controlled villages; and more generally to show the flag, keeping the waterways free for commerce.

In some ways, it was a day like any other. The previous day, Kerry had taken part in a Swift boat expedition that had come under fire. A friend, Lt. (j.g.) Bill Rood, almost lost an eye in the ambush and several windows of Kerry's boat were blown out. In other respects, March 13 would mark the culmination of Kerry's Vietnam War career. With three Purple Hearts, he became eligible for reassignment. Within three weeks, he was out of Vietnam and headed home after a truncated four-month combat tour.

As commander of PCF-94, Kerry was responsible for ferrying a group of Chinese Vietnamese mercenaries, known as Nung, eight miles up the Bay Hap River, and then five miles up the winding Dong Cung Canal to suspected Vietcong villages. His passengers included Rassmann, the Special Forces officer, who had run into Kerry at a party a couple of weeks before and remembered him as "a tall, skinny guy with this humongous jaw."

The expedition began to go wrong soon after they inserted the Nung troops into a deserted village off the Dong Cung Canal. As the mercenaries searched from house to house, Rassmann recalled, one reached for a cloth bag at the base of a coconut tree and was blown to pieces. It was a booby trap. Kerry, who arrived on the scene soon after, helped wrap the body in a poncho and drag it back to the boat, diving into a ditch when he thought he was under fire.

"I never want to see anything like it again," Kerry wrote later. "What was left was human, and yet it wasn't -- a person had been there only a few moments earlier and . . . now it was a horrible mass of torn flesh and broken bones."

In "Tour of Duty," these thoughts are attributed to a "diary" kept by Kerry. But the endnotes to Brinkley's book say that Kerry "did not keep diaries in these weeks in February and March 1969 when the fighting was most intense." In the acknowledgments to his book, Brinkley suggests that he took at least some of the passages from an unfinished book proposal Kerry prepared some time after November 1971, more than two years after he had returned home from Vietnam.

In his book, Brinkley writes that a skipper who remains friendly to Kerry, Skip Barker, took part in the March 13 raid. But there is no documentary evidence of Barker's participation. Barker could not be reached for comment.

Brinkley, who is director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans, did not reply to messages left with his office, publisher and cell phone. The Kerry campaign has refused to make available Kerry's journals and other writings to The Washington Post, saying the senator remains bound by an exclusivity agreement with Brinkley. A Kerry spokesman, Michael Meehan, said he did not know when Kerry wrote down his reminiscences.

As they were heading back to the boat, Kerry and Rassmann decided to blow up a five-ton rice bin to deny food to the Vietcong. In an interview last week, Rassmann recalled that they climbed on top of the huge pile and dug a hole in the rice. On the count of three, they tossed their grenades into the hole and ran.

Evidently, Kerry did not run fast enough. "He got some frags and pieces of rice in his rear end," Rassmann said with a laugh. "It was more embarrassing than painful." At the time, the incident did not seem significant, and Kerry did not mention it to anyone when he got back on the boat. An unsigned "personnel casualty report," however, erroneously implies that Kerry suffered "shrapnel wounds in his left buttocks" later in the day, following the mine explosion incident, when he also received "contusions to his right forearm."

Anti-Kerry veterans have accused Kerry of conflating the two injuries to strengthen his case for a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. Kerry's Bronze Star citation, however, refers only to his arm injury.

At 2.45 p.m., according to Navy records, Kerry was joined by four other Swift boats for the Bay Hap trip. Kerry led the way on the right-hand side of the river, in PCF-94, followed 15 yards behind by one of his best friends in Vietnam, Don Droz, in PCF-43. A procession of three boats on the left side of the river was led by Richard Pees on PCF-3, followed by Jack Chenoweth on PCF-23 and Thurlow on PCF-51.

Ahead of them was a fishing weir, a series of wooden posts across the river. That morning, the Swiftees had noticed Vietnamese children in sampans attaching nets to the posts and had thought little of it. To get through the weir, their boats had to pass to the left or to the right of the fishing nets.

Just as the Kerry and Pees boats reached the weir, there was a devastating explosion, lifting Pees' boat, PCF-3, three feet out of the water.

Witness Accounts Diverge



"My God, I've never seen anything like it," Chenoweth wrote in what he says is a diary recorded soon after the events. "There was a fantastic flash, a boom, then the 3 boat disappeared in a fountain of water and debris. I was only 30 yards behind." Assuming that they had run into a Vietcong ambush, Chenoweth wrote, "we unleashed everything into the banks."

Aboard the 3 boat, Pees remembered in an interview being "thrown up in the air" into the windscreen of his pilothouse and landing "kind of dazed," his legs numb, lap covered with blood. When it was over, Pees and three members of his crew would be medevaced to a Coast Guard cutter offshore with serious head and back injuries.

"When the mine went off, we were still going full speed," recalled Michael Medeiros, one of Kerry's crew members. Kerry's boat raced off down the river, away from the ambush zone.

It is at this point that the eyewitness accounts begin to diverge sharply. Everybody agrees that a mine exploded under the 3 boat. There is no argument that Rassmann fell into the river and that Kerry fished him out. Nor is there any dispute that Kerry was hurt in the arm, although the anti-Kerry camp claims he exaggerated the nature of his injury. Much else is hotly contested.

When the first explosion occurred, Rassmann was seated next to the pilothouse on the starboard, or right, side of Kerry's boat, munching a chocolate chip cookie that he recalls having "ripped off from someone's Care package." He saw the 3 boat lift out of the water. Almost simultaneously, Kerry's forward gunner, Tommy Belodeau, began screaming for a replacement for his machine gun, which had jammed. Rassmann grabbed an M-16 and worked his way sideways along the deck, which was only seven inches wide in places.

At this point, Kerry crew members say their boat was hit by a second explosion. Although Kerry's injury report speaks of a mine that "detonated close aboard PCF-94," helmsman Del Sandusky believes it was more likely a rocket or rocket-propelled grenade, as a mine would have inflicted more damage. Whatever it was, the explosion rammed Kerry into the wall of his pilothouse, injuring his right forearm.

