Nutjobs Ranting About Politics.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
I remember being 14 and coming home drunk one night. My parents *suspected* that I'd been drinking. I told mum and pops that I was at the library with X & Y, but they busted me with the old "X & Y stopped by an hour ago looking for you and said they hadn't seen you at all tonight". For me at least, mum and pop didn't care 11 years later when I told them that I had actually been at the library a month earlier, and with Z (who I was now married to). They knew I still told a bald-faced and deliberate lie that night. Kerry was neither drunk nor a teenager when he pounded the table with his lie in 1986 (or whenever).

Kerry said he was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve, and you're upset that he was really on the border that day, and actually in Cambodia the next. Whatfuckingever. You can have your problems with him, but don't pretend that this is cause and not symptom.

And yet, some people actually signed up for second and third tours. When you say Kerry did something dishonorable that was "par for the course" among a million veterans, I hope you fully understand why so many others treat him like a leper. It might have been par for the course for people like Kerry (and in direct contrast with the absolutely unassailable service of many other democratic politicians), but hundreds of thousands, or perhaps more than a million, of Vietnam veterans sit back and think "I didn't write myself up for purple hearts under such circumstances".

Dishonorable my ass. He served, which is more than most people can say. The reason why (some) veterans are cheesed off at him is that he criticized the war when he came back. Unfortunately, the military (officers') culture and the loyalty it demands are sometimes inconsistent with the idea of dissent in democracy. We all know why these vets don't like Kerry, but they should stop pretending that it has anything to do with what happened in Vietnam. And you should stop pretending that it has anything to do with who got Purple Hearts.

Oh, and I'm glad that you brought up the injured by shrapnel thing. He continually manages to use that shrapnel line in the same sentence as his purple hearts. Is it just clever wording, or does he actually have shrapnel from enemy fire that was used for a Purple Heart citation? Because, if not, its misleading and deplorable to tie the two together.

I don't know, and I don't care. Why don't you try to figure out the real reasons you're deploring him, because it doesn't have to do with shrapnel.

Start "smearing" people? This started in March, and Kerry was one of the original smearers. Now his allies in the media appear to be using forged documents to continue that effort, ironically just 3 weeks after Kerry cried like a little girl about questioning of his military service (and no more than 6 months after the Dems and Moveon et al. started this line of debate by questioning Bush's Nat. Guard service). Who is smearing who again?

I don't know what you mean by "this," but we were talking about the Swift Crap. If you mean the to-do about Bush's service, (1) it was out there four years ago, when Kerry was not involved, (2) it's a long way from being proved that the documents were forged, (3) I agree with you that if the documents were forged, it's a smear, and (4) there is plenty of evidence, old and new, that Bush blew off his service in a way that should offend the veterans among us. Except that this isn't about whether Kerry or Bush served honorably, it's about how they adhere to or challenge the (right-wing) culture of the officer corps.

And a "lot of lying" isn't really all that accurate. A "lot of hatred" is. The lying that has been exposed is Kerry's own lies, as told throughout his political career. His own campaign has been forced to revise his history in how many ways?

As you know, the Swift Veterans have done a lot of lying themselves -- if they're telling the truth know, many of them have lied before. This doesn't seem to bother you, yet you profess to be upset that Kerry said he was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve, 1968, instead of on the border. Stop and think about this for a second. Meanwhile, Bush has lied up and down about his Guard service -- the story keeps changing to fit the newest documents. If you really cared about lying, this would bother you.

This is about the military culture's disdain for someone from within it with the temerity to dissent. These guys are willing to smear Kerry just to get him back for having the courage to stand up in 1971 and say things that were, in retrospect, by and large correct. If more Kerrys had spoken up sooner, maybe there would have been fewer Purple Hearts awarded in Vietnam. A lot of people who served there are troubled by this to this day, but they aren't blowhards purporting to speak for the military.

Care to lay your odds on a Kerry victory in November?

Hank and I already have a bet, thanks. I still think his odds are better than even.