August 12, 2004

MY GOODNESS: I didn't see Hardball tonight, but judging from my email, a lot of people think Chris Matthews was rather unimpressive.

HUGH HEWITT: "An interesting juxtaposition: Scot Peterson's lie to Amber Frey about being in Paris, and John Kerry's lies to the Senate about being in Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968. Peterson's lie has practically guaranteed his conviction as whatever small bit of credibility he possessed is now destroyed. John Kerry, on the other hand, got a pass this morning from the Washington Post and the New York Times even though his campaign yesterday recanted a central detail of Kerry's Vietnam narrative that he has been peddling for three decades."

Go figure.

UPDATE: Sardonic Views: "All I could think of was Tim Johnson, the former manager of the Toronto Blue Jays who lost his job in '99 after it was revealed that all of his war stories (that he used mainly to motivate players) were complete lies. Johnson was a Marine Corps reservist."

I'm not sure that analogy -- or the Joseph Ellis one -- quite fits. On the other hand, neither of them was running for President.

ANOTHER UPDATE: No, sorry, this isn't quite right either.

DON'T MISS THIS WEEK'S CARNIVAL OF THE VANITIES, which is full of rich, bloggy goodness.

JEFF JARVIS has a link-rich McGreevey resignation roundup.

UPDATE: Gayblogger BoiFromTroi has thoughts on McGreevey:

Why is it that when a straight politician is in an adulterous affair *ahem* Bill Clinton, for example...it is is just "private matter"? If McGreevy thought plain old adultery (or even being sued for it) were grounds for resignation alone, he would have called for President Clinton's. Is Governor McGreevy trying to tell us that Gays are unfit to serve in public office? That is certainly the message he's sending!

P.S. Anyone find it funny McGreevy's campaign theme was "Straight Talk"?

Plus many more humorous observations and links.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Tim Cavanaugh is soliciting conspiracy theories.

MORE: "Excuse the expression, but screw Obama. This was the speech of the year. . . . He sort of makes me want to go gay, too."

MORE STILL: Slantpoint offers a history, with links.

ERIC SCHEIE WRITES that the "Republican base" is for losers. (Wrong link earlier -- fixed now. Sorry!)

UPDATE: Craig Henry responds.

THE CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT says that gay marriages performed in San Francisco are null and void and never had any effect. Howard Bashman has all the links.

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh comments here.

ABC'S THE NOTE WRITES:

Let's face it: there is something squirrelly and unsettling and not quite right about the way Michael Meehan answers the media's Vietnam-era questions — something that makes nearly every member of the Gang of 500 think there is still something there.

Vietnam questions? I haven't heard much about those. . . .

More thoughts here.

UPDATE: Read this, too.

HERE'S AN INTERESTING ARTICLE ON DIGITAL CAMERAS from ABC, wondering how they'll affect archiving and memory.

G-Scobe thinks we'll do better, not worse. I think that's right. I store every memory card onto two CDs, and file them. And although I still have all the negatives from my "serious" photography days, I usually lose the ones for family snapshots, and color film negatives have a very short shelf-life anyway.

INSTAPUNDIT'S AFGHANISTAN PHOTO CORRESPONDENT Maj. John Tammes sends this photo, and this report, from Bagram:

I happened to go into one of the camps on our base to take some photos of construction. When I was taking my shots, one of the painters from the villages around base came up to me, and using his 6 words of English (and my 4 words of Dari) he managed to ask me to take a picture. I thought he wanted one of himself, and that was OK. Instead, he brought one of the older fellows from his crew over and I got the message. Here is the photo of them. I went back to the office and printed an 8 ˝ x 11 in color for them, and put it in a plastic cover. Later, I returned to the camp and found the pair. Their reaction was rather enthusiastic. I gathered that this was actually the first picture of himself that the older man ever had (through our 10 common words and many gestures). I ended up doing the same for the whole crew. I guess I am now their team photographer.

The wonder of ubiquitous digital photography. And printers!

UPDATE: Reader Peter Lawrence emails:

When I was in Sudan in 2002 as part of the Joint Military Commission Nuba Mountains* I carried my Olympus Camedia everywhere. I took images of my guards, guys loading the WFP planes (which I was inspecting to ensure no weapons were not being loaded) and anytime I met anyone official. I made it a habit to make hardcopies of the images using my inkjet printer. I would either give the images directly, if the fellow was senior, or pass it to the most senior fellow in the group if there were many (giving the senior fellow status). They were both a form of building friendship and a currency of sorts.

You would not believe the goodwill doing such engendered. Tremendous!

I would, actually.

THE MUDVILLE GAZETTE is offering its First Annual John Kerry Fiction Contest. Er, shouldn't this year's winner be John Kerry?

I love the first entry, though.

INTERESTING ARTICLE ON black conservative bloggers.

TOM MAGUIRE warns Kerry critics not to get carried away with side issues (in this case, a reported John/Teresa spat).

That's good advice -- and I should note that people are stuffing my inbox with reports that John Kerry went to Red China! Er, on a trade mission, which Senators do all the time. Unless I'm missing something, there's no there there.

There are plenty of genuine questions about Kerry, without descending into moonbattery. Leave that to the Michael Moores of the world.