The second explosion "blew me right off the boat," Rassmann recalled. Frightened that he might be struck by the propellers of one of the boats, he dived to the bottom of the river, where he dumped his weapons and rucksack. When he surfaced, he said, bullets were "snapping overhead," as well as hitting the water around him.

At first, nobody noticed what had happened to Rassmann. But then Medeiros, who was standing at the stern, saw him bobbing up and down in the water and shouted, "Man overboard." Around this time, crew members said, Kerry decided to go back to help the crippled 3 boat. It is unclear how far down the river Kerry's boat was when he turned around. It could have been anywhere from half a mile to a mile.

O'Neill claims that Kerry "fled the scene" despite the absence of hostile fire. Kerry, in a purported journal entry cited in Brinkley's "Tour of Duty," maintains that he wanted to get his troops ashore "on the outskirts of the ambush."

The Kerry/Rassmann version of what happened next has been retold many times, in TV advertisements and campaign appearances: Rassmann struggling to climb up a scramble net, Kerry leaning over the bow of the boat and pulling him up with his injured arm. As Kerry later recalled, in notes cited by Brinkley, "Somehow we got him on board and I didn't get the bullet in the head that I expected, and we managed to move down near the 3 boat that was still crawling a snail-like zig-zag through the river."

Rassmann remembers several boats coming back up the river toward him. But Chenoweth believes that the rescue must have taken place fairly close to the other boats, which had been drifting slowly downriver. In his diary, he said, he wrote that "we spotted a man overboard, started to pick him up, but 94 [Kerry's boat] got there first."

While Kerry was rescuing Rassmann, the other Swift boats had gone to the assistance of Pees and the 3 boat. Thurlow, in particular, distinguished himself by leaping onto the 3 boat and administering first aid, according to his Bronze Star citation. At one point, he, too, was knocked overboard when the boat hit a sandbar, but he was rescued by crewmates.

The Kerry and anti-Kerry camps differ sharply on whether the flotilla came under enemy fire after the explosion that crippled the 3 boat. Everybody aboard Kerry's boat, including Rassmann, says there was fire from both riverbanks, and the official after-action report speaks of all boats receiving "heavy a/w [automatic weapons] and s/a [small arms] from both banks." The Bronze Star citations for Kerry and Thurlow also speak of prolonged enemy fire.

A report on "battle damage" to Thurlow's boat mentions "three 30 cal bullet holes about super structure." According to Thurlow, at least one of the bullet holes was the result of action the previous day, when he ran into another Vietcong ambush.

Thurlow, Chenoweth, Pees and several of their crew members who belong to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth say neither they nor Kerry came under fire. "If there was fire, I would have made some notation in my journal," Chenoweth said. "But it didn't happen that way. There wasn't any fire." Although he read his diary entry to a reporter over the phone, he declined to supply a copy.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Rassmann said, "are not just questioning Kerry's account, they are questioning my account. I take that very personally. No one can tell me that we were not under fire. I saw it, I heard the splashes, and I was scared to death. For them to come back 35 years after the fact to tarnish not only Kerry's record, but my veracity is unconscionable."

Who Initialed Navy Report?



Much of the debate over who is telling the truth boils down to whether the two-page after-action report and other Navy records are accurate or whether they have been embellished by Kerry or someone else. In "Unfit for Command," O'Neill describes the after-action report as "Kerry's report." He contends that language in Thurlow's Bronze Star citation referring to "enemy bullets flying about him" must also have come from "Kerry's after-action report."

O'Neill has said that the initials "KJW" on the bottom of the report "identified" it as having been written by Kerry. It is unclear why this should be so, as Kerry's initials are JFK. A review of other Swift boat after-action reports at the Naval Historical Center here reveals several that include the initials "KJW" but describe incidents at which Kerry was not present.

Other Swift boat veterans, including Thurlow and Chenoweth, have said they believe that Kerry wrote the March 13 report. "I didn't like to write reports," said Thurlow, who was the senior officer in the five-boat flotilla. "John would write the thing up in longhand, and it would then be typed up and sent up the line."

Even if Kerry did write the March 13 after-action report, it seems unlikely that he would have been the source of the information about "enemy bullets" flying around Thurlow. The official witness to those events, according to Thurlow's medal recommendation form, was Radioman 1st Class Robert Lambert, a member of his crew. The Post was unable to trace Lambert before publication of this article.

In a telephone interview, the head of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, retired Adm. Roy Hoffmann, who commanded all Swift boats in Vietnam, said he believed that Kerry wrote the March 13 after-action report on the basis of numerical identifiers at the top of the form. He later acknowledged that the numbers referred to the Swift boat unit, and not to Kerry personally. "It's not cast-iron, I agree with you," he said.

Some of the mystery surrounding exactly what happened on the Bay Hap River in March 1969 could be resolved by the full release of all relevant records and personal diaries. Much information is available from the Web sites of the Kerry campaign and Swift BoatVeterans for Truth, and the Navy archives. But both the Kerry and anti-Kerry camps continue to deny or ignore requests for other relevant documents, including Kerry's personal reminiscences (shared only with biographer Brinkley), the boat log of PCF-94 compiled by Medeiros (shared only with Brinkley) and the Chenoweth diary.

Although Kerry campaign officials insist that they have published Kerry's full military records on their Web site (with the exception of medical records shown briefly to reporters earlier this year), they have not permitted independent access to his original Navy records. A Freedom of Information Act request by The Post for Kerry's records produced six pages of information. A spokesman for the Navy Personnel Command, Mike McClellan, said he was not authorized to release the full file, which consists of at least a hundred pages.

Some Felt Betrayed



Kerry's reunion with Rassmann in January this year, nearly 35 years after he pulled the former Green Beret from the river, was a defining moment of his presidential campaign. Many political observers believed that the images of the two men embracing helped Kerry win the Iowa Democratic caucuses. The "No Man Left Behind" theme has become a recurring image of pro-Kerry advertising.

