#$%^&@*!!!!!!!!!

"I got a young man named George W. Bush in the National Guard when I was Lt. Gov. of Texas and I’m not necessarily proud of that. But I did it. And I got a lot of other people into the National Guard because I thought that was what people should do, when you're in office you helped a lot of rich people. And I walked through the Vietnam Memorial the other day and I looked at the names of the people that died in Vietnam and I became more ashamed of myself than I have ever been because it was the worst thing that I did was that I helped a lot of wealthy supporters and a lot of people who had family names of importance get into the National Guard and I’m very sorry about that and I’m very ashamed and I apologize to you as voters of Texas."

In summary, an individual admitted over the weekend that he pulled strings to get our current president into the National Guard, at the behest of a Bush family friend. In other words, some poor kid whose daddy wasn’t an Oil Tycoon was shipped off to fester in Vietnam so President Bush could play volleyball and use his uniform to pick up girls. You'd think this might make news, you know considering the scrutiny placed on Senator's Kerry's Vietnam record. You'd be wrong. MUST BE THAT LIBERAL MEDIA!!!!!!!

This makes me sick to my stomach...

Here is the actual video clip of former Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes. Check this video clip out.

Frat Boys for Truth!

"On 14th Street, I found George Grim, the founder and sole member of an aspiring 527 group: Frat Boys for Truth. "Bush and I served together in the fraternity system," says Grim, who rushed his freshman year at Lafayette College. "I may have seen him at a party. But it was 37 years ago, and I was smashed." Grim's clothes were Greek barbecue casual: a pressed white polo shirt tucked into khaki shorts. Just as John Kerry renounced the Vietnam War after returning stateside, Grim says Bush has betrayed his band of fraternity brothers. "I think he transformed his life in his late 30s when he gave up booze and cocaine and found God," he says."

Too Funny.

Vietnam

Everyone should read this article.

Kerry's Testimony: Unabridged

For anyone who wants to read the segments of Senator Kerry's statements including the context that the that latest SBVFT attack fails to give, read on:

The italicized portions of the quote were used in the ad.

Kerry Senate Testimony (1971):

"... several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.

It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam, but they did. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country."

Once again, and this is crucial point, Kerry was NOT indicting all veterans with charges of war crimes, he was relaying the stories of 150 veterans who served in Vietnam. The SWBVFT conveniently leaves out the context of these quotes.

The following is taken from the FACTCHECK.ORG website and is a short list of documented cases of war crimes identical to the ones Sentor Kerry reffered to in his testimony.

"Some atrocities by US forces have been documented beyond question. Kerry's 1971 testimony came less than one month after Army Lt. William Calley had been convicted in a highly publicized military trial of the murder of the murder of 22 Vietnamese civilians at My Lai hamlet on March 16 1968, when upwards of 300 unarmed men, women and children were killed by the inexperienced soldiers of the Americal Division's Charley Company.

And since Kerry testified, ample evidence of other atrocities has come to light:
Son Thang: In 1998, for example, Marine Corps veteran Gary D. Solis published the book Son Thang: An American War Crime describing the court-martial of four US Marines for the apparently unprovoked killing 16 women and children on the night of February 19, 1970 in a hamlet about 20 miles south of Danang. The four Marines testified that they were under orders by their patrol leader to shoot the villagers. A young Oliver North appeared as a character witness and helped acquit the leader of all charges, but three were convicted.

Tiger Force: The Toledo Blade won a Pulitzer Prize this year for a series published in October, 2003 reporting that atrocities were committed by an elite US Army "Tiger Force" unit that the Blade said killed unarmed civilians and children during a seven-month rampage in 1967. "Elderly farmers were shot as they toiled in the fields. Prisoners were tortured and executed - their ears and scalps severed for souvenirs. One soldier kicked out the teeth of executed civilians for their gold fillings," the Blade reported. "Investigators concluded that 18 soldiers committed war crimes ranging from murder and assault to dereliction of duty. But no one was charged."

"Hundreds" of others: In December 2003 The New York Times quoted Nicholas Turse, a doctoral candidate at Columbia University who has been studying government archives, as saying the records are filled with accounts of atrocities similar to those described by the Toledo Blade series. "I stumbled across the incidents The Blade reported," Turse was quoted as saying. "I read through that case a year, year and a half ago, and it really didn't stand out. There was nothing that made it stand out from anything else. That's the scary thing. It was just one of hundreds."

"Exact Same Stories": Keith Nolan, author of 10 published books on Vietnam, says he's heard many veterans describe atrocities just like those Kerry recounted from the Winter Soldier event. Nolan told FactCheck.org that since 1978 he's interviewed roughly 1,000 veterans in depth for his books, and spoken to thousands of others. "I have heard the exact same stories dozens if not hundreds of times over," he said. "Wars produce atrocities. Frustrating guerrilla wars produce a particularly horrific number of atrocities. That some individual soldiers and certain units responded with excessive brutality in Vietnam shouldn't really surprise anyone."

UPDATE: Concerning the aforementioned Winter Soldier Investigation,

"Some of the organizers of the Winter Soldier Investigation have been discredited, but most of the testimonies themselves have not. Miami University Professor Jeffrey Kimball, one of the most respected Vietnam historians, says, "On the whole, the Winter Soldier Investigations established that some Americans committed atrocities in Vietnam. Claims that their testimony has been discredited are unwarranted." Another prominent historian of the war, Wayne State University's Mel Small, says, "Most of the evidence of atrocities presented by the [Winter Soldier] vets remains unchallenged to this day."

On the question of atrocities more broadly, Kerry's claims also find widespread academic support. The University of Kentucky's George Herring, author of America's Longest War, says, "The atrocities that took place are pretty much those described by Kerry in 1971." In a recent interview with The Boston Globe, Stanley Karnow, author of Vietnam: A History, also said Kerry got it right. Even Robert McNamara himself has stated that "there were atrocities, without any question. ... I don't think enough attention was paid to it by the chain of command."

