McCain's thoughts. Funny, with Repubs, McCain is hated, adored, and then hated again. I'm gonna go with hated on this. McCain condemns anti-Kerry ads, calls on White House to follow suit - RON FOURNIER, AP Political Writer Thursday, August 5, 2004 (08-05) 10:20 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." 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://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/08/05/politics1020EDT0544.DTL&type=printable
not to demean kerry's service or anything, but it does look like there's been a bit of rewriting of history: http://www.spinsanity.org/post.html?2004_08_01_archive.html#109167970892274992 -- In his speech to the Democratic convention, vice presidential nominee Senator John Edwards, D-NC, was the latest figure to distort John Kerry's service record in Vietnam: When John Kerry graduated college, he volunteered for military service. He volunteered to go to Vietnam and to captain a swift boat, one of the most dangerous duties you could have. And as a result he was wounded and honored for his valor. Like many others who have made the same claim, Edwards' implication is misleading. As Chris Suellentrop pointed out on Slate, Kerry volunteered for swift boat duty before it became so dangerous. Here's how the Boston Globe recounted the story in its multi-part series on Kerry: Kerry initially hoped to continue his service at a relatively safe distance from most fighting, securing an assignment as "swift boat" skipper. While the 50-foot swift boats cruised the Vietnamese coast a little closer to the action than the Gridley had come, they were still considered relatively safe. "I didn't really want to get involved in the war," Kerry said in a little-noticed contribution to a book of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. "When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing." But two weeks after he arrived in Vietnam, the swift boat mission changed -- and Kerry went from having one of the safest assignments in the escalating conflict to one of the most dangerous. Under the newly launched Operation SEALORD, swift boats were charged with patrolling the narrow waterways of the Mekong Delta to draw fire and smoke out the enemy. Cruising inlets and coves and canals, swift boats were especially vulnerable targets. Kerry's biography on his campaign website (which Edwards echoed almost directly) promotes this confusion, citing the Globe's description of the revised mission of the swift boats and implying it was what the Massachusetts senator volunteered for: In 1968, John Kerry began his second tour of duty, and volunteered to serve on a swift boat, one of the most dangerous assignments of the war. Swift boats patrolled the narrow inlets and canals around the Mekong Delta 'to draw fire and smoke out the enemy,' according to the Boston Globe." In his convention speech, former President Bill Clinton also obscured what Kerry thought he was volunteering for, saying, "When they sent those swiftboats up the river in Vietnam and they told them their job was to draw hostile fire, to wave the American flag and bait the enemy to come out and fight, John Kerry said: Send me." And some journalists have also gotten the facts wrong. For instance, Bennett Roth of the Houston Chronicle, who wrote that "Kerry enlisted in the Navy after graduating from Yale in 1966 and requested to command a Swift boat, one of the more dangerous assignments during the war." Despite Kerry's decorated service record, the circumstances surrounding his request for swift boat duty should not be mischaracterized.
Poor basso, it must on a certain level distress him to have Dubya the awol little daddy's boy as his candidate. I think this is one of the reasons the conservos get so nutso about Kerry's heroism. No matter how manly Dubya acts while prancing at photo ops or while sending other people's kids to war, they know he was so cowardly in his own personal life. .
It must really piss of American soldiers to be constantly referred to as "kids" by so many of the people that they are defending. Michael Moore goes with the more formal "children." I heard that Kerry's enlistment in the Navy (relatively safe duty) was to avoid the draft (relatively risky duty).
It's just a question I ask that I never get an answer to when conservatives try to belittle Kerry's volunteering to go to Vietnam. Where was Walker Bush?
Absolutely not. Criticism is fine. Illegitimate criticism, from people who didn't serve with Kerry or those that try and paint the folks who awarded medals in a bad light, isn't ok. So far all of the criticism like this ad would fall into the reprehensible category. Name one piece of legitimate criticism of Kerry's service in Viet Nam.
So how do you explain that he asked to be transferred from the relatively safe posting he got to the highly dangerous posting on a swift boat?
I heard that republicans hate Kerry and will say any vile, disgusting thing that is necessary regardless of its truth so that their defective, failure of a president can stay in office and continue his policies that favor their own interests. That's what I heard.
Really? Well facts such as Kerry volunteering to go overseas rather than stay stateside might contradict what you HEARD. Facts like Kerry volunteering to live the larger vessel at sea and instead command swift boats in the delta might contradict what you heard about a man wanting to avoid the draft.
You are way off and you most certainly know it. That quote is about criticizing the President for the decisions he makes as President. That isn't what you are doing. You do know about criticizing the President though because I'm sure you are quick to call people unamerican for questioning the decisions that Bush makes. Now it's known as Bush bashing. "I don't think we should have gone to Iraq." "When will the Bush bashing end?" "I'm just saying I disagree with his decision." "You libs make me sick with you mud slinging politics!"
I heard that when Kerrry volunteered for the swift boats, they were assigned duty off the coast of Viet Nam. In the interim, their duty changed to one more dangerous and hazardous on the delta. Is that not true? I'm only asserting that that is what I heard. And what about the volunteerism... so he wouldn't be drafted. Is that a lie or possibly the truth?
