QandO

...and I thought the first ad was devastating.

I had an idea SBVFT was not a one-hit wonder. Kerry In Wonderland was just Round 1. This is BY FAR worse.

If there is an ounce of moral honesty in a person who sees this, he will put himself in the striped pajamas of the POWs for just a few minutes, and get an idea of what is was like for these brave men to learn what Kerry had done. To imagine what it was like to be beaten, abused, starved, deprived of the most basic medical care. To be constantly assaulted by mental as well as physical torture to betray your country by "confessing" to war crimes.

And always there is the temptation to give in; just to make the beatings stop, just to get a little more rice, just to be allowed to sleep, wash, brush your teeth. But no, you are an American fighting man, and you have your duty and your honor, and a country that honors you in return. To give in and sign a confession would be to betray your country, to abandon your duty. So you hold on. And the brutality continues.

And then, one day, having resisted it all, your vicious North Vietnamese interrogator is all smiles and solicitude. He opens a folder and takes out a photograph and a news clippingsm not from "Pravda", but from The New York Times". It's a story about a young U.S. naval officers shocking testimony before Congresss. And then the smiling interrogator starts playing the recording of the offcier's testimony. He laughs as you weep in shame and impotent rage...

How can John Kerry sleep?

Posted by: Jumbo at August 20, 2004 09:48 PM

Actually, there does seem to be some "controversy over what John Kerry may or may not have said in this ad" according to PBS! I just finished watching a woman interviewed on a PBS show called NOW who is some director of a media firm (I'll try to find more specifics online later) -- I was flipping channels and stopped because they were talking about the swiftvet ads, among others.

She said that the swiftvets were unfairly taking Kerry's senate testimony out of context and that we should watch the whole thing. I agreed with the "watch the whole thing" part and wondered if the Kerry campaign would post the video on his web site. You know...so we could see it in context.

BTW, the host doing the interview made some comments about how we couldn't really contradict Kerry's service claims because so much was based on the memory of the swiftvets. She replied that the swiftvets had altered memories because they were trying to reconcile with their pain and were punishing Kerry. I kept wondering if they were going to tell us about her psychology credentials, but they never did.

Posted by: JWG at August 20, 2004 10:31 PM

I find this ad to be even more powerful than the first, due to the quote that Beldar used: "[Kerry] gave the enemy for free what I and many of my comrades in North Vietnam, in the prison camps, took torture to avoid saying."

That puts a name, a face and something tangible to the "Kerry betrayed his comrades" meme. It resonates with me, and I graduated from high school in 1976. To me, it goes beyond the proverbial knife in the gut and kick in the balls: it's rhetorical castration.

BTW, did you know that John Kerry served in Vietnam? Which side was he on, you ask? Why, both, of course.

Posted by: Roofer at August 20, 2004 10:38 PM

Here's more detail about my post from above from the PBS website. The interviewer was David Brancaccio and the media expert was Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. I haven't found a transcript and I don't know if they post one. But it would be interesting to see again because I didn't get the impression they knew much about the substance of the swiftvet evidence.

And she certainly claimed that the swiftvets were distorting what Kerry said.

Posted by: JWG at August 20, 2004 11:30 PM

....we couldn't really contradict Kerry's service claims because so much was based on the memory of the swiftvets. She replied that the swiftvets had altered memories because they were trying to reconcile with their pain and were punishing Kerry.

What logic (or lack thereof)! Using the same logic, we can't believe a word of what Kerry says because his memory is altered from trying to reconcile his pain.

Posted by: Steverino at August 20, 2004 11:46 PM

JWG: Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center.

Also known as "FactCheck.org". Supposedly a non-partisan fact checking organization. They've been anything but unbiased and nonpartisan on this particular subject.

We ripped them a new one on one of their "factchecks" concerning the Swift Boat Vets.

You can read it here.

Posted by: McQ at August 20, 2004 11:54 PM

JWG
here's the Congressional Record transcript of Kerry's testimony.
http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/index.php?topic=Testimony

Posted by: Chris B at August 21, 2004 12:11 AM

"there does seem to be some "controversy over what John Kerry may or may not have said in this ad"

Not really. I've seen a reference to soembody in MSM trying to carry water for Kerry by raising this red herring as a conclusory statement by saying the SBVFT ad misled by making it appear that Kerry was the one making the accusations. smacks hand to forehead Well, yaah! I've seen no explanation as to who was really making the accusation if not Kerry: the Bilderburgers, the Masons, The TriPartite Commission, etc.

