John Forbes Kerry Refuses to Release Military Records

Does anyone else even get what he's going for here?

Is he saying that's not what lowest common denominator means, or what?

 

I have found that _ has one of the worst cases of selective perception that I have ever seen. Apparently he has selective interpretation, too.

 

Sometimes I can't figure out if he misses really obvious stuff on purpose, to avoid acknowledging his error, or simply because he just doesn't know any better.

Btw; did you get my E-Mail?

And...heh...did you like your portrayal in the interview?

 

FBI files on Kerry released...
____________

1970s FBI file pegs Kerry as moderate

By CALVIN WOODWARD
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

WASHINGTON -- The FBI, closely tracking the anti-war movement in the 1970s, concluded John Kerry was a glib, moderate figure in a Vietnam veterans group that took a radical turn around the time he left it, documents show.

The FBI file on Vietnam Veterans Against the War says the organization swung toward "militant and revolutionary-type activities" but accuses Kerry, now the Democratic presidential candidate, of little more than charisma.

The bureau's more than four-year investigation of the organization - everything from its plots to pot luck suppers - is detailed in more than 21,000 pages released Wednesday under a Freedom of Information Act request from The Associated Press.

An FBI summary of the anti-war protests Kerry helped organize in April 1971 says the decorated war hero "overshadowed" many of the organization's other leaders and was "a more popular and eloquent figure" than the rest.

"Kerry was glib, cool, and displayed just what the moderate elements wanted to reflect," the summary says.

Although the FBI was watching Kerry and the other protesters earlier in 1971, it placed the group under active investigation in August of that year following reports from many field offices that members were "engaging in illegal and subversive activities," an FBI memo says. Kerry left the group before the end of 1971 and was not implicated in violent activities or conspiracies attributed to other members in the file.

That memo, which does not mention Kerry, says that in 1972, the group "moved toward increased militant and revolutionary-type activities in addition to continued cooperation with communist-dominated groups and foreign elements hostile to the U.S."

By then, Kerry had moved on to an ill-fated run for a seat in Congress. A newspaper clipping in the FBI file notes his move to politics.

The FBI memo - the names of the sender and recipient are blacked out - asserts that the investigation of the group was never directed or influenced by the Nixon White House. This, despite known efforts by Nixon's aides to discredit Kerry.

Campaigning Wednesday in Los Angeles, Kerry welcomed the release of the records.

"I think it's great," he said. "I'm very proud of my efforts to end the war. I welcome anybody's perusal of them. I'm proud that I stood up to Richard Nixon. And you know, I personally have also requested those documents. So I'm happy to have them out there. It's terrific."

Kerry is mentioned only sporadically in the file, most of which covers the group's activities from 1972 to 1975. During that time, the FBI told field offices to recruit informants among the organization's members.

In one document, the FBI field office in Pittsburgh notes that Kerry spoke at the University of Pittsburgh on Nov. 3, 1971. "The essence of Kerry's speech was to condemn those who did not get involved in social change," the FBI memo says. "He urged those present to make a conscientious commitment to end the war."

An April 12, 1971, FBI memo from Baltimore quotes a confidential source as saying that Kerry had been telling members of the group that "Congress is prepared to listen" to their anti-war agenda but cautioned that it was critical that the coming demonstrations remain nonviolent. Kerry was on the group's national steering committee at the time.

Another FBI memo describes in detail the medals Kerry won as a Navy lieutenant in Vietnam and noted he was a Yale graduate who was named class orator in 1966.

In contrast, others members of the group were accused of conspiracy to riot during the 1972 Republican National Convention, of passing classified information to a Japanese communist leader, and various acts of violence. A Connecticut member was arrested with an explosive device en route to a speech given by Vice President Spiro Agnew.

More benign activities were tracked, too.

One "confidential" memo reports that the St. Louis chapter has begun meeting every other week, "with the business meeting first followed by pot luck dinner which is then followed by a political education rap session."

 

It is powerful to hear John Kerry contradict himself, in his own words.

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It's depressing to hear Bush either contradict himself or the truth every time he opens his mouth. I can fill a couple of pages with this stuff. Name a topic any topic relevant to the Presidency.