But many of the men Kerry served with in Vietnam feel betrayed and left behind by him. Soon after Kerry returned to the United States, he began organizing antiwar rallies. Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1971, he said that U.S. troops in Vietnam had committed war crimes "with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command."

The anti-Kerry veterans began mobilizing earlier this year, following publication of the Brinkley biography and the nationwide publicity given to Kerry's emotional reunion with Rassmann. Many of the veterans were contacted personally by Hoffmann, a gung-ho naval officer compared unflatteringly in "Tour of Duty" with the out-of-control lieutenant colonel in the movie "Apocalypse Now" who talked about how he loved "the smell of napalm in the morning."

Hoffmann, who was already angry with Kerry for his antiwar activities on his return from Vietnam, said in an interview that he was "appalled" to find out from reading "Tour of Duty" that Kerry was "considered to be a Navy hero." "I thought there was a tremendous amount of gross exaggeration in the book, and in some places downright lies. So I started contacting some of my former shipmates," he said.

One of the men Hoffmann contacted was O'Neill, a longtime Kerry critic who debated Kerry on television in 1971. O'Neill put Hoffmann in touch with some wealthy Republican Party contributors. One of O'Neill's contacts was Texas millionaire Bob Perry, who has contributed $200,000 to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Perry has also contributed to the Bush campaign.

"I'd met him three or four times and represented people he knew," said O'Neill, who has been practicing law in Houston for nearly 30 years.

In addition to helping to organize the anti-Kerry campaign, O'Neill wrote his own book about the senator's wartime record, which soared to the top of the Amazon.com best-seller list before its publication earlier this month.

With the exception of a sailor named Stephen Gardner, who served with Kerry in late 1968 on PCF-44, Kerry's own crew members have remained loyal to him. "If it wasn't for some of his decisions, we would probably be some of the names in that wall," said Gene Thorson, the engineman on PCF-94, referring to the Vietnam War Memorial. "I respect him very much."

Others who served on boats that operated alongside Kerry on that fateful day in March 1969 say they cannot stand the man who is now challenging George W. Bush for the presidency.

"I think that Kerry's behavior was abominable," said Pees, the commander of the boat that hit the mine. "His actions after the war were particularly disgusting. He distorted the truth when he talked about atrocities. We went out of our way to protect civilians. To suggest otherwise is a grotesque lie. As far as I am concerned, he did not speak the truth about how we conducted operations in Vietnam."

"A lot of people just can't forgive and forget," countered Kerry crew member Medeiros. "He was a great commander. I would have no trouble following him anywhere."

Staff writer Linton Weeks contributed to this report.

Who wrote Thurlow's records? Kerry was NOT the only officer present. That is what inquiring minds want to know. Kerry sign, the form and show us the records. What does he have to hide/






To me, this is looking more and more like Thurlow is the gloryhound. After all, this guy has his own Bronze Star for that day, so if Kerry's is unearned, isnt Thurlow's? He has publicly said he thought his award was for jumping into the board, helping the captain who had suffered a concussion from the explosion and then going inside and helping to plug the leak. He seems like a pretty humble guy to me. He didn't see the report that was written by Kerry. He only assumed he won the award based on his actions that day, not the movie script written by Kerry.

The fullest account of Kerry's experience in Vietnam is "Tour of Duty" by prominent presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. It was written with Kerry's cooperation and with exclusive access to his diaries and other writings about the Vietnam War. "Unfit for Command," by John E. O'Neill, who succeeded Kerry as commander of his Swift boat, and Jerome R. Corsi, lays out a detailed attack on Kerry's record.I stop reading the diatribe written by the Post guy after I got to this part. Again, and again and again. Sign the DD Form 180 and lets get this over with. The fullest account of Kerry's experience is written by Kerry and with access to his diaries! How totally laughable.

I'm sorry, but I choose to believe other officers that served and bunked with Kerry and saw what was going on. I choose to believe men with no axe to grind except that they fear for the safety of our country if John F. Kerry is elected Commander in Chief. I believe the words of 250 decorated men over the word of one man, who has demonstrated in so many ways how truly deplorable he is.

I hope the liberal media keeps defending him with the blinders on. The truth you know will come out. The records will be released and this episode will set the Democrats back 35 years. How ironic will that be.

At least the rest of the article showed some political balance.

Not to be spiteful or disrespectful, but I honestly feel like I have been assaulted with a wave attack similar to a missile attack designed to overwhelm my point defenses after reading all of the above articles disputing the Swift boat veterans' story. I realize the fighting fire with fire principle, but I sorta feel like I've been caught in the crossfire and overwhelmed with "stories". If all the articles say the same thing by citing the same sources and using the same information, what's the point? And an article in my local paper today states that "campaigns often file complaints with the FEC" (DAVID ESPO, AP). This is politics. Did anyone think it would be any other way? Both sides get ugly, it's up to clear heads to sift fact from fiction.

I watched a lot of the DNC and I heard what everyone said about Kerry being a "hero" and all. It kinda made me upset. All the hypocritical undertones are simply nauseating. And if it made me upset, I'm sure it made a lot of people upset. I agree with you Joey that what a man did when he was young shouldn't necessarily be held against him, but Kerry is the one that kept shoving it down our throats and keeping it a central theme in his campaign. This Swift Boat Vets for Truth thing didn't need Bush to get it going. And it certainly doesn't need him to keep it going.

And as far as ignorance goes, it cuts both ways. Why doesn't Kerry just reveal his military records? Why would people want to be knowingly ignorant of the facts? Sounds like there are some people out there who'll just hold there nose and kiss Kerry's rear simply because he's running against Bush. Not good enough for me. And I believe I have a different definition of "smart" than some. There's a lot of ignorant people out there, it's just sad that many are willingly ignorant.

On a conciliatory note, I did like what Kerry said about going after Al Qaida and not letting our military go downhill. My point being that I know Kerry is not the anti-Christ, it's just funny that many people think Bush is.