They didn't say it, but I can only guess the reference is to the immediate preface to the "cut off heads" shopping list of atrocity, in which Kerry said that recently (1970) 150 Vietnam vets (I wonder how many actually served?) had met with his group, VVAW, I think in Detroit, and told him about atrocities that he lists. (I don't think this was the 1971 meeting in Kansas City which he attended; that was the one in which several members were advocating the assassinations of US senators. Not saying, "wouldn't it be neat", but "Let's do this.") But in the Senate testimony he made very clear he knew first-hand about atrocities (I wonder if he was counting the curfew-breakers and the baby that he lit up on the river, or the ville he Zippoed?) It is beyond insulting to suggest that he was not vouching for the authenticity of the stories, or that he was not making an absolute accusation that the US to the very highest levels knew about reguarly occuring atrocites, and that the policy was, at a minimim, to tolerate them. The papers are doing his parsing for him.

But do you know the simplest way to determine whether Kerry meant to accuse the entire MACV?...He never limited his accusation, he never said "some". He meant to indict all as being part of a morally corrupt military in a morally corrupt war fought by a morally corrupt US.

Posted by: Jumbo at August 21, 2004 12:27 AM

Ouch.

Hopefully someone buys a 30 minute infomercial spot and plays the whole Kerry testimony.

Posted by: ed at August 21, 2004 01:10 AM

The full context of Kerry's testimony make it clear that some of what he says is secondhand. He had attended a conference of antiwar vets, and he had heard some of it from other vets, etc. It makes absolutely no difference to me though: he's the guy testifying before congress, he clearly believes in what he is transmitting, and he is grandstanding on the backs of his captured comrades.

Kerry's bizarre insistence on running so strongly on his personal Vietnam mythology combined with the POW issue has the potential to turn the 2004 election into a referendum on the Vietnam war. I think that has a lot to say about John Kerry. Does he feel guilty about his 1970's senate testimony? Would his winning an election with this issue out there offer personal validation somehow, perhaps by vindicating his earlier strident Vietnam antiwar stance?

I disagree that this ad is worse than the last one in a strategic sense because todays antiwar audience will see the snippets of John Kerry's antiwar preening before congress and actually agree with it. Look at how today's antiwar movement has seized upon Abu Ghraib, which in the way of atrocities only had prisoners being posed for photographs. The SBVT commercial just confirms their belief that the American military is always evil, imperialist, etc., and it does it with hints of even darker crimes. It will tend to bind the antiwar crowd even more tightly to Kerry even as it binds veterans groups more closely with Bush. I haven't seen any numbers on the subject, but I guess it is a wash. If anything, that just about proves that professional campaigners like the Bush campaign are not "coordinating" with SBVT.

In broad terms, John Kerry is subtly trying to link today's antiwar movement with that of yesteryear. Kerry is trying to get Americans to look at the current conflict in Iraq through the medium of Vietnam, which is probably how he looks at it. And the SBVT made their recent ad in response to Kerry. Given the specific subject matter, they had to, almost as a matter of physics.

Posted by: pdq332 at August 21, 2004 09:16 AM

I was able to tape the Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson interview on PBS overnight. I was astounded by the following two comments made by her (among many others):

"The Washington Post and New York Times have done a very good job of getting to what we can reasonably get to in the record."

"They thought they heard him accusing them of atrocities...To make their own internal story coherent about Vietnam they have to somehow reconcile what they heard as an attack on them...which is different actually, I believe, than what Kerry said..."

Both these comments were in the context of making this a battle of memories. This ignores, of course, the already discovered lies about Christmas in Cambodia and the Alston/Kerry connections, which was never mentioned...because, you know, The WaP and NYT have already figured everything out.

Posted by: JWG at August 21, 2004 09:20 AM

1 -

From 1970-2003, Kerry lied - ON THE RECORD, IN PRINT AND ON THE SENATE FLOOR - about being ordered MILES into Cambodia.

If he lied about that, isn't it REASONABLE to ASSUME that HE'D LIE AND EMBELLISH, EXAGGERATE, AND DISTORT about his medals - including taking credit for actions aboard a swiftboat that he had not yet taken command of [Lt. Peck's swiftboat]?

These are NOT MERELY LIES ABOUT SEX.

2 -

The LIES KERRY TOLD slandered our armed forces, our national foreign policy, and our presidency.

Can there be any more damaging from of slander?

3 -

Weren't the LIES Kerry told a MAJOR PART of the Vietnam Syndrome - a weak and isolationist program which damaged the USA our allies and the entire Free World from 1975 until 1980 and the election of Reagan - which was a repudiation of the Vietnam Syndrome?