Abu Ghraib

It's astonishing that these reports are not getting more media attention...read the entire Washington Post account that follows,

"TWO NEW OFFICIAL reports on the treatment of foreign prisoners have dragged the Bush administration and Pentagon brass a couple of steps closer to facing the truth about how and why U.S. soldiers and interrogators committed scores of acts of torture and abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan. An Army investigation released yesterday showed that culpability for the criminal mistreatment of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison lay not just with a handful of reserve soldiers but with more than two dozen military intelligence officers and civilian contractors. On Tuesday a panel appointed by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld demolished the fiction, clung to until now by President Bush, Mr. Rumsfeld and the Pentagon's whitewashers, that prisoner abuse in Iraq was an aberration for which no senior officials were responsible. "The abuses were not just the failure of some individuals to follow known standards, and they are more than the failure of a few leaders to enforce proper discipline," said the report of the panel chaired by former defense secretary James R. Schlesinger. "There is both institutional and personal responsibility at higher levels."

As the Schlesinger report persuasively details, the malfeasance of Mr. Rumsfeld and senior commanders in Iraq includes their failure to anticipate chaotic postwar conditions and slowness to respond to the insurgency that began to emerge soon after the toppling of Saddam Hussein. These mistakes -- in addition to contributing to the deep troubles U.S. forces now face -- led to a situation in which thousands of Iraqi detainees, most innocent of any offense, were guarded by far too few U.S. soldiers in squalid and dangerous conditions...

These errors point to a fundamental lack of competence on the part of Mr. Rumsfeld and senior commanders in conducting the war. But even more important, in our view, is the panel's support for the truth most fiercely resisted by the administration and its allies: that the crimes at Abu Ghraib were, in part, the result of the 2002 decision by the president and his top aides to set aside the Geneva Conventions as well as standard U.S. doctrines for the treatment of prisoners. Mr. Bush's political appointees in the Justice and Defense departments redefined the meaning of torture and pressed for interrogation techniques regarded by the Pentagon's own lawyers as excessive. Those techniques, the report says, "migrated to Afghanistan and Iraq where they were neither limited nor safeguarded." In Iraq, commanding Lt. Gen Ricardo S. Sanchez, "using reasoning from the President's memorandum" of 2002, approved some practices that had been outlawed at the Guantanamo Bay prison -- even though detainees in Iraq, unlike those at Guantanamo, were covered by the Geneva Conventions.

The new reports leave many questions still unanswered, questions that would best be addressed by a broader and more independent investigation. The role played by the CIA has been largely unexamined, even though its operatives are complicit in several homicides and may have had much to do with the "migration" of abusive practices. The illegal concealment of some "ghost" detainees from the International Red Cross in Iraq, and Mr. Rumsfeld's admitted role in it, has yet to be clarified or adequately investigated. Though it recommended reforms, the Schlesinger panel shrank from suggesting that senior officials be held accountable for their conduct; its members, who include three longstanding members of the defense establishment and a former Republican congresswoman, have declared that they do not wish to see Mr. Rumsfeld resign. Similarly, the latest Army investigation, like others before it, excused all officers above the rank of colonel -- to its own discredit. It should be unacceptable that low-ranking reservists are criminally prosecuted for the abuses at Abu Ghraib while the senior officials who created the conditions for that abuse, and did nothing to stop it, escape all sanction. As the truth about this damaging affair slowly emerges, it must be matched with consequences for all those responsible."

Like father like son...

Here is an excerpt from a George Will article describing the campaign of dishonesty that Bush Sr. championed in 1992,

"When George Bush's campaign slithered through Georgia, Rep. Newt Gingrich rose to the challenge of lowering still further the tone of it...After Gingrich regaled the crowd with his Woody Allen japes, a Bush aide said, "The president does not want to make Woody Allen an issue." There they go again, dancing the Bush Two-Step. The campaign always dissociates itself from the stream of dishonesty that is steady.

Nothing new here. In 1988, when Bush's Iowa campaign smeared Elizabeth Dole, Robert Dole asked Bush, on the Senate floor, if Bush had authorized it. Said Bush: Maybe I did and maybe I didn't. That is how Bush's various campaigns have talked to the nation: down. Read my curled lip...

Can't Bush's people be honest about anything?

Soon Bill Clinton will have to say to Bush what Dole publicly said to Bush in 1988: "Stop lying about my record." Bush says Clinton has raised taxes 128 times. Bush says this even though columnist Michael Kinsley has demonstrated that the list of "tax increases" is a tissue of falsehoods. (Some taxes are counted several times; components of a tax are counted as separate taxes; minor fees, such as the $1 court cost imposed on convicted criminals, are counted as taxes.) By the tendentious criteria used by the Bush campaign, Bush has raised taxes more often in four years than Clinton has in 12.

So, what does Teeter say of the 128 number? "We're not going to quit saying it about Mr. Clinton." Bush operatives constantly whine about the media but Bush is benefiting from the mock sophistication of journalists who, striking a world-weary stance, say of his campaign dishonesty, "It was ever thus in American politics." Even if that were true, it would be no excuse, and it isn't true. This is extraordinary. Today honorable conservatives feel the sort of fury felt by honorable conservatives 40 years ago when Joe McCarthy was giving anticommunism a bad name.

But serious people flinch from being associated with the intellectual slum that the Bush campaign, with its riffraff of liars and aspiring ayatollahs. Bush calls his campaign "a crusade to bring back values." His campaign is powerful evidence of the need for such a crusade."

Harsh words from the most prominent conservative columnist. The similarities between Bush and his father and the subsequent campaigns they have run for president is striking. Both are filled with lies and distortions regarding their opponents voting record.

"You have the same tactics, the same people, even the same criticisms in many cases -- ones which the campaign makes no effort to defend as being accurate but nonetheless insists it will keep repeating."

Here's the latest LIE from the Bush campaign, read closely and see if it rings a bell,

"John Kerry promises not to raise taxes, but the reality is that he has cast 98 votes for tax increases, including voting ten times to raise gas taxes on the middle class. Kerry points to the largest tax increase in American history as the blueprint for his economic plan, which advisor Bob Rubin says Kerry won't reveal until elected. Kerry's credibility problem is only expanding as more and more Americans see the gap between what Kerry says and what Kerry does."

Like Father Like Son...

Vietnam.....The sad truth

Salon's Todd Gitlin discusses the accuracy of John Kerry's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,

"As everyone must know by now, the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has run two commercials in the battleground states of Ohio, West Virginia and Wisconsin -- and thanks to the TV channels that offer themselves for hijacking to the most scurrilous bidder, the majority of Americans are at least dimly aware of them. They may or may not be aware that the charges against John Kerry in wartime are (1) unsupported by contemporaneous military documents; (2) put forward by veterans who have in more than one case changed their stories since 1969; and (3) in the case of the battles that resulted in Kerry's medals, rejected by the crewmen on Kerry's boat.