Its kinda funny, I can tell someone is a very biased republican. Lemme guess you read/heard the swift boats ads and you were convinced from the start they were true! No need for proof. Well I feel for ppl who read something and without any real knowlege on it assume its true. I mean I cant sit here and say I know its false for sure, but im smart enough not to assume everything I read is true. But for republicans im sure you all are just praying its true or you can hopefully convince enough people it is. Sure ya can make it known those statements are out there... Its great to have debate and all, but it drives me crazy when ppl just find the latest spam out about someone and post it all over and make statements like its proven fact. To me that is ignorance...All I can say is if it looks like a duck,....

I have spent more than 200 hours (maybe even more) looking at this election which is more than 98% of population will do. I have been watching all the cable shows from 6:00 until 10:00 on all channels. CSPAN, MSNBC, CNBC, CNN FOX, ABC, CBS, and NBC. I have been on all the websites from johnkerry.com and move-on.org to hannity.com and swiftvets.com and all the bloggers in between. I would say I am very educated on this election.

Many Americans, either out of sure ignorance or laziness will make no effort to educate themselves. They will vote the party line. They will just look at what they see orchestrated on behalf of the Democrats by the liberal media and half of them will say OK, I believe that, while the other half will say bunk. And that is where we are at in this country. 50-50 The population has been brainwashed and dumb downed to the point that it can no longer make decisions on its own. That is why we have all the polls. A simple technique to convince people to vote for the winner. Who wants to vote for the loser. Everytime there is a poll that favors Kerry, front page news here I come. For Bush, buried on page 7. Tell me I am wrong!

As far as Kerry goes, I have heard and read both sides of the story and only one side is telling more of the truth. Let's put it that way for convenience. It is obvious where I stand on this issue and I am proud of it. I want to be able to look at the President of the United States and say, you know what, I may not agree with some of your policies but at least I respect you. I can't honestly say I could say that with Fonda Kerry. Sorry.

Thats quite responsible of you. You are quite strong in your convictions. But if you believe there is a great liberal conspiracy on the media then why do you still watch cable television to get your information?

I agree some people lack knowledge, but that is an assumption that most are ignorant. In your opinion they are ignorant becuase they do not agree with you, in the end is that not hypocritical and mabie a touch unsensible.

From the sounds of it you have only gathered information on Kerry. Why dont you spend some time digging into Bush as well. As joey said I want someone who will run the country. Im not looking for someone to run a swift boat here!!! Im not looking for someone to take a bullet!!! The simple fact is everyone around me, including me, is loosing there jobs or taking pay cuts and i could give two shakes who said what about someones brothers cousing nieces uncle said what they heard about kerrys war record!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Im being fecicious of course, its a metaphor for all of the hearsay about an insignificant war record). Now i ask you are we in martial law, why is what someone did in war the most important thing someone can do to be elected to run this country: thats what the generals are for!!!!!!

The simple fact is (beyond my political research) EVERY bush ad i have seen in michigan attacks Kerry. Thats great you can cap on him better than he can on you. But what are your plans for our economy that dont contain bush making his company less bankrupt, or more profitable. The kerry ads that i have seen have talked about what he wants to do in this country. Are we all planning to go to war or something. Is that what is important about running this country, what can we attack next. Or is me finally getting that 96 cartier that i have wanted but cannot get enough to afford.

Big Joe

Besides all that, old people cant remember to turn the stove off but you are expecting them to remember 1969. LOL.

Id be willing to bet most of the biggest Bush supporters are wealthy.

Thats quite responsible of you. You are quite strong in your convictions. But if you believe there is a great liberal conspiracy on the media then why do you still watch cable television to get your information?

That's just argumentative. My local paper is completely liberal and proud of it. But I read it every day. I don't watch Fox news except when something really newsworthy happens (Iraq invasion, et al). I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh for obvious reasons. I first found out about the Swift Boat Vets from this site.

I agree some people lack knowledge, but that is an assumption that most are ignorant. In your opinion they are ignorant becuase they do not agree with you, in the end is that not hypocritical and mabie a touch unsensible.

No offense meant here, but I viewed his statements as people are ignorant because they don't have all the facts. In my reply above I alluded to the same ignorance of Kerry's war record.

From the sounds of it you have only gathered information on Kerry. Why dont you spend some time digging into Bush as well. As joey said I want someone who will run the country. Im not looking for someone to run a swift boat here!!! Im not looking for someone to take a bullet!!! The simple fact is everyone around me, including me, is loosing there jobs or taking pay cuts and i could give two shakes who said what about someones brothers cousing nieces uncle said what they heard about kerrys war record!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Im being fecicious of course, its a metaphor for all of the hearsay about an insignificant war record). Now i ask you are we in martial law, why is what someone did in war the most important thing someone can do to be elected to run this country: thats what the generals are for!!!!!!

I couldn't agree with you more about the generals. If Kerry would drop the whole "hero" bit, then your point is well taken. I sympathize with your job situation. Things are tough all over and I'm not immune. I wish Bush or Kerry would have some real vision in this regard, but neither do. So I must turn to other issues to base my vote.

The simple fact is (beyond my political research) EVERY bush ad i have seen in michigan attacks Kerry. Thats great you can cap on him better than he can on you. But what are your plans for our economy that dont contain bush making his company less bankrupt, or more profitable. The kerry ads that i have seen have talked about what he wants to do in this country. Are we all planning to go to war or something. Is that what is important about running this country, what can we attack next. Or is me finally getting that 96 cartier that i have wanted but cannot get enough to afford.

Big Joe

The accusations about Bush making his company less bankrupt today will only be replaced by accusations of Kerry making Heinz more profitable tomorrow if Kerry is elected. Kerry is not better than Bush in this regard, so again I must base my vote on other issues. And Kerry would have gone to war against Iraq, too, by his own admission. So that argument is also nullified between the two. And IMO, when placed on opposite sides of the scale, Kerry is found wanting. But I want to stress that this is my OPINION, so don't hate me for it. I'm voting for Bush. You're voting for Kerry. And in 20 years, who gives a chit? (I couldn't resist quoting Driller there cause I felt the humor in his post)

Id be willing to bet most of the biggest Bush supporters are wealthy.

