| Waking Tad Devine: Kerry, Not Kerrey |
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August 17, 2004 |
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Listen to Rush…
(…describe how John Kerry confused himself with Bob Kerrey)
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Get this. Fox News yesterday had a segment. It was in the afternoon. The Kerry campaign, the John Kerry campaign, in angry response to the Bush campaign claim that Senator Kerry attended very few intelligence briefings. We talked about this yesterday, and we had the audio from Pat Roberts, the Republican chairman of the committee and he said, "Hey, if Senator Kerry will give us permission to release the attendance records of both the public and the closed hearings, we can settle this," because the Bush campaign is out there saying this guy doesn't care about intelligence, and he's voted to cut intelligence left and right throughout his career, now he's not even showing up at the committee hearings be they open or closed.
 And so the Kerry campaign got really in a huff, and they got angry, and they responded to Bush. They said that Kerry had at one time been the vice-chairman of the Intelligence committee. In response to that, the Bush people said, "No, it wasn't you. It was Bob Kerrey who was the vice-chairman of the intelligence committee." (Laughing.) Fox went on to say that Bob Kerrey had attended three times as many intelligence briefings as John Kerry and that Bob had also contested John Kerry's attempt to cut the budget of the intelligence agencies by $6 billion.
So, ladies and gentlemen, the damn conductor has screwed up again. The conductor of the train has told somebody that the wrong Kerrey was the vice-chairman. Do you believe this? It's on their website. They were putting it out that John Kerry was the vice-chairman of the Intelligence committee when it wasn't, it was Bob Kerrey. |
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 And so last night, the Fox News Channel played a tape from one of Kerry's advisors, Tad Devine. I've noticed something about this guy. You're not supposed to say things like this, folks, but I can't help it. Because this is one of those guys the Kerry campaign puts out there to spread the message. It just looks like he has a constant sneer on his face. His facial expression looks like he's sneering. I saw him last night. He was on Matthews' show, Hardboiled, and he was on with Matt Dowd, who's from the Bush-Cheney committee, and they were arguing about something else, but this Tad Devine, I mean just looks like he's sneering. You know, all these Kerry people look like they're mad at the world and mean and all these celebrity supporters out there mad at the world and mean and all the Michael Moores -- you just wonder, this does not seem to me to be the recipe for going out and spreading the love and compassion and good vibes and all that.
Anyway, I got off the beaten path there for a moment. Asked Tad Devine about this, wait a minute, you guys are saying that your candidate, Senator John Kerry, was the vice-chairman of the intelligence committee, and you're wrong it was Bob Kerrey. (Laughing.) Just unbelievable.
Folks, is there any wonder why people are looking into the four different versions now of the Cambodia story? (Laughing.) And, by the way, there are beginning to be some cracks in the mainstream press. There are a couple columnists here today, one in Houston, beginning to wonder where his colleagues are investigating these charges. So there's pressure being applied to the mainstream elite partisan media. I don't know if it's going to work, but people are beginning to note.
Anyway here's what Tad -- here -- oh, is that what it was? Oh, I'm sorry, I've just been told the Kerry campaign has put out a statement: Kerry was the secret vice chairman of the Intelligence committee, and it's seared in his mind that he was secret vice-chairman of the committee. (Laughing.) You know, we sit here and laugh, but we're getting into this gray area here where we need professional, licensed analysts to explain this behavior to us, ladies and gentlemen. To say that he was the vice-chairman of the committee? And, you know, this is not a mistake. They're trying to get away with something. They're trying to get away with something, thinking people aren't going to look, hat they're just going to automatically take the Kerry campaign's word. Anyway, here's what Tad Devine had to say when he was asked about this.
DEVINE: I'll have to check the with issues people. It was my understanding he was but, you know, if that's not a factual case, I'm sure we'll be happy to correct the record.
RUSH: You will? Be happy to correct the record? How about correct the mistake? How about sending somebody to the woodshed for this. Whose fault is it? Of course, it will never be the candidate's fault, he didn't put this up on the website, because he never was the vice-chairman. Everybody knows that. They'll blame the conductor of the train; they'll blame the speechwriter or somebody. |
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Last night, I have to tell you this because this Devine guy was, as I said, on Hardball with Chris Matthews, and one of the things that they were discussing/debating was the hateful rhetoric that is reverberating on the left in this country, and Devine's answer to it was (paraphrasing), "Well, it's Bush's fault. Bush is the most partisan president in the history of the country. And he is causing all this hatred. We don't blame our people for this. We understand it." Just unbelievable. I mean even the people who are engaging in this hateful, irrational behavior themselves are not responsible for it. It's Bush's fault.
Anyway, we've got the documentation here. I guess we could put this on the website. "John Kerry is an experienced leader in the intelligence field. John Kerry served on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for eight years as the former vice-chairman of the committee," is what it says on the website. And he's not. It's Bob Kerrey.