Then this week, the same smear artists opened up with their bigger -- as it were -- guns. The second SBVFT commercial includes clips from Kerry's April 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: "They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads ... randomly shot at civilians ... cut off limbs, blown up bodies ... razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan ... crimes committed on a day-to-day basis ... ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam."

What happens during those ellipses is SBVFT members talking about Kerry's accusations in these terms: "Just devastating." "It hurt me." "John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I and many of my comrades in the North Vietnamese prison camps took torture to avoid saying. It demoralized us." "Betrayed us." "Dishonored his country and more importantly the people he served with. He just sold them out."

Note well: These bait-and-switch artists don't dare say that Kerry's statements were false. The anti-Kerry crusaders issue classic non-denial denials. The subtext of their outrage against Kerry is simple: They are still averse to facing the awfulness of the Vietnam War. What they are really saying with their slanders is that the truth hurts.

Take a close look at what Kerry said to the Senate committee. He was summarizing testimony given publicly at the so-called Winter Soldier Investigation of Jan. 31-Feb. 2, 1971, presented by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, in Detroit. One hundred five Vietnam veterans testified there. Seventy-one of them said they were eyewitnesses to war crimes of the sort Kerry later mentioned. Thirteen said that they themselves had committed war crimes.

These veterans testified to rape; to torture and the killing of prisoners; to the torching of Vietnamese homes and whole villages. In sickening detail they filled in the blanks -- as the Pentagon was itself unwilling to do -- to put to work this sentence from a U.S. Army field manual: "Every violation of the law of war is a war crime."

It is to the Winter Soldier testimony specifically that Kerry was alluding. It was these chronicles of mayhem that he was summarizing. To judge the truth of Kerry's Senate testimony, read some excerpts from the Detroit testimony.

"The cutting off of heads -- on Operation Stone -- there was a Lt. Colonel there and two people had their heads cut off and put on stakes and stuck in the middle of the field. And we were notified that there was press covering the operation and that we couldn't do that anymore...

...People cut off ears and when they'd come back in off of an operation you'd make deals before you'd go out and like for every ear you cut off someone would buy you two beers, so people cut off ears. The torturing of prisoners was done with beatings and I saw one case where there were two prisoners. One prisoner was staked out on the ground and he was cut open while he was alive and part of his insides were cut out and they told the other prisoner if he didn't tell them what they wanted to know they would kill him. And I don't know what he said because he spoke in Vietnamese but then they killed him after that anyway...

...I iced a contingent of Vietnamese peasants chopping wood and I decided, well, if the Vietnamese can fire a round into my ship, then I can fire as many rounds into the Vietnamese as I want to. So I swung my machine gun onto this group of peasants and opened fire. Fortunately, the gun jammed after one or two rounds, which was pretty lucky, because this group of peasants turned out to be a work party hired by the government to clear the area and there was GIs guarding them about 50 meters away. But my mind was so psyched out into killing gooks that I never even paid attention to look around and see where I was. I just saw gooks and I wanted to kill them...

...Bravo Company, 5th of the 7th, when we were outside of Hue shortly after the Tet offensive, went into a village (and this happened repeatedly afterwards) and searched for enemy activity. We encountered a large amount of civilian population. The civilian population was brought out to one end of the village, and the women, who were guarded by a squad and a squad leader at that time, were separated. I might say the young women were separated from their children and the older women and the older men, the elderly men. They were told at gunpoint that if they did not submit to the sexual desires of any GI who was there guarding them, they would be shot for running away..."


Indeed. Decades later, reports of the horrors are still trickling out. The Toledo Blade won a Pulitzer Prize for its October 2003 series about killings committed by an elite U.S. Army "Tiger Force" unit in the course of a seven-month period in 1967. "Elderly farmers were shot as they toiled in the fields. Prisoners were tortured and executed -- their ears and scalps severed for souvenirs. One soldier kicked out the teeth of executed civilians for their gold fillings," the Blade reported. "Investigators concluded that 18 of these soldiers committed war crimes ranging from murder and assault to dereliction of duty. But no one was charged."

And in a passage that reads like an anticipatory rebuttal to the accusations by the SBVFT, Crandell added: "What relief we found as misled warriors came from confession rather than blaming. We never denied our individual responsibility for the acts we took part in. We were an army that was profoundly troubled by guilt for indefensible acts, and we admitted as much. Then we went further ... We invited America to come clean."

And as for the charge that Kerry "betrayed" his comrades, Crandell insists: "The whole point we made was that the war crimes came from above." Kerry said the same in Washington in 1971. He repeated it on "Meet the Press."

And as for the charge that Kerry "betrayed" his comrades, Crandell insists: "The whole point we made was that the war crimes came from above." Kerry said the same in Washington in 1971. He repeated it on "Meet the Press."

And yet on Aug. 23, as if nothing at all had been learned from decades of scholarship and journalism, CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked former presidential advisor David Gergen whether Kerry should apologize for what he said about the war. He didn't ask whether Robert S. McNamara should apologize. He didn't ask whether Henry Kissinger should apologize. He didn't ask whether Dick Cheney and George W. Bush should apologize for their support of a wrong war. (As recently as his interview with Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" on April 18, Bush repeated the right-wing stab-in-the-back demagogy that what had been wrong with the Vietnam War was that the civilians had run it.) Responsibility has never been George W. Bush's game. He represents the America that refuses to be sorry, and the unscrupulous John O'Neill does his dirty work as he did for that spiritual guide, Richard Nixon.

Some thought Kerry was overdoing his Vietnam credentials with his theatrics of "reporting for duty." But Kerry was on to an essential truth about the America that emerged from Vietnam: That duty begins when you open your eyes in the dark face of reality.

It is the same truth with which he closed his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 33 years ago: "We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped away their memories of us. But all that they have done, and all that they can do by this denial, is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission: To search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war; to pacify our own hearts; to conquer the hate and fear that have driven this country these last 10 years and more. And more. And so, when, 30 years from now, our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say 'Vietnam' and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory, but mean instead where America finally turned, and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning. "

"One last mission": The turning is still in progress."

Enough is Enough...