RACINE RAVE UPDATE:

RACINE - When the City of Racine dismissed more than 400 municipal citations it had given people for attending a rave-like party, it was done to head off a possible class-action civil rights lawsuit.

In return for that, and other steps taken by the city, the American Civil Liberties Union agreed not to bring or help bring such a lawsuit against the city.

Jason Witheril was not part of that deal. . . .

Since the lawsuit was filed, the city tried to keep out as evidence the fact that it had dismissed 440 citations issued at the party. All those citations, save for Witheril's, were irrelevant to the lawsuit, the city claimed.

Packman disagreed, saying the mass issuance, and later dismissal, of citations is crucial to Witheril proving his civil rights were violated, and the city's liability for it.

More background here.

MEDPUNDIT SYDNEY SMITH has more on stem cells, suggesting that my criticism of President Bush is overstated. There's more here, too.

THE NATIONAL DEBATE REPORTS that Amazon has been hacked again. Money quote: "And they want my credit card?"

Ouch.

STEPHEN GREEN'S "GAME PLAN" ESSAY has been revised and published over at TechCentralStation.

NOTHING ON THE KERRY/CAMBODIA STORY in either the New York Times or the Washington Post this morning -- I just searched both sites. Even though the Kerry Campaign has now admitted that Kerry's oft-repeated stories about being in Cambodia on Christmas Day, 1968 aren't true. The Post did find the time to condemn the Swift Boat vets, though, without admitting that one of their charges has already been borne out.

They're spending another chunk of their diminishing credibility to help this guy. Hope they still think it was worth it in a few years.

UPDATE: Well here's a report:

For the first time, Sen John Kerry, the Democratic presidential challenger, has been left floundering by allegations that he invented a key episode of his decorated wartime service in Vietnam - a central plank of his election platform. . . . the Kerry campaign was left in verbal knots after a new book accused the senator of inventing stories about being sent, illegally, over the border into neutral Cambodia. . . .

In newspaper articles, interviews and at least one Senate speech, Mr Kerry has claimed that he spent Christmas 1968 inside Cambodia, at a time when even the US president was publicly denying that American forces were inside that country.

He has cited the missions as a psychological turning point, when he realised that American leaders were not telling the truth to the world about the war in south-east Asia.

The Kerry campaign responded, initially, that Mr Kerry had always said he was "near" Cambodia. Then a campaign aide said Mr Kerry had been in the Mekong Delta "between" Vietnam and next-door Cambodia - a geographical zone not found on maps, which show the Mekong river running from Cambodia to Vietnam.

Michael Meehan, a Kerry campaign adviser, told ABC Television: "The Mekong Delta consists of the border between Cambodia and Vietnam, so on Christmas Eve in 1968, he was in fact on patrol . . . in the Mekong Delta between Cambodia and Vietnam. He was ambushed, they fired back, he was fired upon from both sides, from the Cambodian side of the border and the Vietnam side during that day in 1968."

The map accompanying the story makes short work of that geographical absurdity. I hope that if Kerry's elected, he'll find some advisors who can read a map -- and who understand the difference between "parallel" and "perpendicular." (You can see a bigger, and clearer, map here, if you're interested.)

UPDATE: Harold Eddy emails:

The new "spin" seems to be that the Mekong Delta runs into Cambodia and, as a result, Kerry could have been near Cambodia or accidentially gone over the border. However, that "explanation" is non-responsive to the fundamental basis for the criticism of Kerry. He alleged, again and again, that the US knowingly, intentionally, secretly and duplicitously sent him into Cambodia as part of US policy, while denying the same publicly to the world. . . .

If, now, he is forced to admit that his recollection is untrue, it makes a mockery of over 30 years of his use of his war record. What does this say about his ability to lead? Moreover, how can he criticize George Bush for relying on faulty war intelligence when he has been willing to base policy on his own faulty recollection?

And Craig Henry observes:

Did Kerry vote against key weapon programs? How dare you question the patriotism of a man with three Purple Hearts. Is he too willing to defer to France and the United Nations? How dare you doubt the loyalty of a man with a Silver Star. Faced with this, does the press write about the voting record or about the "hard ball tactics" of the GOP?

Kerry didn't just use his Vietnam experience to enhance his stature as a man or leader. His campaign used it to shut down debate on his Senate record. They made the biography the issue.

Yes, they did.

More here: "And the Post manages to write an entire editorial about the veracity of the Swiftvets without even noting that their first charge scored a direct hit this week."

And Will Collier has a survey of the Big Media outlets that are ignoring this story:

Looks like that American Spectator blurb from a couple of days ago was accurate: beyond Fox News, the press is in full cover-up mode for Kerry on this one.

Yo, Media: Your candidate has apparently lied, repeatedly, over the last 30 years. He did so to embellish his credentials, and in the pursuit of various political ends. His campaign is putting out false spin that doesn't pass the laugh test. Does this say anything at all about his fitness for higher office?

Not to some people, I guess.

August 11, 2004

THE DOOR PAINTING from the back door of the former location of my brother-in-law's coffee house, Cup-a-Joe. (The two images represent different Aspects of Joe.) I just happened by, saw that the new owners had left it up, and snapped a picture with the Sony that I had in my pocket.

MICHAEL TOTTEN writes on being American in Tunisia: "Anti-Americanism isn't quite what it's cracked up to be."

UPDATE: Interestingly, today also brings related thoughts from Bulgaria.