Not most, but some. And every other presidential nominee has wealthy supporters as well. My point being that you have no point. :tongue:

I'll respond to all you guys later in the night. Thank you for keeping it civil. I really do appreciate a "fair fight'.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/graphics/swiftboat_082104.html

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/graphics/swiftboat_082104.gif

Sen. Kerry's Statement On THe Senate Floor As a Eulogy For Mr. Thomas Belodeau.

"There was the time we were carrying special forces up a river and a mine exploded under our boat sending it 2 feet into the air. We were receiving incoming rocket and small arms fire and Tommy was returning fire with his M-60 machine gun when it literally broke apart in his hands. He was left holding the pieces unable to fire back while one of the Green Berets walked along the edge of the boat to get Tommy another M-60. As he was doing so, the boat made a high speed turn to starboard and the Green Beret kept going--straight into the river. The entire time while the boat went back to get the Green Beret, Tommy was without a machine gun or a weapon of any kind, but all the time he was hurling the greatest single string of Lowell-Chelmsford curses ever heard at the Viet Cong. He literally had swear words with tracers on them!'
http://idexer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=48 (http://idexer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=48)

According to Kerry, first a mine explodes under HIS boat. Not NEAR his boat, but UNDER his boat. Sending it 2 feet into the air. After sending it TWO feet into the air, the boat continued on, and then made a high speed turn to starboard (Throwing the Green Beret (Rassmann) into the water). So according to Sen. Kerry the turn caused Rassmann to go into the water, and a mine exploded under PCF-3. THis certainly conflicts with the WaPo diagram, and is just another one of the many varying accounts by Sen. Kerry, his campaign, and his Band Of Brothers.

Kbob,

"But I want to stress that this is my OPINION, so don't hate me for it. I'm voting for Bush. You're voting for Kerry."

Honestly, i would go for greenpeace if i knew they could win. Good points by the way. I really dont mind who you guys vote for. I hope you know i respect your opinoins, im not condemning any of you and I respect you all for making informed decisions. I JUST WANT MY NEW LINCOLN. lololol

I will have to come back to read your reply monstermark my friends are nagging me to get going to the movies.

Honestly, i would go for greenpeace if i knew they could win.

Good one, LOL!

Good points by the way. I really dont mind who you guys vote for. I hope you know i respect your opinoins, im not condemning any of you and I respect you all for making informed decisions. I JUST WANT MY NEW LINCOLN. lololol

The feeling is mutual. And I'd like a new Lincoln too, specifically that TASCA Mark on the home LVC page. Is that thing awesome or what! :eek2:

I will have to come back to read your reply monstermark my friends are nagging me to get going to the movies.

Enjoy and let us know if it was worth seeing.

Good graphic MonsterMark. Question: whose account is the graphic based? Also, do you know what Droz was doing while Chenoweth and Thurlow assisted Pees? Did he hang back to cover the rear? Just trying to make sense of it all.

yes, nice graphic

to be honest the movie totally sucked, never go to see, i think it was "open water". There is one good scene where one of the main characters is naked and quite beautiful, may i add. The rest of the movie is her and her husband floating in open water!!!!!!!!!!! For a good hour!!!!!!!!!! It was a total waste. I could have filmed it in my swimming pool. Dont waste your money on this movie, learn from my mistake.

Anyway, onward with the swiftboats.

Edwards faults Bush for overtime pay cuts
Says Democratic ticket would ensure rewards for workers' efforts

Reuters
Updated: 2:36 p.m. ET Aug. 21, 2004


PITTSBURGH - Vice presidential candidate John Edwards on Saturday assailed a new Bush administration policy that excludes millions of Americans from overtime pay and promised that the Democratic ticket would ensure that workers are rewarded for their efforts.

He made his comments in the party’s weekly radio address two days before the Republican administration’s policy takes effect. The new rules change the criteria for how employers determine overtime for their employees.

“Why would anyone want to take overtime pay away from as many as 6 million Americans at a time when they need it the most?” asked Edwards, a senator from North Carolina.

“And why would anyone support this new rule which could mean a pay cut for millions of Americans who have already seen their real wages drop again this year?”

Edwards said that he and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry “believe we don’t need changes that deny workers their overtime pay.”

Recalling his own background, which included unloading tractor trailers while in college, Edwards said the Democrats believe that “if you work hard, then you should be rewarded for that effort.”

Platform aims to please middle class voters
Kerry and Edwards, running neck and neck with President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, have offered an economic platform designed to please middle class voters, many of whom have failed to benefit much from an economic recovery that has yet to generate robust hiring or wage gains.

Kerry was to meet with top Democrats on Saturday.

More than 1.1 million jobs have been lost since Bush took office and the tepid recovery in the labor market has fueled public concern over offshore “outsourcing” to low-wage countries like China and India.

Kerry and Edwards have tried to capitalize on that discontent.

But Republicans say Bush will likely highlight tax relief and Social Security reform when he retools his economic platform for an intense month of campaigning after the Aug. 30-Sept. 2 Republican Party convention in New York.

The focus will be on small investors and young voters worried about their retirement savings, according to Republicans close to the administration.

“The message will be that Bush is for wealth creation and (Democrat John) Kerry is for wealth redistribution,” said Stephen Moore of the Club for Growth, a group that raises money for conservative political candidates.

The president is expected to roll out the polished themes at the convention.

Copyright 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5781227/

Despite veterans' ad, Kerry remains in the lead


MSNBC
Updated: 10:00 a.m. ET Aug. 20, 2004


This week’s controversy over allegations made by anti-John Kerry Vietnam veterans in their TV ad and in their book provides an illustration of the way division of labor works today in American politics.