The following rant by Ezra Klein of Pandagon is dead on,

"Enough. Fucking enough. I am so goddamn tired of talking about the Swiftvets. This last week has been the Dean scream or Dole fall for our body politic -- it has shone light on everything corrosive, everything vile, everything that turns off Americans not just from voting but from civic participation. It has ripped our veneer of idealism and high-mindedness and exposed many of us as bottom-feeding predators whose primary political instinct is to dash towards the blood, skirting and evading the actual hurdles and obstacles holding back our society.

Our media has led the way with its rendition of A Beautiful Mind, schizophrenically fighting its better instincts and leaving the editorialists and truth-finders to snipe and attack the stenographers for mindlessly pounding their keys in the newsroom. We've seen Chris Matthews turn to virtue and O'Reilly come to the rescue. We've watched the Dionnes and the Krugmans of the world lower their anti-media cannons while the Malkens and Barones have desperately clung to the inaccuracies, begging Americans to believe the discrepancy equates with deviancy. In short, we've watched the election dig up an old war, some partisans spin it, and significant portions of the media realize that business-as-usual reporting will render a disservice to the republic. And so they, like everyone else, have gone to war against their misguided colleagues and brethren, lining up on the side of common sense just as many in politics have lined up on the side of elevated discourse. But such company also highlights the size of the forces arrayed on the sides of ignorant stenography and political mud, those who continue to do wrong because they're not sure what'll happen to them if the game changes.

What is this? What sort of mindless utopia do we inhabit that the headline story for weeks could boil down to 1) was a war-hero badly injured and 2) was he in Cambodia on Christmas or did he risk his life there a few weeks later? How many of our people are employed that we can ask this? How many of our children are healthy and covered in case of disaster? How many of our soldiers are safe and returned home to their families? How many of our voters are voting? And how many of our students are learning, or do they struggle in dilapidated schools and overcrowded classrooms? How many of our poor are advancing, gaining the requisite skills and training to improve their lives? How many of our veterans are sheltered and off the streets? How many of our ports are secured? For that matter, how many of our warfields are restabilized, our jobs returned, and our energy renewable?

From the first, John Kerry should have stepped onto a stage, pointed his finger forward and asked these hate-mongers and smear-artists "Have you no decency?" And when the inevitable silence yawned and the ads kept running and the claims kept unraveling, it was for the media to step forward, as one, and give them the A12 billing they deserved, right where they stuck contrary evidence during the Iraq War and the mea culpas relating to their performance in those shameful days. But no -- like children to the sweet or idiots to the explosion, they couldn't avert their eyes from the political drama unraveling before them. And that meant we couldn't avert our eyes either, forced to immerse ourselves in insipid games of telephone, third-person hearsay, and spot the liar. Forced to hear a long-time Republican attack dog and contributor claim to be a Democrat, forced to value the testimony of those who served near Kerry rather than with him, forced to watch George smirk as his minions attacked and his cowardice and entitlement lay entirely outside the realm of civilized discourse.

Whoever wins this election, the American people will have lost it. That's because they're sorry enough to have participated in and encouraged a realm where the venerable parties controlling the nation will dwell on the attack that works rather than the criticism that matters, where deceivers prosper and misdirection is appreciated, where a square jaw and a steady voice means more for honesty than the words spoken, where partisan lies mean more than navy medals, where minor discrepancies scream liar and not human, where the press finds their ratings in war and not information, where the only thing able to knock an election's hatred off the front page would be the folly of a celebrity, and where a low-life aristocrat who spent his life dodging responsibility, failing at ventures, and trading on his name avoided the war only to become president after sliming a POW and ignoring the will of America. And where this man, as president, squandered our surpluses, destroyed our standing, overextended our armies, let our jobs flee and left our people lacking health care. And where a media who knows better and a people who deserve better might let the incompetent brat win again because he looks better in plaid, seems more likely a fisher and has a more effective and merciless attack machine
The truth that our media won't admit and our people don't want to hear is that this election should revolve around one refrain, repeated every time this ad airs, every time the job numbers drop and every time a soldier dies. And it goes: "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" "

Well said...

:how we've learned to love Vietnam...

Senator Bob Dole continued the Republican smear campaign on CNN's Late Edition questioning Democratic Presidential Nominee John Kerry's wounds in Vietnam. In an effort to diminish John Kerry's three purple hearts, Senator Dole stated that Senator Kerry didn't "bleed" from a single injury he received while serving in Vietnam, calling his wounds "superficial". While this claim is totally unfounded, it also reeks of dirty politics, something Senator Dole is not known for. Senator Dole when referring to his own purple heart in his 1988 campaign-trail autobiography, had this to say:

"As we approached the enemy, there was a brief exchange of gunfire. I took a grenade in hand, pulled the pin, and tossed it in the direction of the farmhouse. It wasn't a very good pitch (remember, I was used to catching passes, not throwing them). In the darkness, the grenade must have struck a tree and bounced off. It exploded nearby, sending a sliver of metal into my leg--the sort of injury the Army patched up with Mercurochrome and a Purple Heart."

The fact of the matter is purple hearts have always been awarded to soldiers for minor and for major injuries sustained in combat, Senator Dole knows this and I am frankly shocked that he would stoop to this level.

You know... I'm really getting sick of debating our presidential candidate's actions surrounding a War that ended 30 years ago. And that goes for both sides. Dirty Republican attack ads that have diverted attention from Bush's poor record as Commander and Chief, and Senator Kerry's decision to make his service in Vietnam the cornerstone of his candidacy. The fact of the matter is John Kerry was a war hero, George W. Bush was not. End of story. This in of itself doesn't mean that Kerry is the more qualified candidate. American history is littered with Presidents who served in the military but were inept at governing our country. Similarly, some of our nation's greatest presidents never served a day in the armed forces. We need to move beyond this debate and focus on the pressing issues at hand, and there are many. I would feel a great deal more secure about America's future if our two candidates would lay forth their goals for America and how they plan to achieve them. On this measure both candidates have fallen short. America has two very different choices for president and right now the press and the candidates are doing a great disservice to our country by refusing to examine the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate’s stance on these important issues facing our country.

Case in point, if you haven't noticed...I follow politics quite a bit, and its shameful that I can tell you more about John Kerry's three purple hearts than I can about his plan for healthcare in America. Which is more important? I report you decide.

But....just because I'm sick of discussing this crap, doesn't mean I won't continue to repudiate Republican smears of John Kerry's service.

