Jonathan Ganz wrote:

Sure... except that Kerry and Bu**** are in a dead heat.

Nothing runs like a deer, except a coward like Bush.


Does Kerry have specific answers for specific questions about what he did
as a Swift Boat OIC?

He's been ducking the questions for the last month, sending out various
campaign flunkies (that weren't in Vietnam) to defend his medals and call
all the SBVT liars, but the flunkies have no specifics because they weren’t
there and don't know.

Kerry wrote most of the reports that the award citations are based on, and
his commanders took him at his word, but other eyewitnesses say his medal
citations are gross exaggerations of what really happened, designed to
guarantee that Kerry got medals for valor. The only reason the other Swift
Boat officers ever saw Kerry's citations is that his campaign book, Tour of
Duty, came out early this year and they were included in the book.

Does anybody care, or are all 250 "Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth" just
lying Republican shills? 250 liars? I don't think so.

This “on the boat”, or “not on the boat” is just distraction. Swift Boats
never operated alone on the Mekong River. They operated in close formation,
because you need backup when you hit a mine, or a grenade hits your rudder.
Without backup you get ambushed. That's why they operated in teams.

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

KERRY'S WAR VS. KERRY
New York Post
August 29, 2004 --

Former Navy Secretary John Lehman denied at week's end having
written the Silver Star citation that appears on John Kerry's
campaign Web site over Lehman's signature, dealing the Democrat's
presidential campaign another stunning blow.

Which makes us wonder: Does Kerry still believe that running on his
Vietnam will gain him the White House?

Kerry's Silver Star is the most prestigious of his Vietnam
decorations - it's the nation's third-highest for combat valor - but
there are at least three official versions of how he earned it.

The most recent - and the one with the most florid rhetoric -
allegedly was signed by Lehman. But the former Navy secretary told
the Chicago Sun-Times Friday: "I never saw it. I never signed it it.
I never approved it."

Nevertheless, there it is on Kerry's Web site, over Lehman's
signature.

It's a bewilderment, to put it mildly.

But not quite as mysterious as the Kerry Vietnam strategy itself.

Kerry has been hurt badly by the charges leveled by fellow Swift
boat vets, wounds that are entirely self-inflicted.

The vets were galvanized by the book "Tour of Duty," which is based
on Kerry's own self-promoting descriptions.

Some 250 or so "Swifties," who have been seething ever since Kerry's
1971 defamation of U.S. troops in Vietnam in the Senate, were moved
to respond.

Kerry could have denied their charges and dropped the subject. But
he upped the ante at every opportunity.

* Kerry won his primary victory over Howard Dean by pushing his
Vietnam War duty. Later he shaped his Democratic National Convention
themes around his war "heroism."

He began his convention speech by announcing: "I'm John Kerry -
reporting for duty."

In short, Kerry dared voters to judge him by his Vietnam experience.

* When the Swift-boat vets' ads began airing, Kerry escalated
further, demanding that they be removed. He challenged President
Bush to force the vets to stand down - and accused the vets of doing
Bush's "dirty work."

* Kerry also allowed one of his defenders, Washington lawyer Lanny
Davis, to go on TV and antagonize the Swifties further still.

But that attack backfired big-time by enraging a retired rear
admiral, William L. Schachte Jr. - a lieutenant on Kerry's boat when
the candidate allegedly received the wound that led to his first
Purple Heart.

Schachte told Post columnist Robert Novak that he had wanted to
remain uninvolved, but was moved by Davis to correct the record:
Kerry, said Schachte, "nicked himself with a [grenade launcher]" and
then "requested a Purple Heart."

Schachte's statements lends credibility to the Swift-boat vets'
version and put Kerry on the defensive yet again.

* Kerry's campaign Web site brags that he received a "Silver Star
with combat V." Yet Thomas Lipscomb, writing in The Chicago
Sun-Times, quotes a Navy spokesman disputing that: "The Navy has
never issued a 'combat V' to anyone for a Silver Star."

Adds Lipscomb: "Naval regulations do not allow for the use of a
'combat V' for the Silver Star, the third-highest decoration the
Navy awards. None of the other services has ever granted a Silver
Star 'combat V,' either."

That was the citation that Lehman disavowed Friday: "The language it
contains was not written by me."

Kerry's poll numbers are now falling. For the first time this year,
a Los Angeles Times poll, released at week's end, showed Bush
leading, 50-47. Another L.A. Times poll showed Bush moving ahead in
"battleground" states.

The numbers show serious damage to Kerry, particularly in the area
of character. A month ago, Kerry and Bush were tied on honesty and
integrity; Bush now leads, 46-39.

The Times poll also showed that the fraction of voters who feel that
Kerry's Vietnam experience demonstrates the qualities America needs
in a president dropped from 58 percent in June to 48 percent now.

Kerry can rail all he wants about the unfairness of criticism by the
Swift boat veterans. But to see who is ultimately responsible for
this controversy, Kerry should look in the mirror.


http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/27741.htm