Doesn't Reagan's success (rebuilding the US economy, and demoralizing and de-fanging the USSR (which had been on the rise from 1975-1980) prove that Reagan's policies were right, and the Vietnam Syndrome wrong?

Knowing this, why do my fellow Democrats - those who unlike me are still on the Left - continue to champion Kerry - a PROVEN LIAR whose 24 year career in the Senate demonstrates that he has been, and STILL is, on the wrong side of nearly every national security issue?

WHY? Because the Left suffers from cognitive dissonance and the concomittant denial and anger that comes when one's deeply held convictions are shown to be utterly false and useless.

Rejection hurts, and the Left is in deep pain. Rather than accept that they were wrong and Reagan and GWBush right, they resort to irrational attacks: "Bushitler; AshKKKroft; the worst economy since Hoover." And so on...

The attacks on Kerry are very rational - FACTS are in dispute - but the Left doesn't want to deal with the facts; they just want to ignore them and shut down the debate.

4 -

Kerry was UNDENIABLY a LEADER of the anti-Vietnam War movement who lied and used lies to attck the USA. These lies led to what the LEFT still believes was its greatest victory: the withdrawal of US forces from Vietnam, and then the suspension of fiancial support for the South Vietnamese government.

Kerry STILL describes his involvement in the anti-Vietnam War movement as POSITIVE: claiming he helped end a war earlier than it might otherwise have ended, and bringing the boys home earlier than they might have come home.

IN FACT: our PREMATURE withdrawal of troops from Vietnam (1973), and Congress's dishonorable withdrawal of financial support from thre government of South Vietnam (1975) led directly to: the fall of that government - and the largest airlift of fleeing humans in history; 500,000 Vietnamese put in labor camps; 2,000,000 Vietnamese boat people (fleeing communist Vietnam-- interesting that NONE were entering Vietnam for free Marxist healthcare); the fall of Cambodia to Pol Pot - and his genocidal murder of 3,000,000. Also: another 500,000 boat people probably perished at sea!

AND NOW... instead of South Vietnam resembling South Korea, all of Vietnam resembles NORTH KOREA!

Question to Kerry and the anti-war Left: ARE YOU STILL PROUD OF YOUR ANTI-WAR efforts, NOW?!?

5 -

I remind you that in addition to SLANDERING the entire US armed forces in his SWORN TESTIMONY before the Senate on April 22, 1971, KERRY ALSO ARGUED THAT IT MADE NO DIFFERENCE TO THE USA OR TO THE VIETNAMESE IF VIETNAM WENT COMMUNIST!

Kerry was wrong.
Kerry has been given the chance many times, but he has never apologized or retracted his words.
The Left hasn't either.

Shame on Kerry.
Shame on the Left.

God Bless the vets, and those who today courageously serve in our armed forces.

Posted by: dan at August 21, 2004 11:09 AM

pdq332 said: "I disagree that this ad is worse than the last one in a strategic sense because todays antiwar audience will see the snippets of John Kerry's antiwar preening before congress and actually agree with it."

Those folks have ALWAYS been Kerry's. And their attitude will not change until they have many years of life and experience under their belts.

And as to the Annenberg Foundation's obejective stance? Let's put it like this: their idea of objectivity would be to say, "We can find no documentation to support the claims that President Bush ritually sacrificed and then roasted infants in the Oval Office. However, as always, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. "

Posted by: Jumbo at August 21, 2004 11:13 AM

BTW, the reason I find SBVFT Ad II more damaging, is that the medal/heroics flap reflects merely on Kerry's character; no one was actually harmed by his braggadoccio. But his arrogant comments before the Senate committee not only gave aid and comfort to an enemy that was still killing our boys, it was used like a sledgehammer on the morale and resistance of POWs who were already so brutally treated that Abu Ghraib would have been a joke to them. Panties and a dog collar, or having your captors taunt you with the "confessions" of a US naval officer who said that you were a sadistic butcher who committed war atrocities as a matter of policy? Bring! The Panties! On!

Posted by: Jumbo at August 21, 2004 11:25 AM

There is no defense that kerry can use. he is guilty by his own admission of committing war crimes, and giving aid to the enemy in time of war. As a Navy Vetnam Veteran I demand that he resign from all public office, and an investigation be conducted into the war crimes he openly admitts to partaking in. He returns all public monies he has taken from the taxpayers, and is locked away in a very small room reminicent of the Hanoi Hilton for the rest of his miserable life.

Would anyone care to volunteer to administer random beatings?

Posted by: JA Stratton at August 24, 2004 08:38 AM