Topic: September 11th

Speaker: Bush, George - President

Date: 4/13/2004

Quote/Claim:
"There was nobody in our government, at least, and I don't think the prior government that could envision flying airplanes into buildings." [Source: White House Web site]

Fact:
"U.S. and Italian officials were warned in July that Islamic terrorists might attempt to kill President Bush and other leaders by crashing an airliner into the Genoa summit of industrialized nations, officials said Wednesday." - LA Times, 9/27/01 "Despite official assertions that the U.S. had little reason to suspect before Sept. 11 that airliners would be used as weapons, there is new evidence that the federal government had on several earlier occasions taken elaborate, secret measures to protect special events from just such an attack...on several occasions starting in the mid-1990s, U.S. intelligence agencies had passed on information concerning such a possibility, including early plans by al Qaeda officials to use passenger jets as kamikaze weapons, according to records and current and former government officials." - WSJ, 4/1/04 "Two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, an analysis prepared for U.S. intelligence warned that Osama bin Laden's terrorists could hijack an airliner and fly it into government buildings like the Pentagon." - CBS News, 5/17/02


opic: September 11th

Speaker: Bush, George - President

Date: 4/13/2004

Quote/Claim:
"And the answer is that had I had any inkling whatsoever that the people were going to fly airplanes into buildings, we would have moved heaven and earth to save the country, just like we're working hard to prevent a further attack." [Source: White House Web site]

Fact:
"In April and May 2001, for example, the intelligence community headlined some of those reports 'Bin Laden planning multiple operations,' 'Bin Laden network's plans advancing' and 'Bin Laden threats are real.' The intelligence included reports of a hostage plot against Americans. It noted that operatives might choose to hijack an aircraft or storm a U.S. embassy." - Washington Post, 4/14/04 Before 9/11 "a regional sector of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) simulated a foreign hijacked airliner crashing into a building in the United States as part of training exercise scenario." - CNN, 4/19/04 "U.S. and Italian officials were warned in July of 2001 that Islamic terrorists might attempt to kill President Bush and other leaders by crashing an airliner into the Genoa summit of industrialized nations." - LA Times, 9/27/01


Topic: Environment

Speaker: Bush, George - President

Date: 4/22/2004

Quote/Claim:
"In the years since Earth Day was established, America has made great strides in honoring the ideal of conservation and living by high standards of stewardship." [Source: White House Web site]

Fact:
"Three years into the current administration, the trend in environmental regulation is sledgehammer clear: this administration is the worst steward of the environment ever. So bad is the record, so long the list of environmental depredations, that it is difficult to pick the worst. The administration has gutted rules limiting deadly air pollution; undone protections against the filth of factory farms; proposed allowing industry to buy and sell permits to emit mercury, a known poison; slashed protections for the most pristine of our publicly owned forests; sought to permit oil-drilling in the crown jewel of the American wildlife refuge system; and more. " - Lisa Heinzerling, 2/25/04


Topic: Military/Troops

Speaker: Bush, George - President

Date: 8/20/2001

Quote/Claim:
"Veterans are a priority for this administration... and that priority is reflected in my budget." [Source: White House Web site]

Fact:
The President's 2004 budget request for the Veterans Administration will effectively cut spending for its already-stretched health care system. Because of increased medical costs at an above-inflation rate of 4.7% and increased enrollment of 8%, the American Legion calculates that Bush's 2004 request "comes $1.9 billion short of maintaining an inadequate status quo." - American Legion Magazine, May, 2003 "Hundreds of sick and wounded U.S. soldiers including many who served in the Iraq war are languishing in hot cement barracks at Ft. Stewart, Georgia, while they wait, sometimes for months, to see doctors." - UPI, 11/5/03 A task force commissioned by the President found that federal funding for former soldiers has plummeted from almost $15,000 to less than $5,000 over the past decade, while over 235,000 veterans "are currently waiting six months or more for an initial appointment." - NYT, 8/14/02


Speaker: Bush, George - President

Date: 1/8/2002

Quote/Claim:
“The federal government will not micromanage how schools are run. We believe strongly—we believe strongly the best path to education reform is to trust the local people.” [Source: White House Web site]

Fact:
The Republican controlled Virginia House of Delegates testified to the way the law has struck states. They drafted a resolution noting that the No Child Left Behind Bill "represents the most sweeping intrusions into state and local control of education in the history of the United States." The House passed a resolution calling on Congress to exempt states like Virginia from the program's requirements in a 98-1 vote. - Washington Post, 1/23/04


Speaker: Bush, George - President

Date: 1/5/2004

Quote/Claim:
"Title I money [for disadvantaged students] is up." [Source: White House Web site]

Fact:
The President proposed slashing 82% of the proposed growth of Title I. Instead of a $5.65 billion increase in Title I called for in “No Child Left Behind” the President's budget provided an increase of only $1 billion - with most of that $1 billion “increase” coming through terminations of other programs directed at the same needy schools.