SOME LEGAL ADVICE FOR KENNETH BAER: Worth reading.

UPDATE: Related post here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Tom Huheey emails:

On MSNBC at 10:30-10:40pm Lanny Davis. trying to defend Kerry, did the worse job I have ever seen him do. He held up well through all the Clinton scandals but he appeared to be holding a losing hand tonight.

I didn't see it, but my sense is that this has the Kerry folks pretty rattled, as well it should. I think that Kerry was planning on using his Vietnam record as his main weapon in the debates, and now that's likely to backfire.

MORE: Reader Logan Wright saw it, and observes:

Lanny Davis was worse than terrible in that MSNBC appearance. He accused John O'Neill of knowingly and intentionally lying in his account of John Kerry's third Purple Heart. Davis's argument was that Kerry received the third Purple Heart for saving Jim Rassmann's life, and that O'Neill was a bald-faced liar by denying this. I was practically screaming at the TV that he received the Bronze Star for saving Rassmann's life, not the third Purple Heart (after all, Kerry wasn't wounded in the incident). O'Neill had his own version of the Rassmann story. If there were a logical, rational explanation of Kerry's actions, I think we would have heard it by now.

It's unfortunate that the press has had so little interest in looking into these things. But maybe they'll pick up the ball.

MORE: Here's the transcript from MSNBC. Highlight:

JOHN O‘NEILL, SWIFT BOAT VETERANS FOR TRUTH: If John Kerry can prove that he was in Cambodia on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day of 1968, he should go down and sue me tomorrow morning.

It‘s a lie he‘s told over and over and over again. It libels everybody that commanded him. It‘s the typical prototype sort of war crime charge that John Kerry makes that is a lie.

I think that when a veteran trial lawyer invites a lawsuit, it would probably be a mistake to file. . . .

A BUSH PLAGIARISM SCANDAL: Boy, the dirt just won't stop flying. . . .

MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT: "An Amtrak conductor has been suspended without pay for telling his train passengers that they should vote against Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. . . . Farr told The Associated Press that he used the train's public address system to tell passengers they would be delayed because of Kerry's train and then quipped that they should vote accordingly in November."

It's surely John Ashcroft's fault, somehow.

KERRY THE HERO: Here's a true story of Kerry's heroism:

On July 12, 1988, Hecht was attending a weekly Republican luncheon when a piece of apple lodged firmly in his throat.

Hecht stumbled out of the room, thinking he might vomit but not wanting to do it in front of his colleagues. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., thumped his back, but Hecht quickly passed out in the hallway.

Just then, Kerry stepped off an elevator, rushed to Hecht's side and gave him the Heimlich maneuver -- four times.

The lifesaving incident made international news, and Dr. Henry Heimlich, who invented the maneuver in 1974, called Hecht to say that had Kerry intervened just 30 seconds later Hecht might have been in a vegetative state for life.

"This man gave me my life," the 75-year-old Hecht said Thursday.

Good work!

UPDATE: Boy, everybody's a critic. Reader Norman Hughes takes me to task for running this: "So saving Hecht removes all doubt about the other recent truth's that have been revealed!?! Ergo, all other witnesses are liars! Is that what you are saying?"

Er, no. I just wanted to post something positive along with the negative, for a fuller picture. Meanwhile Jeff Jarvis takes me to task for paying so much attention to the Kerry/Cambodia story, comparing it to his own Howard Stern coverage.

I think that I have a ways to go before I catch up to Jeff's Stern coverage in terms of either volume or tone. But I promise to quit covering this issue so much as soon as the major media -- who certainly didn't ignore the Stern issue, or the bogus Bush/AWOL claims -- start carrying the ball.

ANOTHER UPDATE: In an update to the post linked above, Jeff says that I'm snarking at him, and that I belittled Matt Welch in this post. I certainly didn't mean to be either snarky or belittling -- I was aiming for polite disagreement, and thought I'd achieved it. I like both Jeff and Matt a lot. But I think that this is an important issue, and I would have thought that two champions of the blogosphere like Matt and Jeff would have approved my work to bring in original documents and material not available on the web, and make them part of the conversation. And given that the Kerry Campaign now seems to be admitting that the Christmas in Cambodia claim is false, I don't think I can be accused of raising phony issues. I appreciate Jeff's call to "move on" and address other issues, but I've done that too. I just think that -- given the importance Kerry has placed on all of this stuff -- this sort of dishonesty is worth noting, and I'm disappointed that the big media seem to be covering for him.

BILL HOBBS HAS ROUNDED UP a bunch of interesting galleries of photographs from Iraq.

KERRY/CAMBODIA UPDATE: I promised a while back to see if I could get a look at the October 14, 1979 Boston Herald story -- where Kerry says he remembers spending Christmas, 1968 in Cambodia and hearing President Nixon deny that troops were there -- in original form. The quote's genuine, and here's an image. Sorry it's a bit hard to read: it's a scan of a fax of a photocopy of a microfilm, sent to me by a helpful reader who works at the Herald.