The Whole Story

The most comprehensive article yet written about the formation of the “Swift Boat Vets for Hogwash” and their subsequent smear campaign appears today in the NY Times. The article addresses each of the group's specific claims, and cites previous quotes from these men that praise John Kerry. It also details the groups close ties to the Texas Republican establishment. In short it show's these men for the charlatans they truly are...

"A series of interviews and a review of documents show a web of connections to the Bush family, high-profile Texas political figures and President Bush's chief political aide, Karl Rove.

Records show that the group received the bulk of its initial financing from two men with ties to the president and his family - one a longtime political associate of Mr. Rove's, the other a trustee of the foundation for Mr. Bush's father's presidential library. A Texas publicist who once helped prepare Mr. Bush's father for his debate when he was running for vice president provided them with strategic advice. And the group's television commercial was produced by the same team that made the devastating ad mocking Michael S. Dukakis in an oversized tank helmet when he and Mr. Bush's father faced off in the 1988 presidential election...

The strategy the veterans devised would ultimately paint John Kerry the war hero as John Kerry the "baby killer" and the fabricator of the events that resulted in his war medals. But on close examination, the accounts of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' prove to be riddled with inconsistencies. In many cases, material offered as proof by these veterans is undercut by official Navy records and the men's own statements.

Several of those now declaring Mr. Kerry "unfit" had lavished praise on him, some as recently as last year.

In an unpublished interview in March 2003 with Mr. Kerry's authorized biographer, Douglas Brinkley, provided by Mr. Brinkley to The New York Times, Roy F. Hoffmann, a retired rear admiral and a leader of the group, allowed that he had disagreed with Mr. Kerry's antiwar positions but said, "I am not going to say anything negative about him." He added, "He's a good man."

In a profile of the candidate that ran in The Boston Globe in June 2003, Mr. Hoffmann approvingly recalled the actions that led to Mr. Kerry's Silver Star: "It took guts, and I admire that."

George Elliott, one of the Vietnam veterans in the group, flew from his home in Delaware to Boston in 1996 to stand up for Mr. Kerry during a tough re-election fight, declaring at a news conference that the action that won Mr. Kerry a Silver Star was "an act of courage." At that same event, Adrian L. Lonsdale, another Vietnam veteran now speaking out against Mr. Kerry, supported him with a statement about the "bravado and courage of the young officers that ran the Swift boats."

"Senator Kerry was no exception," Mr. Lonsdale told the reporters and cameras assembled at the Charlestown Navy Yard. "He was among the finest of those Swift boat drivers."Those comments echoed the official record. In an evaluation of Mr. Kerry in 1969, Mr. Elliott, who was one of his commanders, ranked him as "not exceeded" in 11 categories, including moral courage, judgment and decisiveness, and "one of the top few" - the second-highest distinction - in the remaining five. In written comments, he called Mr. Kerry "unsurpassed," "beyond reproach" and "the acknowledged leader in his peer group."

...Mr. Perry, who has given $200,000 to the group, is the top donor to Republicans in the state, according to Texans for Public Justice, a nonpartisan group that tracks political donations. He donated $46,000 to President Bush's campaigns for governor in 1994 and 1998. In the 2002 election, the group said, he donated nearly $4 million to Texas candidates and political committees.

Mr. Rove, Mr. Bush's top political aide, recently said through a spokeswoman that he and Mr. Perry were longtime friends...

The group decided to hire a private investigator to investigate Mr. Brinkley's(Kerry's Biographer) account of the war - to find "some neutral way of actually questioning peopleinvolved in these incidents,'' Mr. O'Neill said.

But the investigator's questions did not seem neutral to some.

Patrick Runyon, who served on a mission with Mr. Kerry, said he initially thought the caller was from a pro-Kerry group, and happily gave a statement about the night Mr. Kerry won his first Purple Heart. The investigator said he would send it to him by e-mail for his signature. Mr. Runyon said the edited version was stripped of all references to enemy combat, making it look like just another night in the Mekong Delta.

"It made it sound like I didn't believe we got any returned fire," he said. "He made it sound like it was a normal operation. It was the scariest night of my life."

The group's arguments have foundered on other contradictions. In the television commercial, Dr. Louis Letson looks into the camera and declares, "I know John Kerry is lying about his first Purple Heart because I treated him for that injury." Dr. Letson does not dispute the wound - a piece of shrapnel above Mr. Kerry's left elbow - but he and others in the group argue that it was minor and self-inflicted.

Yet Dr. Letson's name does not appear on any of the medical records for Mr. Kerry.

...The group also offers the account of William L. Schachte Jr., a retired rear admiral who says in the book that he had been on the small skimmer on which Mr. Kerry was injured that night in December 1968. He contends that Mr. Kerry wounded himself while firing a grenade. But the two other men who acknowledged that they had been with Mr. Kerry, Bill Zaladonis and Mr. Runyon, say they cannot recall a third crew member. "Me and Bill aren't the smartest,
but we can count to three," Mr. Runyon said in an interview."


Unfortunately, this whole fiasco has tarnished the war record of a genuine American war hero. In today's sound byte culture, lies that are repeated enough times in the news and on the radio inevitably become the truth. Numerous conservative columnists latched on to these fabrications and pedaled them as fact. They owe John Kerry an apology. I won’t hold my breath. It's sad that a group of lying disgruntled old men with a political axe to grind can dishonor the courageous service a man gave to his country. If I were a Republican I would feel pretty damn ashamed.

The Swif boat Vets for Lies and Distortions...

Over the last couple of weeks I have tried my best to debase the criticism directed at Senator Kerry over his actions while serving in Vietnam. If you want a complete rebuttal of all the charges against the Senator go to this website. After reading the whole article, anyone that can say with a straight face that the Swift Boats Veterans for truth are in fact "TRUTHFUL" is either simple or certifiably insane.

FYI Factcheck.org is a great non-partisan resource and I encourage everyone to frequent it for the remainder of the election cycle.

EVEN BILL O'REILLY

This is what our favorite conservative talk show host had to say about the Swift Boat Veterans for %&$#,

"I believe Jim Rassmann when he says that Kerry saved his life by pulling him out of a Vietnam river while under fire. Rassmann is a former Green Beret, a former police officer and a long time registered Republican until earlier this year. If he says John Kerry is a hero, nobody should doubt it. Rassmann has earned the right to be trusted and insulting his testimony is way out of line...

...It is absolutely wrong for Americans to condemn Kerry's war record because he demonstrated provable valor. However, those who distrust him do deserve to be heard although facts not emotion should be demanded.