 You know, this just follows a series of -- what are we going to call them, lies, misstatements, mistakes, what have you -- all over Kerry's website about his Christmas in Cambodia. And this just gives more ammo, and I think it gives more weight and adds more curiosity to the charges that are made in the book Unfit for Command.
You know, I joke when I say that we need licensed, professional help to help us analyze this. I'm half serious when I say this. You know, real and imaginary are totally interchangeable to this guy. Real can become imaginary, imagine carry can be real. If he thinks he was there, he was there. I'm not highly trained enough in this field to be able to define this or explain to you what it is, but I mean beyond the fact that somebody's fantasizing. And I think we may have a case of a candidate here who engages in fantasies and has all this life, and if he thinks that he did it, he did it. If he thinks he was vice-chairman he was vice-chairman. If he was in Cambodia on Christmas, then he was. And don't tell him wasn't because he'll say, (Kerry impression) "I don't lie, and I don't make things up, and I don't fall on the ski slopes." Remember that one? And of course we haven't even gotten to the story, he flew his hairdresser out there, once again, to trim his locks. Actually, you know, I was kind of surprised that made big news. I mean, I fly my stylist to New York all the time when I can't get it done here. I thought everybody did that.
END TRANSCRIPT |
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Read the Articles... |
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Headline: John Kerry Confuses Himself With Bob Kerrey
Source: NewsMax
Date: Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2004
Of course John Kerry is afraid to run on his left-wing Senate record, but does that mean he should pose as a colleague?
Imagine the screaming headlines and nationwide media ridicule if President Bush confused himself with another pol. But don't expect the New York Times and company to report this:
In trying to defend his horrendous record on intelligence "and spin their way out of his lousy committee attendance record," Kerry's campaign "claimed on its website Monday, 'John Kerry served on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for 8 years and is the former Vice Chairman of the Committee.' Fact is John Kerry has never – ever! – served as vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence," the Republican National Committee noted today.
"Turns out, there is a senator named Bob Kerrey from Nebraska who was vice chairman for a while. Kerry’s website later pulled the plug on the page, which might be construed as a metaphor for the whole campaign."
The RNC suggested: "Instead of posting false qualifications on the campaign website, maybe it would be wiser for John Kerry and the Gang That Couldn’t Spin Straight to follow the advice of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who called on the Kerry campaign Monday to end the controversy by simply releasing his committee attendance records. What are the odds?"
And thanks to Bush-Cheney '04 for finding this quote Feb. 10, 1994, in the Congressional Record from Kerry's Democrat colleague Dennis DeConcini, then a U.S. senator from Arizona: "Mr. President, the Kerry amendment includes a $1 billion cut in fiscal year 1994 and $5 billion over the next 5 years from intelligence activities."
Rep. Hastert said Monday, "John Kerry served on the Intelligence Committee from 1993 to 2000, and according to official records, John Kerry missed 76 percent of the public Senate Intelligence Committee hearings during that time.
"This figure doesn’t include his attendance at closed door meetings. Those records can only be released to the public at John Kerry’s request.
"This is something that needs to be done, and I join Senator Roberts, Senator Chambliss, Senator Cornyn, and Senator Coleman and others in calling on him to do so, so that the American people can judge the whole picture for themselves."
Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Sunday on "Meet the Press," "The easiest way out of this is for John Kerry and John Edwards to request of Senator Rockefeller and myself to release the attendance hearings; not only the public hearings, which they have rebutted, but the closed hearings."
Sen. John Warner, R-Va., said Sunday on CNN: "So I would go to what is solid, uncontrovertible fact, and that is the records that each committee keeps with regard to the attendance at every hearing of all the members, whether they're there or not. Now, those records are available. John Kerry, if he questions the authenticity of this ad that's out there now, should simply get those records and put them into the public domain."
Let's see, is there a positive spin to the fact that Kerry missed 38 of 49 public hearings of the Intelligence Committee, including the June 8, 2000, hearing on the National Commission on Terrorism's warning about the terrorist threat? Well, at least his 22 percent attendance rate was better than his Senate attendance recently.
Headline: : Kerry Made False Cambodia Claim 50 Times
Source: NewsMax
Date: Sunday, Aug. 15, 2004
By: Steve Marlzberg
It won't be all that easy for John Kerry to revise his demonstrably false claim that he spent Christmas 1968 in Cambodia, since he's on the record more than 50 times making the assertion, according to former Vietnam Swift Boat commander John O'Neill.
"There are more than 50 occasions on which he said he was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in 1968," O'Neill told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg on Sunday. "More than 50 - as recently as last summer."
The Kerry campaign has commissioned presidential biographer Douglas Brinkley to adjust his Cambodia claims to make them comport with the known facts in an upcoming report in The New Yorker magazine.
But O'Neill said it will be hard to palm off Kerry's previous accounts as mere inadvertent misstatements.
"It wasn't some casual memory," he told Malzberg. "He said his entire life changed that evening, because he realized the United States government was operating illegally. ... He defamed everybody in our unit by claiming he had been illegally ordered there."