But what's really interesting is the context -- see the full scan here -- which is all about Kerry's Vietnam experiences as they relate to Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. Unlike Al Gore and Love Story, Kerry doesn't claim that the movie is about him -- but he sure draws parallels. In fact, the passage that everyone has been quoting actually reads like this, when you include the prior sentence that people haven't been including:

On more than one occasion, I, like Martin Sheen in "Apocalypse Now," took my patrol boat into Cambodia

In fact, I remember spending Christmas Day of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese Allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real. But nowhere in "Apocalypse Now" did I sense that kind of absurdity.

So Kerry's Vietnam experience was like Apocalypse Now, only it was more so.

How much this adds to the debate isn't clear to me -- but in case anyone was doubting the provenance of this particular quotation, well, I'm satisfied now that its authenticity, if not its veracity, is pretty clear.

Presumably, some big-time journalists are even now interviewing people and combing the records to see if this version of Kerry's 1968 Christmas was correct. (For other, inconsistent, versions, click here.) And for those -- apparently unclear on my age and suspecting me of draft-dodging -- who want to know where I was spending my Christmas in 1968, it was in Heidelberg, Germany. I got a train, and an SST model kit.

UPDATE: Reader Garnet Girl emails:

If Kerry really wants to avoid talking about Cambodia, he probably ought to take the word out of the meta tag on his service page.

And sure enough, if you go here and click "view source" you'll see this:

meta name=target content="military record, cambodia, vietnam, military service"

Bizarre.

UPDATE: The Kerry Campaign is backpedaling now. Guess the memory wasn't that "searing" after all. "Near" Cambodia? Just modify the quote above, or this one, to reflect that Kerry wasn't in Cambodia, but "near" it, and see how that plays.

MORE: Reader Brian Berry emails:

The specificity of the phrase "five miles across the Cambodian border" kinda knocks the explanation of confusion (...maybe he was just near the border and got confused) right out of the picture. If Kerry had said that he was simply "in Cambodia," I think it plausible to say at a later juncture that the statement might have been a bit too concrete and that what he meant to say was that he was near Cambodia-- perhaps he could even claim that he did not know what sovereign territory he was in but fudged it a little for emphasis. However, by claiming to be "five miles" in Cambodia, Kerry created a specificity he can't back out of so easily. His statement suggest he knew exactly where he was, or, exactly where he wanted to claim to have been.

Yep. Expect the spin to seque to the "so what if he lied?" line shortly. And the answer to that comes from reader Daniel Aronstein:

WHAT IF... Porter Goss had lied about going into Cambodia during the Vietnam War repeatedly, over a few decades, in different media, and on the floor of the House)?

Would we want him as DCI? Would he get confirmed? NO WAY!

We should not hold Kerry - who is running for CIC - to a lower standard.

Indeed.

MORE: Michael Demmons observes: "You know? It's come to the point where I'm almost ready to believe that Kerry may never have even been in Viet Nam."

DANIEL MOORE says I'm (partly) wrong on stem cells.

INTERESTING REPORT FROM NAJAF: Funny that this stuff isn't getting more attention.

CHRISTMAS IN CAMBODIA: James Lileks comes up with the proper analogy:

Hugh Hewitt interviewed a shipmate of John Kerry’s on his show today; the transcript is here. Why this happens on a radio show and not in the Washington Post is a question I’ll let you decide. It’s not like these guys live in the Fortress of Solitude, accessible only by messages relayed by carrier pigeon.

It has to do with Christmas in Cambodia – the only aspect of the SwiftVets story I care to comment on, for reasons I think I stated before. If Kerry’s story is a lie, it’s significant, but not because we have a gotcha moment – gee, a politician reworked the truth to his advantage, big surprise. This is much larger than that. This is like Bush insisting that he flew an intercept mission with the Texas Air National Guard to repel Soviet bombers based in Cuba, and later stating that this event was “seared in his memory – seared” because it taught him the necessity of standing up against evil governments, such as the ones we face today. In other words, it would not only be a lie, but one that eroded the political persona he was relying upon in the election. . . . What sort of man bedecked with genuine decorations feels compelled to manufacture a story like this one?

Yes. (Emphasis added.) More thoughts here. I think that the Big Media hang-back on this is significant. It shows that there's not an easy explanation -- how can there be, when Kerry has told different, and mutually inconsistent, stories -- and that they think it will really hurt him.

Covering for him, though, will really hurt them. In fact, it already is, as Evan Thomas's statement is repeated throughout the land.

UPDATE: Reader Bob Kagan emails:

If you think there is a problem with Kerry using his four months as a Swift boat commander as the seminal experience of his life, what do make of George Bush's "born again" experience as the seminal experience of his life, which up to that point, had consisted of a mediocre academic career, mediocre (being kind) business career, and serious problems of alcohol abuse. Say what you will, agree with him or not, Kerry has been trying to make a difference in the direction of American policy since he was a young man. He did it on his own. He has earned his place in the debate. GWB is a Jonny come lately to the party. No one would ever accuse him of policy depth (although he does have "principals") and he spent his formative years trying to find out what it means to be formed.

The Swift boat charges would have substance if they just dealt with the issue of Kerry coming back as an anti-war protester. That is a legitimate debate. The commercial is deceptive and non substantive on its face although as a matter of political theatre it is extremely effective

Well, I haven't heard anyone suggest that Bush's Christianity is insincere. In fact, the rap on Bush from the left is that he's too sincere, making him some sort of an aspiring theocrat.

As for Kerry's "making a difference" in the years since 1968 -- so why isn't he talking about that?