“The President keeps telling people he would never question my service to our country,” Kerry said in a speech Thursday. “Instead, he watches as a Republican-funded attack group does just that. Well, if he wants to have a debate about our service in Vietnam, here is my answer: ‘Bring it on.’”

Indeed, John O’Neill (who debated Kerry more than 30 years ago on the Dick Cavett show on ABC) and his fellow “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” have “brought it on.”

Bush himself has stayed aloof, praising Kerry last week, saying Kerry "is justifiably proud of his record in Vietnam and he should be."

As the dust settles a bit, Kerry remains in the lead of MSNBC.com's White House Derby.

How potent an issue is Bush’s non-disavowal of the Swift Boat Veterans ad?

Those voters who don't believe Bush in general will never believe that he and his strategist Karl Rove didn't authorize the ad.

Voters may assume all anti-Kerry attacks are somehow conforming to a larger anti-Kerry strategy, and likewise on the anti-Bush side.

And in the end, the battle of Najaf may well matter more to voters than the battle on the Mekong River in 1968.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, with coverage by talk radio, blogs, and some in the more traditional news media, did force Kerry to spend time responding.

If you are campaign manager, you never want to have your candidate dancing to your adversaries’ sheet music.

Meanwhile, in another illustration of division of labor, even though Kerry did not delve into the question "what did Bush really do in the Air National Guard in 1972?" anti-Bush allies like Michael Moore, Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe and Moveon.org have been doing that work for months. Moveon.org uncorked a new ad this week criticizing Bush’s Guard service, which Kerry disavowed.

A new Pennsylvania poll from Franklin & Marshall College released Thursday showed Kerry with a six-point lead, 48 percent to 42 percent over Bush, but still within the margin of error, which was 3.8 percent.

The undecided amounted to eight percent. If one accepts the traditional pollster’s wisdom that two-thirds of the undecided ultimately vote against the incumbent, Kerry looks to be in fine shape in Pennsylvania.

Bush has made a remarkable 32 visits to the Keystone State since becoming president. This is puzzling in that he lost Pennsylvania by more than 200,000 votes last time. This could end up as one of the smartest — or most ill-advised — investments in modern campaign history.

But Pennsylvania illustrates the point that we don’t know for sure what the battleground states are and neither do the candidates. It is easier to say which states are not tossup states (Alabama, California, Utah, Rhode Island) than which ones are.

And this week's list of tossup states may not be the same as the week of Oct. 25

© 2004 MSNBC Interactive
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5770431

Chicago Tribune Editor Backs Kerry's Story

Saturday, August 21, 2004



CHICAGO — A Chicago Tribune (search) editor who was on the Vietnam mission for which John Kerry (search) received the Silver Star is backing up Kerry's account of the incident.

William Rood, 61, said he decided to break his silence about the Feb. 28, 1969, mission because reports by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (search) are incorrect and darken the reputations of veterans who served with Kerry, according to a report in the Tribune's Sunday editions.

Rood, an editor on the Tribune's metropolitan desk, said the allegations that Kerry's accomplishments were overblown are untrue. Kerry came up with an attack strategy that was praised by their superiors, Rood said.

"The critics have taken pains to say they're not trying to cast doubts on the merit of what others did, but their version of events has splashed doubt on all of us," Rood said in a 1,700-word first-person account published in the newspaper. "It's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there."

According to the Tribune, Rood's recollection of what happened that day in South Vietnam was backed by military documents, including his citation for a Bronze Star and a report written by then-Capt. Roy Hoffmann, who commanded his and Kerry's task force and is now a critic of the Democratic candidate.

More here:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,129661,00.html

Come on, man, if you're going to post a poll try to make it up to date or "scientifically valid". Otherwise, it's very misleading. And if you don't know my opinion of polls by now, they're for idiots. Make up your own mind and don't follow the crowd like a stupid lemming.

Updated Daily by Noon Eastern Election 2004

Presidential Ballot

Bush 47%
Kerry 47%
Other 2%
Not Sure 4%
RasmussenReports.com

---------------------------

Rasmussen Reports Home

Economic Confidence Today

Bush vs. Kerry Today

Bush Job Approval

Congress - GOP vs. Dem

Electoral College

State-by-State Polls

----------------------------------------------
Sunday August 22, 2004--For the second straight day, the Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll shows Senator John Kerry with 47% of the vote and President George W. Bush with 47%. The Tracking Poll is updated daily by noon Eastern.

Forty-seven percent (47%) of voters have a favorable opinion of Kerry's military service while 36% have an unfavorable view. Thirty-nine percent (39%) believe Kerry is telling the truth about his experiences in Vietnam while 31% believe he is exaggerating the truth and 15% believe he is lying.

Our latest Electoral College projection stands at Kerry 223 Bush 183. Those figures, which reflect our latest polling in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, will be updated today at 3:00 p.m. Eastern.

Yesterday, we provided our Premium Members with new Top-Line polling results for 25 states.

So far in August, we have publicly released state election polls for Nevada, Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Washington, Maine, Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Oregon, New Jersey, Arkansas, New Mexico, California, Missouri, North Carolina, Virginia, Iowa, Georgia, Illinois, Colorado, New Mexico, and Minnesota.

Supplemental data is available for

RR Premium Members.

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Data released last week 52% of voters trust Bush more than Kerry when in comes to national defense and the War on Terror. Forty-two percent (42%) prefer Kerry. Voters are more evenly divided when it comes to managing the economy.

Rasmussen Reports data also shows that 42% of Likely Voters say President Bush is doing a good or an excellent job of handling the situation in Iraq. Another 42% say he is doing a poor job. When it comes to the economy, 41% say good or excellent while 43% say poor. These figures are updated weekly.


