Jed Babbin of NRO is just one of many who want to remind you of Kerry’s testimony about Viet Nam:
testimony: “He proceeded to tell my mom and dad, my sister …
everybody that I knew, the entire world, that I was a war criminal. And
he said I intentionally murdered civilians, I raped women … we looted
and plundered.”
Jed Babbin would do his readers a favor if he linked to the
documents-online archive of the National Review itself, where he could
read Kerry’s actual testimony, and see how it relates to the angry allegations he quotes.
The original document makes it clear that Kerry spoke off the cuff: “I
apologize if my statement is general because I received notification
yesterday you would hear me and I am afraid because of the injunction I
was up most of the night and haven’t had a great deal of chance to
prepare.”
The part of his testimony that gets quoted, again and again, is his
description of an emotional meeting in Detroit where more than 150
veterans talked about their experience. At that meeting, said Kerry:
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…
I’ll stop here because, after checking a Feedster search on “kerry raped ears”, I discover that bloggers at Highway 4 and sadly no
already pointed out the glaring difference between what Kerry said and
his supposed slander-of-all-veterans-everywhere you can read all about
if you follow the right-wing blogs.
Just goes to show I should do a Feedster search before I start typing my post….
1 response so far ↓
1 jdkeim@g... // Sep 13, 2004 at 11:12 pm
Betsy, I wouldn’t necessarily worry about checking Feedster first. At this point, I don’t think we can talk enouch about the Swift Boat Ad misrepresentations of what Kerry said. When you read the whole text of Kerry’s statement, it is clear that he was showing much more concern for his fellow veterans than our current Commander-in-Chief seems to be demonstrating when he cuts veteran’s benefits. It amazes me that so many veterans feel inclined to vote for Bush.
Clearly, GW’s people are winning the PR war on this front. I could be wrong but I hear many people in the Midwest who are more than willing to accept these ads at face value.
Keep up the good fight.