MY EARLIER COMMENTS on the free wi-fi at Panera Bread bring this testimonial from reader Mark Rushton:

Thanks for the tip on Panera. I found one on the Plaza in Kansas City while my wife and I are on vacation. Sure beats the $12.95 a day net access offered by the hotel, or Starbucks' weird situation ("if you're a T-mobile user you can get blah blah blah...") - and the cheese croissant was excellent.

I was there again yesterday. If the competition in this heats up (and Atlanta Bread is now also offering free wi-fi) I wonder how long those T-Mobile deals will last.

UPDATE: Reader Todd Lemmon emails:

While driving back from a business trip in Indianapolis, I needed to check email and decided to give my friend Matt in Santa Monica a call. Why? Because I was on the road on I-65 and I wanted him to do a wifinder.com search for West Lafayette for me. I was hoping a Panera would pop up since I use the Panera in Evanston (forget the Starbucks 3 doors down; they CHARGE for wi-fi!).

Sure enough, there was a Panera in town so I drive in, had a great snack and got my emails and checked out my blog line-up. There's even a Panera in Merrillville just up the road and I stopped there, too, for 90 minutes while waiting for Chicago area traffic to subside.

Panera has the model: Wi-Fi should be no different than air conditioning or Muzak, free. Why can't other places realize that they can monetize the tiny investment by offering tasty treats, coffee and other beverages?

Beats me, but I'm a Panera man, now.

The model's working!

I PRAISE KERRY SOME MORE: Over at GlennReynolds.com.

THE KERRY CAMPAIGN: STILL NOT READY FOR PRIMETIME:

The Kerry campaign first asserted that the Massachusetts senator never said that he was in Cambodia, only that he was near the country. But when presented with a copy of the Congressional Record and asked about Kerry's letter in the Boston Herald, the campaign said it would come up with an explanation. After repeated phone calls, there was still no clarification.

Tom Maguire notes more developments, and offers advice to both Kerry critics and Kerry supporters.

ANOTHER FAILURE FOR MULTILATERAL DIPLOMACY:

The "EU-3" were trying to convince Iranian officials to honour an earlier deal to suspend its controversial uranium enrichment programme, which is ostensibly designed to make fuel for nuclear power stations but could also be used to make fissile material for nuclear bombs.

Iranian officials refused point-blank to comply, saying they had every right under international law to pursue "peaceful" nuclear technology.

They then stunned the Europeans by presenting a letter setting out their own demands.

They've got Chutzpah -- or, at any rate, an accurate sense of how little the Europeans are prepared to actually, you know, do.

UPDATE: More thoughts on what's going on here.

RACINE RAVE UPDATE: I've been writing about the botched drug raid in Racine, Wisconsin for quite a while. Most of the resulting lawsuits were settled quite some time ago, but Progressive Racine reports that one is still going forward.

MY TECHCENTRALSTATION COLUMN IS UP: It's an Andy Rooney-esque rant about newspaper website registration.

August 10, 2004

MATT WELCH SEEMS OFF BASE TO ME HERE. He quotes this passage from one of my posts regarding threats to release divorce and psychiatric information about the Swiftboat Vets:

Indeed, if people start dishing dirt about these guys instead of offering factual refutations, it will pretty much serve as an admission that the charges are true.

Matt's question: "Is There a 'Pretty Much' Legal Standard?"

I don't know why we need a "legal standard" here, since the only court involved is the court of public opinion. (Why is it that journalists are so anxious to turn political questions into legal ones?) As I said in another post, "Kerry has faced specific criticisms and questions. His campaign is responding with ad hominems and generalities." And surely threats of personal blackmail against whistleblowers don't cut in Kerry's favor.

I don't see where legal standards enter the picture here. But I'll give it a try. If I were in court and saw a defendant who made inconsistent statements about what happened that were contradicted by others who were there, and when the defendant's response was ad hominems and generalities, I think I'd be entitled to be skeptical. Juries are entitled to draw inferences from a witness's demeanor.

And while I agree with Welch that I'd rather be talking about other stuff, it's Kerry who has built his campaign around his four months in Vietnam (and, he says, Cambodia!) rather than, say, his record in the Senate. We can draw inferences from that, too.

For more on why this might matter, read these comments by my colleague, law professor (and Vietnam veteran) Tom Plank.

UPDATE: More specifics here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Bob Gleason emails:

I've always been lead to believe that the standard taught by law professors is: If you have the facts, argue the facts; if you don't have the facts, argue the law; if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound your shoe.

OK, so it's hackneyed. But that seems to be the paint-by-numbers Kerry defense at this juncture.

Which is most surprising, considering that he could clear all this up by simply releasing his full military records.

HEART-RENDING CAMPAIGN STORY ON HEALTH INSURANCE turns out not to be true.

KHHAAANN! Mickey Kaus writes:

More important, note that even these Pakistanis sources, according to Reuters, say that the Bush administration "confirmed" Khan's name, not that the Bushies are the ones who leaked it in the first place. It seems entirely possible that once Khan's name was out in Monday's NYT-- and Khan had been moved to a safe house--Bush administration officials felt there was no point in sticking with their refusal to confirm his name. . . .