...I think the Swift Boat political advertisement calling Kerry a charlatan is in poor taste, and if this kind of thing continues it might well backfire on the Kerry haters. Most Americans are fair minded, and bitter personal attacks do not go down well with folks who are not driven by partisanship."

For once, I think Bill might be on to something....

Non-Partisan John O'Neill

The supposedly non-partisan Swift Boat Veteran for &*%# author, John O"neill has an intresting history of campaign donations. Lets take an in depth look....

O'Neill has contributed $14,650 to federal candidates or national political organizations in his life-- all Republicans:

Also worthy of note, is that O'Neil claimed on Harball he voted for Ross Perot in 1992. If you look down the list you will notice that he donated $1,000 to George H. Bush's political campaign in 1992. Strange don't you think, that he would vote for one candidate, and peronally give another candidate ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS......

JOHN O'NIEL IS A FILTHY LIAR!!!!!!!!


2004: $2,000 to Duane Sand (ND)
1999: $1,000 to Peter Staub Wareing (TX)
1998: $250 to Rudy Izzard (TX)
1996: $1,000 to Brent Perry (TX)
1994: $2,500 to Texas Republican Congressional Committee
1993: $2,500 to Texas Republican Congressional Committee
1992: $1,000 to Texas Republican Congressional Committee
1992: $1,000 George H.W. Bush
1992: $1,000 to Clark Kent Ervin (TX)
1991: $1,000 to Clark Kent Ervin (TX)
1990: $400 to Hugh Dunham Shine (TX)
1990: $1,000 to A Tribute To Ronald Reagan

This guy is a HACK.... plain and simple and has been his whole life, starting the day he served as Richard Nixon's lackey!!!!

Flip the Switch...

Robot Dick Cheney's switch was turned to attack mode yesterday as he responded to a phrase in Senator John Kerry's acceptance speech, "A 'sensitive war' will not destroy the evil men who killed 3,000 Americans...America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes, but not a one of them was won by being sensitive..."

Clearly our Vice-President doesn't fully grasp the definition of the word "sensitive".

So I looked it up for him and here is what the dictionary had to say,

sen·si·tive (sen'si-tiv)adj.- Reacting readily to external agents or forces.

I guess Dick Cheney doesn't want us to react readily to terrorsim, maybe that's why we went to war with Iraq?? Just a thought.....


UPDATE: Here's a quote from George W. Bush on 3/4/01...

"We help fulfill that promise not by lecturing the world, but by leading it. Precisely because America is powerful, we must be sensitive about expressing our power and influence. Our goal is to patiently build the momentum of freedom, not create resentment for America itself. We pursue our goals, we will listen to others. We want strong friends to join us, not weak neighbors to dominate. In all our dealings with other nations, we will display the modesty of true confidence and strength."

Here's a quote from Donald Rumsfeld on 2/5/03,

"we have to be sensitive, to the extent the world thinks the United States is focused on the problems in Iraq, it's conceivable that someone could make a mistake and believe that that's an opportunity for them to take an action which they otherwise would have avoided."

Here's a quote from Donald on 7/9/03

He said U.S. commanders are "sensitive to the importance of troops knowing what the rotation plan will be so they have some degree of certainty in their lives. And [they] are sensitive to the importance of the quality of their lives."

Here's a quote from Richard Meyers on 1/7/03

He said "We are, I think, very culturally sensitive." On 1/7/03, Myers touted the Army's ability to be "sensitive." He said "we can ask of our troops to go out there and be, on the one hand, very sensitive to cultural issues, on the other hand, be ready to respond in self-defense to a very ticklish situation, all at the same time."

Here's a quote from John Ashcroft on 4/28/03.

Just a month after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Ashcroft said, "The United States is very sensitive about interfering in the internal politics of other countries."

On 3/20/02, he said the Justice Department was making sure to be "sensitive" in hunting down terrorists. He said, "The agents and officers who conducted the interviews did so in a sensitive manner, showing full respect for the rights and dignity of the individuals being interviewed."


Their hypocrisy truly knows no limits.....

Tax cuts + tax cuts + more tax cuts= Job Growth ?????

The Washington Post's analysis of the latest job numbers show that President Bush's failed fiscal policy could seriously undermine his re-election hopes.

"For President Bush, tax cuts have been an all-purpose elixir, a cure for budget surpluses and a bursting stock bubble, for terrorist attacks and boardroom scandals, for the march to war and a jobless recovery in peacetime.

Now, after three successive tax cuts, and after a record budget surplus has turned to a record deficit, the president faces an unenviable choice. He can either concede that his $1.7 trillion tonic has not worked as advertised, or he can insist that the economy is strong despite the slowdown in growth and job creation.

Last week's news of stagnant job creation has revived the debate over the effectiveness of the tax cuts, the centerpiece of Bush's domestic program. Economists of all political stripes say the tax cuts did jump-start the economy, which was in recession from March to November 2001. But to many, that kick is starting to look more like a sugar high than a cure for the economy's underlying weaknesses.

On Monday, Morgan Stanley's chief economist, Stephen S. Roach, dubbed this "The Mythical Recovery," hooked on three drugs now in increasingly short supply: tax cuts, rising government spending and low interest rates.

"Lacking in the organic staying power of job creation and wage earnings, the U.S. economy has become addicted to the steroids of extraordinary monetary and fiscal support," Roach told clients. "But with policy levers pushed to the max, the lifeline of support is now dangerously thin."

Democratic White House challenger John F. Kerry pounced yesterday, releasing a report on "George Bush's failed fiscal policies" and unleashing former Treasury secretary Robert E. Rubin to decry the failure of the tax cuts and "the horrendous long-term fiscal situation" they have put the country in. The charge -- even if incomplete -- has the ring of truth, said Gregory R. Valliere, managing director of the bipartisan Schwab Research Group.

The jobs figures allow Kerry to say that the recovery is sputtering and the tax cuts didn't help much," he said. "It's a credible argument now."

With the election 83 days away, gasoline prices, the stock market, job-creation figures and economic growth are headed in the wrong direction for an incumbent who wants to run on accomplishments, prosperity and optimism.

Donald H. Straszheim, a former chief economist at Merrill Lynch, told clients of Straszheim Global Advisors Inc. yesterday that the job figures in particular are "potentially decisively bad for President Bush."

