Every Single Commanding Officer of Kerry Says He is UNFIT TO LEAD

Sam,

BTW:

Thanks for being civil. I usually don't come over to the D&D, but since you have been civil, its not so bad.

We're probably in the wrong thread too.

 

OK.

Please explain... it certainly looks like documents and tapes in the National Archives show Colson pushing O'Neill out there in 1971.

Here are some passages from a recent Houston Chron article...

"In 1971, O'Neill squared off against Kerry on the Dick Cavett Show in a 90-minute, televised forum in which the two Vietnam War veterans sparred over the U.S. role in Southeast Asia.

"President Nixon and top aide Charles W. Colson had taken a keen interest in O'Neill as part of their effort to discredit Kerry and the anti-war movement, according to memos and tapes in the National Archives. A clean-cut Naval Academy graduate, O'Neill was viewed by Nixon's team as an effective messenger against Kerry, who was causing the administration headaches as the leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

and another...

"In a series of memos, Nixon aide Colson, who later went to prison for his role in the Watergate scandal, referred to the administration's efforts to promote O'Neill and to challenge Kerry to debate him.

"On June 15, 1971, Colson noted that Kerry first turned down a debate offer with O'Neill and that he was 'beginning to take a tremendous beating in the press.'

"'Let's destroy this young demagogue before he becomes another Ralph Nader,' Colson wrote about Kerry."

By the way, it seems O'Neill arrived in Vietnam 11 months after Kerry left. While not explicitly saying so, he certainly spends a lot of time implying that he served with Kerry. Here's a quote form a CNN appearance...

"'I saw some war heroes ... John Kerry is not a war hero ... He couldn't tie the shoes of some of the people in Coastal Division 11."

The first page on their website says "Houston, Austin, Dallas" but I'll give you that one. I take it that you concur with the rest of Conason's description... this is an important point because O'Neill has claimed he has not been approached by the Bush-Cheney campaign. Given the relationships Conason describes, that assertion certainly doesn't pass the smell test.

Not really. Most of the serious players in this forum know who Joe Conason is and what he's written... feel free to do so if you wish.

 

It's not a deduction -- it's a rebate. But anyway, you fail to recognize that your example works both ways.

If instead of paying nothing or receiving billions in tax rebates via the means of tax avoidance schemes and Bermuda incorporation, corporations actually paid taxes as stautorily required (which are significantly lower than most personal income taxes) , you and the general public as a whole would/could pay correspondingly less in income taxes (or if not, have less interest on crippling debt and fewer crowding out issues) and have more money to spend on consumption.

This demand stimulus would in turn eventually work it's way back to the corporation and stimulate the economy as a whole -- and probably in a much quicker fashion.


EDIT: yes we are in the wrong thread, but this thing was going nowhere anyway.

 

We *had* a strong economy.

 

Oh, the irony here is staggering.
Kerry may lose the election if Nadir doesn't pull out... if it's as close in key states as it could be.

 

Then the internet bubble burst.

 

Ummm he may have voted for Humphrey back in the 60's but he was a right wing operative, had close ties to the Nixon administration, and was registered as a Republican in 1998.


From http://mediamatters.org/

Who is John O'Neill?

CNN's Blitzer failed to probe partisan ties of Kerry critic

The May 4 Wall Street Journal editorial page featured an op-ed by John O'Neill about Senator John Kerry under the headline "Unfit to Serve." O'Neill is identified by the paper as having "served in Coastal Division 11 in 1969-1970, winning two Bronze Stars and additional decorations for his service in Vietnam." As Joe Conason wrote in Salon.com on May 4, O'Neill has long-standing ties to the GOP establishment, and O'Neill's own p.r. adviser has described O'Neill as sounding like "a crazed extremist."

O'Neill is one of several Vietnam veterans who have criticized Kerry and called into question the decorations he received for his service combat. O'Neill is associated with the newly formed group "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," which held a press conference on May 4 that was promoted by the Media Research Center's Cybercast News Service and highlighted by The Drudge Report on May 3. According to Cybercast News, "Hundreds of former commanders and military colleagues of presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry are set to declare in a signed letter that he is 'unfit to be commander-in-chief.'"