I'll be quite willing to condemn the Bushies if in fact they outed Khan--even if it wasn't intentional, it would at least be grossly negligent, and someone (maybe Bush) would deserve to be fired for it. But the surface evidence from the original source--the Times' piece--points to a Pakistani official, not a Bush official, as the culprit.

As I said before, we really have no idea what was going on here. But Will Collier isn't happy.

TIM CAVANAUGH IS RIGHT:

The Kerryites should be all over the country applauding their guy for not having a "major piece of legislation with his name on it." . . . And while we're at it why not retire the cockeyed practice of using named legislation as a yardstick of political performance?

Indeed.

MATTHEW YGLESIAS on the Kerry/Cambodia story:

Seriously, in my experience these damaging-looking allegations have a way of turning out not to be true, a fact that never seems to get as much coverage as the initial allegation. But it certainly looks bad from here, and I haven't seen a good explanation yet, perhaps because there isn't one. It's a little hard to see what could possibly be the motive for a Kerry lie on this front, which makes it plausible that there's a reasonable explanation, but also a little freaky if there does turn out to be one. Personally, I've never maintained that John Kerry had a George Washington-esque level of honesty (see, e.g., my article about how Kerry is basically lying about his trade policy) so my world won't be shaken to the core if this turns out to be a fib.

What an endorsement! But he deserves credit for mentioning the issue, as many lefty bloggers aren't. He also links to Campaign Desk, which links to this Frontline item on covert U.S. operations in Cambodia -- though there's not anything there that actually supports the notion that Kerry was in Cambodia. That's not much to offset claims by Kerry's own crewmembers that he was never there.

I agree that it's hard to come up with a specific motive -- beyond simple bragging and posing, anyway -- and it's hard to believe that Kerry could make statements like this and not expect to be called on them. For what it's worth, this unsourced item suggests that the Kerry Campaign didn't expect the media to check. I don't know if it's true, but it would explain a lot. . . . [LATER: Jim Geraghty reports that the Kerry Campaign denies this.]

At any rate, it's far too early to compare Kerry to Micah Wright, as many of my emailers are. Unlike Wright (who's still making lame excuses), Kerry definitely served, and regardless of the Cambodia story seems to have served well -- and if he'd stuck to that and obeyed the usual war-hero conventions of manly humility and self-deprecation nobody (including me) would be paying much attention to this. But since Kerry himself has made his war experience -- and his recounting of it -- the centerpiece of his campaign and invited us to judge him on that (and almost exclusively so), well, it matters.

And Tom Maguire wants the military records released. It seems to me that the Kerry people could clear this up pretty quickly, if they did that.

UPDATE: Ann Haker wonders if Kerry is playing rope-a-dope here. Could be, I suppose. It would show a degree of shrewdness not previously apparent in his campaign, but I suppose that would go with running a good bluff. In some sense, if that were true I would find it comforting.

ANOTHER UPDATE: My colleague Tom Plank, who served with the Marines in Vietnam, emails:

I really appreciate that you are addressing the Kerry in Vietnam issue. As a preliminary matter, I initially thought that Kerry's and Bush's service in the late 1960s and earlty 1970s was irrelevant to the question of who would make a better President.

But, Kerry's emphasis on his service in Vietnam raises issues important to me.

First, as a combat veteran of Vietnam (Aug 1969-May 1970), I was starting to feel that if the Swiftboat veterans questioning Kerry's Vietnam service could not be heard, then this country is not worth defending. Fortunately, they are getting to be heard.

Second, even without the critics of Kerry's Vietnam service, the prominence that Kerry has placed on Vietnam is mystifying. For example, why would any active duty officer go back and restage his activities for film? What kind of person would do that? I had a camera in Vietnam, and I took pictures. But not in combat, and not to recreate my combat experiences. I suggest that this action suggests something important about Kerry's character, and it is not good. Along the lines of a Nixon and Clinton.

Second, emphasize four months in Vietnam and ignore one's Senate record? How can anyone buy that? Can Kerry believe that no one will pay attention to his Senate record? I find it hard to believe that Kerry can sell himself as a hawk now (and criticise Bush) when he has one of the most appeasement-oriented and anti-military and anti-intelligence records in the senate.

Third, if you add all of this together, plus the allegations of the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, you get the sense that Kerry will say anything to get what he wants (in this case, the Presidency) whether it is true or not. Everthing points to an uprincipled person along the lines of a Nixon.

I am glad this is being aired. Do we really want a President who has this kind of character?

Well, that's what we have to figure out. And reader Joseph Bator emails:

The point about Kerry's Cambodia service is the context of his claim. He did not simply inflate his service record. He used the claim as a club to bludgeon supporters of Reagan's Nicaragua policy. Nicaragua = Viet Nam. Reagan = Nixon. Support for the Contras = John Kerry sent to Cambodia by his duplicitous government. His indignation gave him not the moral high ground, but an amazing simulation. In 1986 that was all he needed to put defenders of Reagan's policies on the defensive. If his claim to Cambodia service is false it reveals a particularly repugnant form of cynicism. If he can't prove his claim, it speaks very badly indeed for his political character.

Indeed. Context on the Nicaragua issue here.

ORIN KERR notes a bogus privacy scandal at The New York Times.