The economy has 1.1 million fewer jobs than the day Bush took office, making it more than likely he will join Herbert Hoover as the second president to see the nation suffer a net job loss on his watch. The economy is 7 million jobs short of the level the White House had predicted when trying to sell the tax cuts. And a 10-year budget outlook that in 2001 projected $5.6 trillion in surpluses now foresees $2.7 trillion in deficits, an unprecedented fiscal swing.

Even some conservatives are grumbling about Bush's economic policies. David Hogberg, a senior research associate with the conservative Capital Research Center, enumerated his gripes on the National Review's Web site Monday: tax cuts that provided too little short-term stimulus, profligate federal spending and the politicization of trade policy.

"If the Bush team loses this election because of economic concerns, they'll have few to blame besides themselves," he steamed."

Tax Cuts do not solve everything.

UPDATE!!!!!!!!

Here's how Republican talking heads have been presenting the authors of the Swift Boat Veterans for &*%$ as non-partisan.

My least favorite journalist Bob Novak had this to say,

"There's a new book out called Unfit for Command about his [Kerry's] record. I've read it all. It's coming out it'll be published soon. It is a shocking presentation of Senator Kerry's record. I just couldn't believe some of the things in there -- very carefully documented.
Margaret, these are not partisan Republicans. They're not Republicans at all."

AHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Sure Bob sure....

Here's Washington Times Op-ed contributor Tony Blankley on Corsi,

"The co-author, Jerome Corsi, is not a political hack, but a college friend of Mr. O'Neill, with a Ph.D. from Harvard and a distinguished writing career."

Distinguished writing career indeed!!!

For anyone who doesn't know O'Neill's links to the GOP go back to his days as a "protégé of Nixon-era dirty trickster Charles Colson."

It doesn't get any more partisan than these two hacks!!!!!!!

Jerome R. Corsi: The man....the soon to be Legend!!

Jerome R. Corsi is the co-author of the soon to be released book, "Unfit for Command : Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry."

The book is a diatribe written to discredit John Kerry's military service. Jerome Coris is also one of the founders of Swift Boat Veterans for "Truth".

He has been praised by notable Republicans in the press as a bi-partisan who's simply trying to bring the truth about Senator John Kerry to light. Some very intresting quotes have been discovered and as it turns out Jermoe Corsi frequents the website freerepublic.com, during his lengthy visits he has posted a number of comments regarding current issues facing our country. Lets listen in.....the following are all direct quotes from Corsi,

Corsi on Islam: "Islam is like a virus -- it affects the mind -- maybe even better as an analogy -- it is a cancer that destroys the body it infects... No doctor would hesitate to eliminate cancer cells from the body."

"a worthless, dangerous Satanic religion..."

"Islam is a peaceful religion — just as long as the women are beaten, the boys buggered and the infidels are killed."

"RAGHEADS are Boy-Bumpers as clearly as they are Women-Haters -- it all goes together"

"COMMUNISM -- it's simple NBC = NOTHING BUT COMMUNISM."

Corsi on Senator Clinton: "Anybody ask why HELLary couldn't keep BJ Bill satisfied? Not lesbo or anything, is she?"

"HELL-ary loves the Arabs so much (kiss, kiss Mrs. Arab*RAT) -- wonder how she would look in a Burkha?"

Corsi on Catholicism: "Boy buggering in both Islam and Catholicism is okay with the Pope as long as it isn't reported by the liberal press"

"Isn't the Democratic Party the official SODOMIZER PROTECTION ASSOCIATION of AMERICA -- oh, I forgot, it was just an accident that Clintoon's first act in office was to promote "gays in the military."

"Too bad the plane didn't crash into the TV set of the NBC show "THE LEFT WING" -- especially when Martin Sheen was "acting."

I think these quotes truly speak for themselves. Jeromre Corsi is a racist, a bigot, a religious nut, and a right wing fanatic. So lets take his word over the distinguished Senator John Kerry whose service to his country over the last 30 years has been nothing less then honorable. I mean Corsi is clearly bi-partisan and very level headed. He certainly doesn't have an axe to grind against the democratic party or John Kerry.

By the way, those quotes were just highlights.....there are many more!!

I rest my case.

King Ralph

A New Hampshire firm with long established ties to the Republican party was hiring paid temp workers to collect signatures for Nader last week.

This telling account from Emily Sawka shows the depths to which the Bush administration will sink to get Ralph Nader on the ballot.

"one of the workers said she was hired to collect Nader signatures through Adecco, a temp agency with a Portsmouth office. The worker, Emily Sawka, of Kittery, Maine, refused after learning the drive targeted Bush supporters who would want the third-party candidate to take votes from Kerry.

Sawka said workers were given a script entitled "Talking Tips," in which they were to attract signers by telling them, "Without Nader, Bush would not be president." If signers asked who was paying the workers, the script’s response was: "Nader’s campaign pays .75 cents a signature."

Notice the play on words, "Nader's campaign pays .75 cents", slying avoiding the question at hand. Had they answered honestly it might have sounded somthing like this

"Oh actually we were hired by Republicans who will stop at nothing to defeat John Kerry in 2004, they don't think they can beat him unless Ralph Nader is on the ballot, please sign here....."

So now Republicans are intentionally misleading people into thinking they are signing a petition with Ralph Nader supporters rather then Republican hacks. This has no place in American politics.

Side Note

Republican talking heads and the majority of the "liberal media" have stated over and over again that Senator John Kerry only spent four months in Vietnam. What they have failed to discuss is that while it is true he spent four months serving on swift boats -- he had previously done a full tour onboard the USS Gridley stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin. Swift boat duty was his second tour in Vietnam.

If you read the detailed account of John Kerry's Military service that I linked to, you will also note the praise from his commanding officer John Elliot. The Same Elliot that has now joined the swift boat veterans for *&%$ to discredit Senator Kerry. Let's hear what he had to say before this election,

"When Kerry returned to his base, his commanding officer, George Elliott, raised an issue with Kerry: the fine line between whether the action merited a medal or a court-martial.

"When [Kerry] came back from the well-publicized action where he beached his boat in middle of ambush and chased a VC around a hootch and ended his life, when [Kerry] came back and I heard his debrief, I said, `John, I don't know whether you should be court-martialed or given a medal, court-martialed for leaving your ship, your post,"' Elliott recalled in an interview.