Speaker: Bush, George - President

Date: 1/3/2003

Quote/Claim:
“I wanted to make sure that our soldiers had the best possible pay.”

Fact:
“The Bush administration announced that on Oct. 1 it wants to roll back recent modest increases in monthly imminent-danger pay (from $225 to $150) and family-separation allowance (from $250 to $100) for troops getting shot at in combat zones.” - Army Times, 6/30/03


Date: 2/27/2001

Quote/Claim:
"For lower-income families, my tax plan restores basic fairness." [Source: White House Web site]

Fact:
The data now clearly shows the Administration's tax cuts were overwhelmingly skewed towards the wealthy: By 2010, the top 1% - who make an average of $1 million - will have received more than $1 trillion in new tax breaks, and will have received over half of all the Bush tax cuts ever passed (this might explain why four in five Americans say they have felt no tax relief).


Date: 10/17/2003

Quote/Claim:
"If this were a spending contest, I would come in second. I readily admit I'm not going to grow the size of the federal government like [Gore] is." [Source: Debate transcript]

Fact:
"The numbers are astonishing. Congress is now spending money like a drunken sailor. And I've never known a sailor, drunk or sober, with the imagination that this Congress has." - John McCain (R-AZ), Fox News, 11/30/03 "Conservative Republican frustration over the failure of the Bush administration and the House Republican leadership to restrain federal spending has boiled over in recent days, producing a rare confrontation between GOP lawmakers and party leaders." - The Hill, 12/3/03




Date: 10/17/2003

Quote/Claim:
"The force must be strong enough so that the mission can be accomplished." [Source: White House Web site]

Fact:
According to testimony from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 10/16/03 the Bush Administration had deployed 1 soldier for every 189 people in Iraq, and 1 soldier for every 1,913 people in Afghanistan. Both were dramatically worse ratios than Kosovo (1 per 48), Bosnia (1 per 58) and East Timor (1 per 86)--the deployments of the Clinton years which Bush maligned during his campaign.



Date: 1/27/2002

Quote/Claim:
"I've been to war. I've raised twins. If I had a choice, I'd rather go to war." [Source: AP]

Fact:
President Bush has not been to war. Bush was a member of the Texas Air National Guards between May 1968 and October 1973 and never left the country in relation to his duties. He was discharged 8 months before his six year term expired. "During his fifth year as a guardsman, Bush's records show no sign he appeared for duty." Such a "war" - Boston Globe, 5/23/00



Quote/Claim:
"And as to whether or not I make decisions based upon polls, I don't. I just don't make decisions that way...If I tried to fine-tune my messages based upon polls, I think I'd be pretty ineffective." [Source: White House Web site]

Fact:
"One [White House] adviser said the White House had examined polling and focus group studies in determining that it would be a mistake for Mr. Bush to appear to yield" and apologize for mistakes. - NY Times, 4/15/04

 

HAHAHA Bush never went to Vietnam, how could he release his records.

 

Keep it up Woofer, I haven't seen one response to the contradictions you've posted in either of the threads so far that challenges any of them as being inaccurate.

You're aim is dead on with this stuff.

 

If you earn a medal, its yours to do with what you will. I don't think its disrespectful to discard your own medals in protest. In fact, the right to protest the decisions of our leaders is one of the freedoms brave soldiers like Kerry fought to protect.

 

What kind of mamsy-pamsy tree-hiugging convention did you steal that slogan from? Our soldiers do what they're told, and when they stop fighting, you think that they should suddenly stop following orders? Treat the directives of their leaders as just an option, one among many!?!?

I'm not saying that people shouldn't decide that wars are always fought for the right reasons; it's just that they should do it quietly and in their own homes, in such a way as to garner no attention or make no difference. Additionally, it should be a prerequisite that people who have fought in wars should never be allowed to then criticize them, but should leave those kinds of decisions to people who've never seen a war first hand, and gotten all muddled up. Our currentl eladership is a prime example of the kind of clear thinking untroubled by experience that I'm talking about. Cheney was the man who had the clearest vision for this war, and his vision is matched by his foresight, as is evident by all the deferals; obviously he knew that actual combat would just get in the way. Same goes for Bush, and so many others. No wonder they ignore Powell when it comes to war. Not his area of expertise;if only he'd concentrate on knitting, or something.