This poor, pitiful attempt to smear Kerry is really unravel ling. The
*one* guy that the Smear Boat group had who actually served aboard
Kerry's boat, is Steve Gardner, who served as a gunner on Kerry's
boat. This is the guy who has been trotted out as *the guy* with all
this first hand experience. The only problem? It turns out that he
was NEVER present during even ONE of the incidents in question.
Of course he has been quoted by many of the other "hearsay...wasn't
there" witnesses, but old Steve wasn't there. Lots of lies and
contradictions to explain, there Steve. Why don't you start in the
present and work your way back.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200408240001


"Gardner claimed to know that Kerry fled the scene on the river that
day while the other three boats stayed and that Kerry then "turned
around and came all the way back to pick up Mr. Rassmann that he had
thrown off his boat when he took off, when he fled down the canal."
But later in the show, Gardner admitted to not being present that day.
When Scarborough attempted to revisit the "March 13, 1969 incident,"
Gardner said, "I'm not going to deal with that. Because I wasn't
there."


Oh well, stories change with the passing of time. Take Adm Roy
Hoffmann, who on May 6, 2004 said:

Hoffman acknowledged he had no first-hand knowledge to discredit
Kerry's claims to valor and said that although Kerry was under his
command, he really didn't know Kerry much personally." [Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel]

Time passes...all the way to August 5, 2004 and the new story is...

August 5: Hoffman said, "I knew him well, because I operated very
closely with him and, uh, many of the operations, uh, most of the
operations were-were conducted with multiple boats" - a dramatic shift
from admitting no personal knowledge of Kerry three months earlier; it
went unchallenged by his host.

Perhaps he was influenced by some of the affidavits of others, who
weren't there either and also had no personal knowledge, like Steve
Gardner. "New evidence" as Dave likes to call it.

These guys are really floundering in their own lies and fabrications.
Someone toss them a PFD...no, make it an anchor.