"But I ended up writing it up for a Silver Star, which is well deserved, and I have no regrets or second thoughts at all about that," Elliott said. A Silver Star, which the Navy said is its fifth-highest medal, commends distinctive gallantry in action.

Asked why he had raised the issue of a court-martial, Elliott said he did so "half tongue-in-cheek, because there was never any question I wanted him to realize I didn't want him to leave his boat unattended. That was in context of big-ship Navy -- my background. A C.O. [commanding officer] never leaves his ship in battle or anything else. I realize this, first of all, it was pretty courageous to turn into an ambush even though you usually find no more than two or three people there. On the other hand, on an operation some time later, down on the very tip of the peninsula, we had lost one boat and several men in a big operation, and they were hit by a lot more than two or three people."

Elliott stressed that he never questioned Kerry's decision to kill the Viet Cong, and he appeared in Boston at Kerry's side during the 1996 Senate race to back up that aspect of Kerry's action.

Indeed, the Silver Star citation makes clear that Kerry's performance on that day was both extraordinary and risky. "With utter disregard for his own safety and the enemy rockets," the citation says, Kerry "again ordered a charge on the enemy, beached his boat only 10 feet from the Viet Cong rocket position and personally led a landing party ashore in pursuit of the enemy. ... The extraordinary daring and personal courage of Lt. Kerry in attacking a numerically superior force in the face of intense fire were responsible for the highly successful mission."

Michael Bernique, who was revered as one of the gutsiest swift boat commanders, marveled at Kerry's brazen approach to battle. Bernique recalled how Kerry one day "went ashore in an area that I thought might be mined. I said, `Get the blankety-blank out of there.' John just shrugged his shoulders and left. John just was fearless.

Kerry had been wounded three times and received three Purple Hearts. Asked about the severity of the wounds, Kerry said that one of them cost him about two days of service, and that the other two did not interrupt his duty...

"There were an awful lot of Purple Hearts -- from shrapnel, some of those might have been M-40 grenades," said Elliott, Kerry's commanding officer. "The Purple Hearts were coming down in boxes. Kerry, he had three Purple Hearts. None of them took him off duty. Not to belittle it, that was more the rule than the exception."

UPDATE!!!!!!!!

This just in, Swift Boat Veterans for truth..... FULL OF SHIT!!!

From today's Boston Globe,

"A week after Senator John F. Kerry heralded his wartime experience by surrounding himself at the Democratic convention with his Vietnam ''Band of Brothers," a separate group of veterans has launched a television ad campaign and a book that questions the basis for some of Kerry's combat medals.

But yesterday, the key figure in the anti-Kerry campaign, Kerry's former commanding officer, backed off one of the key contentions. Lieutenant Commander George Elliott said in an interview that he had made a ''terrible mistake" in signing an affidavit that suggests Kerry did not deserve the Silver Star -- one of the main allegations in the book.

Elliott is quoted(in the affidavit) as saying that Kerry ''lied about what occurred in Vietnam . . . for example, in connection with his Silver Star..."

The statement refers to an episode in which Kerry killed a Viet Cong soldier who had been carrying a rocket launcher, part of a chain of events that formed the basis of his Silver Star. Over time, some Kerry critics have questioned whether the soldier posed a danger to Kerry's crew. Crew members have said Kerry's actions saved their lives.

Yesterday, reached at his home, Elliott said he regretted signing the affidavit and said he still thinks Kerry deserved the Silver Star.

''I still don't think he shot the guy in the back," Elliott said. ''It was a terrible mistake probably for me to sign the affidavit with those words. I'm the one in trouble here."

The affidavit also contradicted earlier statements by Elliott, who came to Boston during Kerry's 1996 Senate campaign to defend Kerry on similar charges, saying that Kerry acted properly and deserved the Silver Star."

This whole fiasco is going to continue to backfire on Republicans in the worst way!!! This is politics at its absolute worst, and Republicans should be jumping to condemn this...

Any word from the White house yet?? NOPE!!!!!!!!!!

Swift Boat Veterans for NOTHING!!!!

"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. (SHOCKER!!)

"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.

...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."

"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..."

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. "

IN A RELATED SIDE NOTE!!!!

There are those on the right who have sought to criticize John Kerry for his allegations surrounding U.S. troops committing war crimes in Vietnam. General Tommy Franks had this to say after Sean Hannity played a tape of John Kerry's Senate testimony,

"I think we had a lot of problems in Vietnam. One was the lack of leadership of young people like in -- in John Kerry's position. He was a young officer over there, and I'm not sure that -- that activities like that didn't take place. In fact, quite the contrary. I'm sure that they did take place. ...And so... I don't -- I don't like what I saw... but at the same time, I would say that ... [pause] the things that Senator Kerry said are undeniable about activities in Vietnam."

Republican Hacks are only making themselves look even more cynical and deranged with these recent attacks on Senator John Kerry's war record!!!

He was against them.....before he was for them!!!!!

The Washington Post's Dan Froomkin is right on,

"President Bush yesterday embraced the Sept. 11 commission's two most significant suggestions, but with some major qualifications. Bush called for the creation of a national intelligence director -- but, unlike what the commission had in mind, that person would not be stationed in the White House for maximum power and easy access to the president and would not control the nation's approximately $40 billion-a-year intelligence budgets or have power over personnel.

Bush said he will also build a national counterterrorism center, but that it will report to the CIA until a national intelligence director is created -- which, because Congress isn't being called back into special session to address the recommendations, could be after the election. All in all, Bush's studied, nuanced approach effectively allows the president to appear supportive of the very popular 9/11 commission, while not being coerced into actions he doesn't support.

Bush's history with intelligence-related proposals includes more than a fair amount of nuance -- and some outright reversals. First, the president resisted the creation of a Homeland Security department for months before enthusiastically championing the idea.

Then, he opposed the creation of the independent 9/11 commission itself. He said Congressional intelligence committees could handle any needed investigations.

Once Bush allowed the commission to form, his aides repeatedly fought its requests for witnesses and documents.

In their stump speeches, Bush and Vice President Cheney repeatedly mock Democratic nominee John F. Kerry for his heavily nuanced statement on the massive security and reconstruction appropriation for Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003, which Kerry supported as long as it required Iraq to eventually repay some of the reconstruction money.

"I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it," Kerry said, in what has become arguably the greatest laugh line of the Bush-Cheney campaign.

The risk for Bush is that when it comes to overhauling intelligence agencies, the president's record suggests he was against the proposals before he was for them."