O'Neill said some of Kerry's 50 references to spending Christmas '68 in Cambodia include speeches on the Senate floor, quotes in articles and on-the-record interviews with reporters.
He cited a 1992 Associated Press report and a July 7, 2004, account by the Boston Globe's Michael Kranish.
"We were told, 'Just go up there and do your patrol,'" Kerry said in the 12-year-old AP interview. "Everybody was over there [in Cambodia]. Nobody thought twice about it."
In July 2004, reporter Kranish said that Kerry had told him his assignment in Cambodia was the catalyst that turned him against the war:
"[Kerry] himself would say that you really have to look at a lot of his thought process as what was happening during Vietnam," he told the Fox News Channel.
"And in one short anecdote I'll tell you, that in Christmas of 1968, he was on a small boat with his men, basically in Cambodia at a time when Richard Nixon was telling the American public that we're not in Cambodia," Kranish said. [Editor's note: Richard Nixon was not sworn in as president until Jan. 20, 1969.]
"And he basically became skeptical. Well, the government is saying this, but he knew himself that wasn't true. And it's also why he says he came back to protest the war that he had served in."
Headline: Kerry’s “Christmas in Cambodia”
Subhead: A member of his crew says it didn’t happen.
By: Byron York
Source: National Review
Date: August 10, 2004
A former member of John Kerry's swift-boat crew says the Democratic presidential candidate's account of spending Christmas 1968 in Cambodia is not true. Steve Gardner, who served on board PCF-44 under Kerry's command in December 1968, as well as part of January 1969, says that at the time, in the area in which Kerry and his crew were operating, it was not possible to take a swift boat to Cambodia.
"It was physically, totally, categorically, across-the-board impossible to get into the canal that went to Cambodia with a swift boat," says Gardner. "There were concrete pilings that were put in the water...plus, the Navy kept patrol boats there to make sure nobody went in. When I was on the 44 boat, it was a physical impossibility to take a swift boat into Cambodian waters."
Over the years, Kerry has said on a number of occasions that he spent the Christmas holiday in 1968 in Cambodia. For example, in September 1997, during a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific affairs, Kerry said, "I first was introduced to Cambodia when I spent Christmas Eve of 1968 in a river in Cambodia during the Vietnam conflict, and I found it to be a rather remarkable and very beautiful country...."
More recently, in a profile of Kerry that appeared in the Washington Post in June 2003, Kerry revealed that he kept an old camouflage hat from the war in a secret pocket in his briefcase. "My good luck hat," Kerry told the paper. "Given to me by a CIA guy as we went in for a special mission in Cambodia."
In March 1986, Kerry said, during a speech on the Senate floor, that, "I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared — seared — in me...."
On other occasions, Kerry has said he was not actually in Cambodia but rather "near" the country. In an interview with the Providence Journal-Bulletin that appeared in April, 1994, Kerry said "Christmas Eve I was up getting shot at somewhere near Cambodia." The account of Kerry's service in Douglas Brinkley's Tour of Duty says Kerry was on patrol near Cambodia, but does not mention him being in the country. "Because they were only an hour away from that neighboring country," Brinkley writes, "Kerry began reading up on Cambodia's history...." Brinkley also quotes from Kerry's Vietnam journal, in which Kerry wrote that he was "patrolling near the Cambodian line."
Of course, the U.S. military did undertake missions in Cambodia — missions that resulted in enormous controversy at the time and in later years. But it does not appear that Kerry was part of those. Gardner, who is a member of the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, says that PCF-44's "nothernmost patrol area" was the town of Sa Dec, about 50 miles from Cambodia. And retired admiral Roy Hoffman, a leader of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, said "You've got to be kidding," when asked by National Review Online about Kerry's account of entering Cambodia. Kerry's other commanding officers have denied any Cambodian incursion, as well. Hoffman said that after an earlier incident in which some soldiers had unintentionally crossed the Cambodian border, the line was very clearly marked with signs warning not to cross.
Finally, another member of Kerry's crew, Jim Wasser, who supports Kerry in the presidential race, told the Dallas Observer last month that he wasn't sure where PCF-44 was at the time in question. "On Christmas in 1968, we were close [to Cambodia]," Wasser said. "I don't know exactly where we were. I didn't have the chart. It was easy to get turned around with all the rivers around there. But I'll say this: We were the farthest inland that night. I know that for sure."
Wasser's recollection introduces the idea that Kerry and some members of his crew might simply have been confused about where they were. While that conflicts with Gardner's recollection, it might still seem plausible if Kerry had, over the years, said only that he was in Cambodia at one time. Given today's questions, Kerry might now say that he simply believed he was there, but in retrospect sees that he might not have known his precise position at the time.
That explanation, however, might be difficult for Kerry to attempt, because of the detailed descriptions he has offered about what he says was his time in Cambodia. He was there with at least one operative of the CIA on a "special mission," Kerry has said — a mission that the U.S. government was officially denying. The CIA man gave Kerry a hat on that special mission, a memento that is so meaningful to Kerry that he has kept it close — in his briefcase — for decades.
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