The Heritage Foundation's website Townhall.com became a vehicle for bringing O'Neill back to the current media spotlight. On April 2, Townhall.com published a syndicated column by Mona Charen -- and on April 8, David Horowitz's FrontPage Magazine published a timeline by Winter Solider.com -- both making brief mention of a 1971 debate between Kerry and O'Neill on The Dick Cavett Show in which O'Neill accused Kerry of lying about the activities and conduct of American military forces in Vietnam.

On April 20, O'Neill made his cable debut on CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports. During the interview, O'Neill said that John Kerry told "damaging lies" about war crimes in Vietnam. He said, "We know the truth and we know that [John Kerry] is unfit to be the commander in chief." O'Neill continued, "I think you'll find people are very, very angry at John Kerry. They remember his career in Vietnam as a short, controversial one. And they believe only Hollywood could turn this guy into a war hero. I saw some war heroes, Wolf. John Kerry is not a war hero. He couldn't tie the shoes of some of the people in Coastal Division 11."

Though Blitzer acknowledged that questions were likely to be raised about whether O'Neill was speaking out against Kerry for political reasons, Blitzer conceded that he had not looked into O'Neill's partisan affiliations. "Maybe you're a Republican -- I have no idea -- or the Bush people are encouraging you," Blitzer said.

Houston lawyer John O'Neill is a Republican -- as the Houston Chronicle noted the day after O'Neill's interview with Blitzer. According to the paper, O'Neill voted in the 1998 Republican state primary. But O'Neill's ties to the Republican Party extend far beyond party affiliation. During the CNN interview, Blitzer reported that former President Richard Nixon had urged O'Neill to publicly counter Kerry on The Dick Cavett Show, but there is more to the story. O'Neill was a creation of the Nixon administration, as Joe Klein detailed in the January 5 issue of The New Yorker. Former Nixon special counsel Chuck Colson told Klein that Kerry was an "articulate" and "credible leader" of those veterans calling for an end to the Vietnam War and therefore "an immediate target of the Nixon Administration."

As such, the Nixon administration found it necessary to "create a counterfoil" to Kerry. Colson recounted, "We found a vet named John O'Neill and formed a group called Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace. We had O'Neill meet the President, and we did everything we could do to boost his group."

Articles from the April 21 Houston Chronicle and the June 17, 2003, Boston Globe confirm close ties between O'Neill and the Nixon administration.

Beyond his role in the Nixon administration's strategy to undermine Kerry in the 1970s, O'Neill is also connected to Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist (a Nixon appointee) and to former President George H.W. Bush, according to Houston Chronicle articles from March 31 and April 21. In the late 1970s, O'Neill clerked for Rehnquist; in 1990, according to an October 7, 1991, report by Texas Lawyer, the former President Bush considered O'Neill for a federal judgeship vacancy.

Media Matters for America will be monitoring media coverage of today's "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" activities and will issue an updated report

 

Eternal meaning continuing indefinitely. I don't think a 33 year hiatus qualifies, do you? If there is any evidence that O'Neill has been politically active in the interim, I am sure you will find it.

But let's cut to the chase. I believe that Kerry lied about what happened in Vietnam, slandering good soldiers in the process, for personal and political gain. O'Neill, and for that matter, Steve Hayes, agree with me. Do you agree or disagree? If you disagree, feel free to parse Steve Hayes' credentials.

As for your rolleyes, if you think the only propoganda machine in this country is on the right, feel free to drink as much of that coolaid as you like.

 

I believe that Kerry lied about what happened in Vietnam, slandering good soldiers in the process, for personal and political gain.

Do you think the Bush administration is doing the same? Rumsfeld called the actions of some American soldiers "un-American" today. Or do you think abuses happened here, but not at all in Vietnam - a place where we had draftees instead of professional soldiers, and in far more dangerous/unstable situations?

 

I feel certain abuses happened in Vietnam - why would it be different from any other war?

My problem with Kerry is that I feel that he made sweeping and general accusations for personal and political gain. If he really witnessed the things he said he did, he should have made specific charges against specific people. I believe Kerry has now somewhat backed off those earlier charges (I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong), but he remains responsible for what he did.

As far as the Bush administration and what is happening in Iraq, it sickens and infuriates me, but it doesn't change my opinion of Kerry.

 

IF you really listened to what Kerry said back then, and not just picked up on some comments made by people who attack him you'd realize he wasnt blasting his FELLOW soldiers but the men who sent them over there and those that allowed "free fire zones".