MY PRAISE FOR KERRY ON STEM CELLS has generated several hundred emails, which I haven't had a chance to digest. But a few points:

1. If you believe an embryo is a human life, I can see why you think research on embryonic stem cells is wrong. I don't believe that. [There goes your shot at a Bush judicial appointment! -- Ed. It was already gone.]

2. I actually think that eventually adult stem cells will do all the work. But I don't know that, and ruling out research involving embryonic stem cells now might keep us from getting to that point, or get us there much later.

3. I realize that Kerry overdraws the effect of the Bush "ban" -- which is really a limitation on federal funding -- but in fact the funding limitation is very harsh, and it's also harder to get private money for research the feds won't fund.

4. I also realize that stem cell research won't cure Alzheimer's tomorrow, or whatever, and is oversold by the likes of Ron Reagan, Jr. But it looks pretty promising, and I don't think we should drag our feet. (I also note that the scientific optimism of the "adult stem cells will do everything" crowd fits poorly with the "stem cells won't do anything" position).

I'll try to do something more detailed on this, but I'm actually pretty busy on a law review article at the moment, so no promises.

I think Kerry's right on this one. If I trusted him on the war, which I don't, it might be a deciding issue for me.

INTERESTING PIECE on blogs as early-warning systems for corporations. Ignore them at your peril!

DIRTY TRICKS UPDATE: The National Debate reports that a phony editorial review on Amazon regarding the SwiftVets book was inserted by someone that Amazon calls "a bad actor."

As TND notes: "This is the second instance of manipulation of an Unfit for Command web page on a leading bookseller web site in the past 24 hours. The Barnes & Noble web site displayed a doctored bookcover image which has since been removed."

Hmm. A "bad actor," eh? Let the Alec Baldwin jokes begin. . . .

UPDATE: More efforts to silence debate here. It's a climate of government censorship and dirty tricks by digital brownshirts. I blame John Ashcroft!

CULTURAL IMPERIALISM in Beijing.

Looks fine to me!

MELANIE PHILLIPS has an interesting post on the British terrorist arrests last week. One interesting bit is that some had been planning operations since before 9/11.

HUGH HEWITT'S SITE, hacked and down yesterday, is up now.

THE ANNENBERG OUTFIT, FACTCHECK.ORG, offers a defense of Kerry that's better than the Kerry Campaign has managed -- citing facts and evidence and everything -- though it concludes: "At this point, 35 years later and half a world away, we see no way to resolve which of these versions of reality is closer to the truth." This piece is about the Swiftvets ad, though, and doesn't mention Cambodia.

But Tom Maguire has more on Cambodia, gleaned from Brinkley's book.

UPDATE: Q&O; is fact-checking FactCheck, whose analysis is called "incomplete and inaccurate."

FORGET VIETNAM: Say, did you know that we're fighting a war right now? Shocking, but true.

The Belmont Club has a roundup of how things are going: "Although it may be premature to say that the War on Terror is rising to a crescendo, recent events have imparted a distinct sense of movement, as in 'hey, this thing might actually be going somewhere'. . . . The truism that victory has many fathers while defeat is an orphan may partially explain why the Democratic Party sought to rebrand itself as the War Party during its recently concluded convention in Boston."

Indeed.

UPDATE: Austin Bay emails from Iraq:

Victory has many fathers.. Remember my letter to you where I said we had made the "big move" equivalent to the big moves we made in 1944? I argued there's still tough sledding ahead but we're winning. I was not blowing off steam. . . . I do think we're winning. I'll have more thoughts when I get back in three or four weeks.

I look forward to reading them.

In the meantime, read this essay by Stephen Green, too: "Nobody ever has a plan for the peace. Or if they do, it will prove useless. 'No peace plan survives the last battle' is the VodkaPundit corollary to Clausewitz's dictum that no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy."

THE DARFUR SLAUGHTER IS NOT A GENOCIDE, according to the European Union. Because if it were, you know, we'd have to do something about it.

HEY, WHEN THE FRENCH ARE RIGHT, they're right!

TOM MAGUIRE has got your Plame reporters' subpoena roundup. Curiouser and curiouser -- but it seems we're closing in on the truth. And Novak will be talking, apparently.

STILL BLOWING SMOKE: This Rassman oped in the Wall Street Journal does the WSJ editors credit -- imagine the New York Times giving one of the critical Swift Boat Veterans an oped slot to state their charges -- but what it's lacking is any response beyond the "how dare you question his heroism?" line.

Kerry has faced specific criticisms and questions. His campaign is responding with ad hominems and generalities. Perhaps they're just hopelessly out of touch with events (Jim Geraghty asks: "don't these people read Instapundit?" -- they'd be doing better if they did!) or perhaps they can't respond with specifics. It's looking more and more like the latter.

And Rassman looks like a poor choice to defend these charges, as he wasn't there much. In fact, here's something that hasn't gotten a lot of attention:

Jim Rassmann, now part of the Kerry presidential campaign, was a Special Forces lieutenant spending a few days with Kerry when he fell or was knocked off the swift boat while under fire and was fished out of the Mekong River by the future candidate.

So Kerry's main defender can't really know much about the specifics because he was only there for a few days. Why don't they put someone forward who can?

UPDATE: More here:

August 10, 2004 -- WASHINGTON — John Kerry's claim that he was ordered to conduct an illegal combat mission in Cambodia on Christmas Day in 1968 is made up, Navy vets charge in a new book.