The national telephone survey of 1,500 Likely voters was conducted by Rasmussen Reports over the past three nights. Margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

----------------------------
Updated Daily by Noon Eastern Election 2004

Date Bush Kerry
Today 47 47
Aug 21 47 47
Aug 20 47 48
Aug 19 46 48
Aug 18 46 48
Aug 17 46 49
Aug 16 47 48
Aug 15 46 48
Aug 14 46 47
Aug 13 46 48
Aug 12 45 48
Aug 11 46 49
Aug 10 46 49
Aug 9 48 47
Aug 8 48 47
Aug 7 47 47
Aug 6 46 48
Aug 5 45 48
Aug 4 46 46
Aug 3 45 48
Aug 2 46 47
Aug 1 45 49
Earlier Results for

RR Premium Members

Dates are release dates

Surveys conducted on preceding three nights

RasmussenReports.com

Almost everyone on Capital Hill wanted to reform overtime pay rules because they were so outdated. And surprise, Democrats were unhappy with the final version. If you want to know the truth, go to the source:

http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fairpay/main.htm

Posting editorial pieces is really just a waste of time. There's little if any news in it. I think it's misleading, too.

"Chicago Tribune Editor Backs Kerrys Story"

He said, she said, blah blah blah. Show us the records.

Good graphic MonsterMark. Question: whose account is the graphic based? Also, do you know what Droz was doing while Chenoweth and Thurlow assisted Pees? Did he hang back to cover the rear? Just trying to make sense of it all.The graphics were created by the Washington Post. I at least give them credit for 'finally' digging into this. This story is very troubling for Kerry on many fronts.

1st: It shows that Kerry lied on how he received one of his purple hearts. The infamous 'toss a grenade into the uncle bens and get your butt cooked' incident.

2nd: Although there are discrepancies, overall the report validates what the Swift Boat Vets said. The number 3 boat took a mine. At the same time, Kerry took off down the river. Based on where Rasmussen was on the boat, it seems the most plausible that Kerry gunned the engines to get the hell out of there and Rasmussen was in the most vulnerable position on the boat and, with no handrails, took a dive over the side. (Have you ever been standing up in a boat when the driver steps on the gas? Usually the driver waits till everybody is seated, right?) More troubling though is that in Kerry's own words, he only turned around when he noticed Rasmussen was missing, so he may have well been 5000 meters down the river, fleeing the scene. Which is why he may have had to withstand the "withering" firestorm from all sides to get back. (Not plausible)

3rd: The report states there are 2 explosions yet there is only one damage report and that Kerry towed the damaged 3 boat yet the report states the 94 (Kerrys) boat as damaged to the point of being inoperable. The damages seem to be consistent with that of a mine so I believe the 3 boat was mined. The damage as reported to Kerry's boat would not have allowed his boat to tow the other. Why wouldn't they use a boat that was unscathed?

4th: The is no mention of small arms damage to either the boats or crew. Yet Kerry survived "withering" vollies from both sides. Man, the Vietcom were bad shots. The rest of the boats were 'trapped' by the 3 boat. How were they not wiped out. They were trapped weren't they? Then the report goes on to say that they were even able to sit there and make repairs for an hour and a half after the assault. The most plausible explaination comes from the Swift Vets again. There was a mine explosion. The crews started using suppression fire on both sides of the river. Rasmussen is upside down in the water and under the water and hears 50s' going off all over the place.

5th: Kerry states he made a "starboard" turn which would have put him squarely on the beach, which is at least consistent with his strategy of always beaching his boat when under fire.

6th: The report states the Droz's boat (#43) was behind Kerrys which makes it consistent that they would go to the aid of the 3 boat and therefore would be out of position to retrive Rasmussen from the water. So Kerry beats them there first to pluck Rasmussen from the water..

When you compare the 2 events as outline by both Kerry and the Swift Vets, you must judge the stories based on what makes the most sense and seems the most plausible. Again, Kerry tries to take credit by indicating damage to his boat on the report that would be consistent with mine damage but would render his boat inoperable, yet he tows the other boat. This is consistent with his embellishing his record to the detriment of those there.

These are my opinions and yes I am partisan on this issue but there is no question in my mind why the Swift Vets are challenging this guy's credibility. He doesn' have any in my mind.

What we have here is a liar and a traitor seeking to be Commander in Chief. This would obviously give aid and comfort to our enemies around the world and would allow the world to paint us as the evil empire. Our enemies would say, look at who they just elected (Kerry). A man who has openly and freely admitted to war crimes. Americans are murderers.

Democrats would have no basis to criticize the Bush administration for Abu Graib or any such incident ever again.

So criticize me for being partisan but I have watched all the shows, went on all the websites and brought my life to a halt so I could ascertain the truth in all this. I share this with you and spend alot of time writing these things up because I know you guys are busy and I hope that this helps you more easily understand what is being discussed and then be able to take this information and make up your own minds.

Kerry is the wrong choice and the Democrats should ask him to immediately bow out of the race and let Edwards continue. Don't get me wrong, I would much rather see Kerry run than Edwards because Edwards would give the Dems a fresh start and then the mantra of Anybody but Bush could start all over again.

Joey, you can post all you want on the issues but they do not matter at this point in time. This election is now about the fitness of Kerry to serve as President and CIC and until he releases all the records through the signing of Form 180 and puts this to rest, he will continue to slip in the polls.

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (www.swiftvets.com (http://www.swiftvets.com/)) have a 28 minute documentary coming out next month that will torpedo and finish off Kerry's sinking boat.

http://www.time.com/time/election2004/article/0,18471,686045,00.html

Excerpts from Time Magazine:



THE CHARGE Kerry lied to get the first of three Purple Hearts. SBVT alleges that the wound was a minor, self-inflicted scratch. Kerry says on Dec. 2, 1968, he and his two crewmates that night fired on men on a riverbank. It's unclear if someone fired back, but shrapnel hit Kerry's arm. Louis Letson, a medical officer at the time, says that he treated Kerry's wound and that it was too small to justify a medal. William Schacte Jr. says he was on the boat that night and there was no enemy fire; he says Kerry was injured by a grenade Kerry himself launched.