 

If you really read what I wrote, I said Kerry made unfounded accusations for personal and political gain. Kerry has subsequently admitted that some of his stories were "unsubstantiated." Nice word.

The fact is, regardless of his intent, FELLOW soldiers such as John O'Neill and Steve Hayes (and I am sure many others) took offense to his accusations. Now John Kerry even admits that he wished he had handled it differently, but that doesn't absolve him for what he did to his FELLOW soldiers then.

 

How did he personally gain by putting himself out there over a controversial issue. He lost his first election because he got pounded by the local press. He could have just come back from war, made a few comments to get in the paper, and leave it at that. Either way, he apologized to anyone who misconstrued what he said, and wished he hadnt use that language so they wouldnt have. John O'neill is now a pawn in the Bush campaign who are using the same people they did when they smeared John McCain.

By the way, you can make your points without trying to use words that I wrote against me, that's just childish.

 

Two serious questions:


1) Do you have anything of substance to support this take, or is it a hunch/feeling kind of thing?

2) If the answer to aboe is no, or merely that others have had the same 'feeling', considering that we're talking about the private motivations for a decorated war hereoes decision to criticize the war in which he repeatedly risked his life in a way most of us will never know, do you concede that your hunch in no way should supercede his expressed motivations under any kind of objective examination?

 

I was just having a little fun with your capitalization. No offense intended.

 

Totally a hunch.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, due to my extreme disappointment with Bush, I was really hoping I could vote for Kerry, but his actions post war are just too difficult for me to swallow. I might feel differently if he would sack up and give a manly apology, but that's just a Pipe dream.

 

Via Kevin Drum...
_________________
"ON JOHN KERRY'S BOAT"....Over at The Campaign Desk, Thomas Lang has some questions about the Wall Street Journal editorial page and its journalistic ethics. It turns out that today they finally ran their eagerly-awaited hatchet job against John Kerry from Vietnam vet/Republican shill John O'Neill, who, despite his "reluctance to become involved once again in politics," apparently decided his conscience wouldn't let him rest until he told the world the truth: Kerry is unfit to be America's commander in chief. Why? Because he dislikes some of Kerry's testimony about the Vietnam War 30 years ago.

Right. But we were talking about journalistic ethics, weren't we? Lang, it turns out, read the print (!) edition of the WSJ this morning and noted that the editors had added something to O'Neill's contribution to the public discourse: a pull quote designed to break up the masses of gray type. And he had a problem with that pull quote. Unfortunately, he said, "We can't show you the print edition of the Journal." Here at the Washington Monthly, though, thanks to the miracle of affordable personal computer technology, we can. So here it is.

Lang, nitpicker that he is, had two problems:

It's not actually a quote from anywhere in the article. Which, really, it ought to be. Since they put it between quote marks and all.

It's obviously designed to catch the attention of readers who don't actually read the article and fool them into thinking that O'Neill served alongside John Kerry. Saw him in action. Knew him personally back in the day.

Nope. "On Mr. Kerry's boat" turns out to mean that after Kerry left Vietnam O'Neill happened to get assigned to the boat that Kerry had previously commanded. See? "On Mr. Kerry's boat." Cute, isn't it?

Anyway, I apologize for using the phrases "Wall Street Journal editorial page" and "journalistic ethics" in the same sentence above. That's clearly an abuse of the English language.

 

Maybe Kerry left the toilet seat up in the boat after O'Neill took command?

Since O'Neill has no partisan motives I can only speculate...

 

Thanks rim, for trying to help inject some integrity into this whole mess.

It's funny that those who served under Kerry all support him(with one exception) as a leader, but those who institigated the policies of free-fire zones, and ordered others to be carry out those policies are the ones upset at Kerry.

I'm sure it only has to do with Kerry's ability to lead, and not the fact that Kerry came back to the U.S. and exposed those policies and orders, and made thes folks look bad.

 

And you (as well as the mindless millions you cite) are going to have to have a LOT of children to pass this debt on to.

Don't you get it? This money isn't free. We are paying interest on that money and it is adding to the debt which stands at over 7 TRILLION dollars (see GVs post for exact number). Our children are going to have to pay for your mantra of "screw you, I got mine."