The veterans say Kerry "would have been seriously disciplined or court-martialed had he gone there."

Three of the vets quoted in the book were part of the five-member crew that served on Kerry's own boat: Bill Zaldonis, Steven Hatch and Steve Gardner.

They deny they or their boat were ever in Cambodia.

Well, that's pretty specific. Where's the specific response?

How badly is the Kerry campaign blowing this? So badly that his best defense comes, believe it or not, from Robert Musil, who argues: "Yes, there is considerable evidence - and always has been - that John Kerry has exaggerated certain aspects of his military record but so have a great many very brave and noble combat veterans throughout history - and it has always been that way, in and after every war."

I predict that this will be next weekend's spin from the Kerry camp, but thanks to the magic of the blogosphere you can get it today! And I actually do think that the Cambodia issue is relatively minor compared to other criticisms of Kerry, or even of Kerry's war record. It's just one that's very easy for people to pounce on because of internal and external inconsistencies.

As John O'Sullivan writes in the Chicago Sun-Times today, the truth is sure to come out:

Even if the major media decided to bury this story, they would probably not succeed -- and they know as much. The "blogosphere" -- that voluntary society of unpaid free-lance journalists -- is following the story avidly, correcting errors, producing original documents, sifting through different accounts. Some bloggers are for Kerry, some against, but all are together advancing the story by winnowing truth from falsehood. Unless the bloggers conclusively acquit Kerry before the story migrates outwards, the mainstream media will eventually be forced to devote serious resources to it.

I think the story has already "migrated outward." But what's astounding to me is that the Kerry campaign seems so disorganized, flabby and unprepared in responding to charges that it should have known were coming for months. Would a Kerry Administration be better organized than the Kerry Campaign? We have to hope so.

MORE: Reader John Frederick observes:

It's interesting to note that when the Bush was AWOL/deserter/liar story was in full play a few months back, the press went so far as to interview a dentist that had signed an exam record to question whether his signature had been forged. I guess the point was to try and establish that the record was altered to help Bush. Now we have the Swift Vets' charges and the press can't even be bothered to look critically at what they say actually happened. And there's 250+ of them! I've always felt there is media bias but even I am astonished by
the utter lack of analysis of anything Kerry has ever done in Vietnam or public life.

I guess the Kerry campaign was counting on that. Or maybe it's a brilliant strategy, as reader Joseph Fulvio suggests:

Keeping focus on endless quarrels over Kerry's Vietnam experience could be a net plus for him, as it distracts from examination of his Senate record, which provides unimpeachable evidence that his campaign rhetoric contradicts 15 years of behavior.

You never know.

MORE STILL: Jeff Taylor:

I swear Kerry saw Apocalypse Now during its first run and immediately began grafting parts of the story onto his own life. Boat into Cambodia? Check. Horrors and atrocities? Check. One tortured soul who sees through the lies? Check.

He's no Martin Sheen, though.

And here's more of tomorrow's spin today, courtesy of the blogosphere:

The fact that he made up his covert op time in Cambodia would come under the heading of neccesary evil. . . . He was working for the greater good, so the lie was not bad, it was neccesary. If Kerry didn't actually spend Christmas Eve on an illegal covert op, then someone did, and that rat-bastard wasn't man enough to come forward and admit it, like Kerry was. Yup, Kerry was man enough to admit he had done it, even if he hadn't really done it and was just taking the credit (see "thrown medals" above.)

It's like having a time machine!

COMMENTS ON THE NIGHTLINE SWIFTVETS SEGMENT here ("ABC didn't examine the issue so much as to try and make 'nothing to see here, best to just move along' noises.") and here.

Sounds like they're still behind the blogosphere on covering this.

August 09, 2004

HERE'S A USEFUL SUMMARY of Kerry's Cambodia claims.

NIGHTLINE will be covering the Swiftboat Vets story tonight.

KERRY ENDORSES IRAQ WAR! No, really:

Stripes: The charge is out there that Republicans are much better suited to handle defense issues. How do you counter that?

Kerry: My record counters that, and my friends counter that. . . .

They went into Iraq in a brilliant military strategy, which we all adopted and supported, but they didn’t have a plan to win the peace. They didn’t bring other [countries] to our side. They didn’t give our troops all the equipment — the body armor and the armored Humvees and things they need and deserve.

There’s a great tradition of Democratic presidents who’ve led us in war.

(Emphasis added). Leaving aside the "other countries" bit, which is bogus unless "other countries" is just a synonym for France and Germany, note that this is an endorsement of the war, and seems to completely undercut earlier statements that Bush "misled the country." Will this be the new Kerry position -- the war was justified, but the peace was bungled? And I'll handle the wars I start better? Is it a return to the 2001/2002 pro-war Kerry?

I'm not terribly averse to that, but I wonder how it'll play with the antiwar base? (Via Sarah). Probably no better than this even stronger statement:

GRAND CANYON, Ariz. (Reuters) - Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said on Monday he would have voted for the congressional resolution authorizing force against Iraq even if he had known then no weapons of mass destruction would be found.

Taking up a challenge from President Bush, whom he will face in the Nov. 2 election, the Massachusetts senator said: "I'll answer it directly. Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it is the right authority for a president to have but I would have used that authority effectively."

This really seems to undercut the "Bush lied, people died" line, doesn't it?