THE EVIDENCE Kerry's medical record was signed not by Letson but by corpsman J.C. Carreon. Letson claims Carreon routinely signed forms for him. Letson told the Los Angeles Times he heard the wound was self-inflicted thirdhand — from his subordinates, who heard it from Kerry's two crewmates. They deny saying that and insist Schacte wasn't on the boat that night. The military grants a Purple Heart for any wound requiring medical attention that was inflicted during action against the enemy.





THE CHARGE Kerry lied to win his Silver Star. SBVT charges that Kerry exaggerated his role in a battle on Feb. 28, 1969. In charge of a three-boat patrol that was ambushed, Kerry ordered the boats to beach in front of their attackers and engage them head on. Kerry's boat was providing cover when a rocket hit it. Kerry jumped ashore to chase a Viet Cong with a rocket launcher and killed him. SBVT says Kerry simply shot a wounded teenager in the back. Former Lieut. Commander George Elliott, Kerry's direct superior, said in a recent affidavit that he wouldn't have awarded Kerry a Silver Star if he had known the details.

THE EVIDENCE Kerry's crewmates say the boat was in clear danger. Besides, Kerry won the medal for leadership during the whole battle, and Elliott describes the entire episode in the citation he wrote. Elliott later told the Boston Globe he had made a terrible mistake in signing the affidavit. Then he signed a new affidavit standing behind the first. When newspapers questioned Kerry's account in 1996, Elliott went to Boston to uphold it. The commander of one of the other two boats, Chicago Tribune editor William Rood, corroborated Kerry's story last week.



THE CHARGE Kerry lied to get his Bronze Star. On March 13, 1969, five swift boats were patrolling the Bay Hap River when a mine detonated under one of them. Kerry and Green Beret Jim Rassmann, aboard other boats, claim gunfire started coming from the riverbank. After another blast knocked Rassmann overboard, Kerry pulled him onto his boat. Three members of SBVT, including Larry Thurlow, insist that there was no gunfire and that Kerry initially fled the scene, returning to help Rassmann only when it was clear there was no danger.

THE EVIDENCE The Navy also awarded Thurlow a Bronze Star that day, and his citation, signed by Elliott and uncovered by the Washington Post, reads, "All the boats came under small arms and automatic weapons fire from the river banks." A separate damage report mentions three bullet holes in Thurlow's boat.




THE CHARGE Kerry lied about spending Christmas Eve 1968 in Cambodia. In 1979 and 1986, Kerry recounted a mission in which he and his crew boated into neutral Cambodia. The Pentagon said at the time that Vietnam's neighbor was off limits, and Kerry said his mission was proof of Richard Nixon's dishonesty. Steven Gardner, the sole member of Kerry's crew to join the SBVT, says their boat was 50 miles from the Cambodian border that day.

THE EVIDENCE Kerry has no proof he entered Cambodia, though other U.S. forces certainly did. Two crew members have said the boat was near the border. Records show that the boat was about 50 miles south of Cambodia that morning. Kerry and his crew headed upriver and could have been at the border in two hours. On Christmas Eve, Nixon was President-elect; he would not be in the White House for a month. A Kerry campaign spokesman now says that Kerry might not have been in Cambodia that night but that he definitely went there on a mission.

Joey, you can post all you want on the issues but they do not matter at this point in time. This election is now about the fitness of Kerry to serve as President and CIC and until he releases all the records through the signing of Form 180 and puts this to rest, he will continue to slip in the polls.
I dont know that they are his to release. My assumption is that they are military documents, in the possession of the Military and as such its up to the pentagon to release them, not Kerry.

???

To my knowlege, Kerry hasnt refused to release them, but I might be wrong. If he has, show me where, otherwise we need to know why they havent been released.

There are some who claim Kerry has lied to get his medals, some say he hasnt lied, but inaccurate, others say he was truthful........ Who is to be believed? We have no way to know.

Want to talk about ability to lead? CIC Bush just fired one of his high level campaign people who was directly involved with the swift group, a direct violation of election law. Bush doesnt even know what his own campaign people are doing. Not exactly a great leadership quality in my book. As Truman used to say, the buck stops here.

To my knowlege, Kerry hasnt refused to release them, but I might be wrong. If he has, show me where, otherwise we need to know why they havent been released. Everyday he doesn't release them he is denying to do so.

There are some who claim Kerry has lied to get his medals, some say he hasnt lied, but inaccurate, others say he was truthful........ Who is to be believed? We have no way to know..Releasing the records will allow us to know.

Want to talk about ability to lead? CIC Bush just fired one of his high level campaign people who was directly involved with the swift group, a direct violation of election law. Bush doesnt even know what his own campaign people are doing. Not exactly a great leadership quality in my book. As Truman used to say, the buck stops here.Yes, leadership was again shown by Bush. Come on, an organization usually has hundreds even thousands of volunteers. I sent a written letter to G.W. telling him in the future to personally interview every single volunteer from every state and give them personal lie detectors tests (alla Meet the Parents), so as to avoid this situation in the future. http://www.lincolnvscadillac.com//images/icons/icon12.gif

http://www.swiftvets.com/images/Vets_after.jpg (http://www.swiftvets.com/index.php?topic=SwiftPhoto#)Touch the photo to see which Swift officers support John Kerry

The purpose of this photo is to correct the misleading use of our images -- against our will -- to further John Kerry's campaign.

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Everyday he doesn't release them he is denying to do so.
Your assuming he even can release anything -

Your assuming that he is the only one that would have to agree to release them -


Releasing the records will allow us to know.
SO - guilty until proven innocent?

Have you heard Kerry's own recorded account of the "Christmas Eve in Cambodia" story? It was "SEARED, SEARED" in his memory. I like a good exaggerated story just as much as the next guy, but not to be taken completely seriously. I'm not saying Kerry didn't rescue that guy when he fell overboard. I'm not saying Kerry is a criminal. But in my book, a "hero" doesn't boast about his heroic deeds by using them to seduce the public. And don't you agree that at least one, maybe even two of the purple hearts awarded was iffy? This is not a huge leap for people to question those events, especially since Kerry