Ed Rasimus wrote in message . ..
On 23 Aug 2004 14:13:26 -0700, (Fred the Red
Shirt) wrote:

Ed Rasimus wrote in message . ..
On 20 Aug 2004 11:09:32 -0700, (Fred the Red
Shirt) wrote:



I'll give more stock to the men whom we know were on the boat with
Kerry, and are willing to stand with him today, over what we are told
is said by others whom we are told were on other boats.

Note 'what we are told', and 'whom we are told'.

Once again you've edited to put someone else's words into my mouth.

Please help me to avoid making the same mistake thrice by pointing
out the statements I misattributed to you.

Personally, I'm putting very little stock into the words of the "band
of brothers" who seem to be getting a lot of travel, perks and
"face-time" by being loyal to Senator Kerry.

That sounds remarkably close to slander.

They don't seem to be
bothered by his subsequent slander of his "brothers" when he completed
his 4 months of duty.


As we have previously discussed, Kerry did not slander them though
arguably
it is slander to claim that he did.

...

If you give "more stock" to the subordinates on the boat with him
(that would be 13 or so out of 24 that served in that capacity) than
you give to the 60 out of 240 that were in the Swift boat operation
during the period and have come forward to counter the "band of
brothers" comments, then you don't really understand the concept.


Sorry I didn't pick up on this in my earlier reply but can you show
that there are 60 Swift Boat veterans who contend that Kerry is
'Unfit for Command' IIUC, the authors of the book claim only that
60 contributed to the book, not that they are all agreed on the
conclusion.

I understand your parsing here, and while it might be quite good in a
courtroom, it doesn't pass the (un)-common sense test of daily
discourse in usenet. Consider this, I'm going to write a book. I'm
planning to call it "Unfit for Command". I'm planning to entire a
political firefight challenging a major presidential candidate's
credentials. I ask you to contribute. What do you do if you don't
agree with the thesis of my book?

To directly address your question, I would make honest and truthful
statements to the authors. Why, what would you do?

But your hypothetical presumes over much. First, you assume 60
persons really did contribute, and really know that they contributed.
Perhaps you base that on faith in the authors. I don't know the
authors myself, and am not willing to make that presumption.

Second you presume that the authors informed the persons they
interviewed
of their intent befor even interviewing them. How could that be
unless
the authors reached their conclusions befor doing their research?

Third, you assume that the authors informed those they interviewed
of that conclusion, or that they read the book. Otherwise, how would
they know what conclusion the authors had reached?

I'm not willing to make any of those presumptions, so much for
hypotheticals, back to reality.


Has anyone named more than a handful of these men, or asked them
to comment on the book?

You may recall several weeks ago there was a fairly extensive document
with photos of Swifties at all levels of the chain of command who had
come forward in May of this year in a press conference in Washington
DC at the National Press Club.

No, I missed that. Can you direct me to a copy of that document?


Clearly there are a number of things going on here. One is the focus
of the Kerry campaign on the Vietnam service and not the Vietnam
resistance. That's a recognition of the fact that America IS at war
and we face a serious threat that requires sacrifice and leadership.

Yes and I agree that it is a tactical mistake. The campaign should
emphacise what they plan to do differently in the next four years,
not what was done thirty-odd years ago by either candidate.

Now that he has started down that path *I* personally would like
to see him continue and explain his actions after his return to the
US.

It is also a repudiation of the actions of the Senator after his brief
combat service.

No.


Another is the tendency of the Kerry campaign to focus on that brief
period while ignoring as much as possible the voting record of the
Senator during his extensive tenure. It would be much better for the
electorate to focus on those positions regarding taxes, welfare,
defense, education, jobs, foreign policy, etc.


It is more important to focus on future plans.

Yet another problem is the very clear application of the 527 loophole
by Kerry supporters (can you say "moveon.org"?) then squealing when
his own ox takes a goring. If you want to play one way on offense,
you've got to expect the same back when you're on defense. Soros'
millions don't shrink when compared to a couple of $100K spent by the
Swifties supporters.

Agreed.


The language of Kerry in '71 used in his Senate testimony and much
more explicitly in his Meet the Press interview is deeply offensive
and won't go away quickly if ever. His attempt to mitigate the damage
recently by suggesting he might use less offensive terminology doesn't
get the job done by a long shot.

This sounds rather much like Senator Islen's '57 communists' in the
Pentagon.

A very poor parallel.


Apropos so long as the '60 contributors' to the book remain unamed.

--

FF