John Kerry has his vet pal slime the Swift Boat Veterans
Addison Ross
John Kerry must be feeling the heat because he was forced to wheel out Vietnam vet Jim Rassman to defend him. Rassman devoted about 700 words of a 1000 word article describing how Kerry fished him out of a river, and what a great guy John Kerry is.
Rassman devoted the rest of the article to accusing John Kerry's vet critics of being part of a "Republican smear campaign", of being "dishonest and dishonorable", "without decency" and being "vicious" liars.
This, readers, is a Democrat's idea of a debate. The tactic is capture the high moral ground by overwheling your audience with your own sense of righteousness, then follow up with a vicious assault on your opponents' moral depravity. And Rassman played it to the hilt. In doing so he exposed himself as a mendacious man who had abandoned any sense of honour or integrity he may have once possessed.
Let's put the Honourable Rassman to the test. When Kerry addressed the Democrat's convention he accused President Bush of lying about Iraq. Rassman applauded, even though Kerry was lying. When John Kerry falsely accused President Bush of denying the vote to one million blacks, Rassman agreed.
This is not what I call the behaviour of an honourable man.
Rassman accuses the vets of being stooges of "Texas Republican donors with close ties to George W. Bush and Karl Rove", clearly indicating that the accusation are part of a sinister Republican plot.
But if Rassman's criterion for dismissing criticism and savaging opponents is based on who funds them, why is it he never objected to John Kerry's 527 slandering Bush on a daily basis? Why is it, Rassman, that Democratic funding by the repulsive likes of George Soros and Harvey Weinstein is acceptable but funding by Republicans of the Swift Boat Veterans is corrupt?
The vets' ad cost a mere $500,000 as opposed to the $15 - $20 million that Soros alone has pumped into lying 527 hate groups. Yet Rassman directs his hate and contempt at his fellow vets'. Perhaps he is revealing more about himself then he realises.
Rassman accuses these vets of calling John Kerry "a traitor because he spoke out against the Nixon administration's failed policies in Vietnam." This is a stupid lie that reveals Rasman's ignorance.
In the fires place, Kerry was opposed to America's defence of South Vietnam before he volunteered for service. In case Rassman needs reminding, Nixon was not president at the time.
The second and most important point is that Kerry was attacked by his fellow veterans because he betrayed those he served with. Rassman has evidently forgotten, if he ever knew, that John Kerry accused American forces of murdering 200,000 South Vietnamese a year.
Not content with that calumny he went before a Senate committee and parroted Hanoi's vicious slander that US troops "raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam."
It was these vile lies that led O'Neill in 1971 to publicly challenge Kerry. But according to Rassman it's O'Neill and his fellow vets "insult and defame all of us who served in Vietnam." Not only that, he argues that these men "do not understand the bond of those who serve in combat".
How could Rassman make such an incredibly dishonest statement knowing full well that these mean are Vietnam veterans? Must I now conclude that only vets for Kerry can justly call themselves veterans? Moreover, I'm left wondering why Rassman did not jump to the defence of those that Kerry viciously denounced as war criminals.
John Kerry's Senate testimony puts paid to Rassman's lie that Kerry was attacked in 1971 merely because he "spoke out against the Nixon administration's failed policies". And Rassman still has the cheek to accuse O'Neill and his fellow vets of being "without decency".
Gen. George S. Patton (Vietnam vet and namesake of the World War II general) accused Kerry of having "given "aid and comfort to the enemy." Does Rassman also think that Gen. Pattern is a liar and a Republican stooge?
If Kerry was so honourable perhaps Rassman would explain why in his 1971 book The New Soldier Kerry not only minimised the threat from Hanoi but also ignored the regime's policy of committing systematic atrocities against the people of South Vietnam? Kerry accused US troops of "killing women and children" and creating "a nation of refugees, bomb craters, amputees, orphans, widows, and prostitutes". Is it pure coincidence, Mr Rassman, that Kerry's book was perfectly attuned to Hanoi's propaganda line?
Yet Rassman tells us that John Kerry can stand proud. How can this creature stand proud of fighting in a war he described as "barbaric"? How can this man claim hero status and pride in his duty after he slandered American troops and claimed to have committed war crimes? Unfortunately, this is something Rassman neglected to explain.
Being in accord with Hanoi's wishes it was no surprise when John Kerry argued that Washington should cut off all aid to South Vietnam, even though Hanoi was being supplied by Moscow and Beijing, and let it fall to communist aggression. (Kerry also argued the same policy for Grenada and Central America).
When in 2001 Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey, a well-known defender of human rights, authored a bill linking US aid to Vietnam with "substantial progress" in its human rights record John Kerry, who was East Asian and Pacific Affairs sub-committee, killed it.
Tell me, Rassman, why would such a decent and honourable man do such a thing?
Rassman also accused the Swiftvets of being part of a campaign to destroy McCain. This charge parrots Pitts claim that the Swiftvets " conference was set up by the same people who tried to discredit John McCain’s reputation in Vietnam service when McCain faced George W. Bush for the Republican nomination in 2000."
Pitts' accusation closely echoed a Kerry press release from Campaign Manager Mary Beth Cahill who asserted that the "attack was organized by the same pro-Bush group that smeared John McCain in 2000."
Now we have Rassman doing the same thing. Do I smell collusion? Am I witnessing a calculated attempt to destroy the reputations of dozens of vets who served honourably in Vietnam, just as John Kerry did on his return to the US?
Those who get tangled up with John Kerry will eventually sink to his abject moral level. This seems to be the case with Rassman. Perhaps that's why he claimed that these vets did not "serve with Kerry in Vietnam" even though some of them did? (Four of these officers served with Kerry, plus Steve Gardner, Kerry's gunner, who served under him longer than anyone else). This fact is interesting considering that Rassman omitted to mention that he spent only several days in Kerry's company.
It seems that John Kerry's character assassins didn't do a very good coaching job with Rassman.
Rassman has put himself in the unenviable position where one can reasonably ask that if he is prepared to lie about Kerry's post-war record and ruthlessly slander his critics what else is he prepared to lie about. It certainly does him no good to attack the integrity of others while demonstrating a striking inability to muster any of his own.
If Swift Boat Veterans for Truth really are liars Rassman says they are. If they really fabricated the truth as Rassman claims then Kerry's lawyers have them over a barrel. They could easily ruin them financially, permanently scar them emotionally and destroy them socially.
All these lawyers have to do is expose the whole of John Kerry's military records and post-war behaviour to public scrutiny. So why don't they? Instead they chose intimidation, character assassination and thuggish tactics. You're sure keeping good company, Rassman.
And by the way, did I mention that the DNC might also send out dummies to draw fire away from Kerry. As one famous American Hollywood philosopher put it: "There's a sucker born every minute."
Perhaps the bottom line here is that Rassman's article reads as if it was taken from one of Beth Cahill's media releases. And that reminds me: if anyone gets involved in the Kerry campaign they are likely to end up lying next to Cahill, 'Mad Dog' Carville and Bully Boy Davis staring up at the sewer.
Gerry Jackson is Brookes' economics editor
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 16 August 2004