Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Cambodia goes mainstream
The Kerry's Cambodia tales have finally made the mainstream media in the Washington Post today. Joshua Muravchik writes that Kerry's own journal belies his claim to have been in Cambodia:
Now a new official statement from the campaign undercuts Brinkley. It offers a minimal (thus harder to impeach) claim: that Kerry "on one occasion crossed into Cambodia," on an unspecified date. But at least two of the shipmates who are supporting Kerry's campaign (and one who is not) deny their boat ever crossed the border, and their testimony on this score is corroborated by Kerry's own journal, kept while on duty. One passage reproduced in Brinkley's book says: "The banks of the [Rach Giang Thanh River] whistled by as we churned out mile after mile at full speed. On my left were occasional open fields that allowed us a clear view into Cambodia. At some points, the border was only fifty yards away and it then would meander out to several hundred or even as much as a thousand yards away, always making one wonder what lay on the other side." His curiosity was never satisfied, because this entry was from Kerry's final mission.As noted at Captain's Quarters, on his final mission, Kerry was still wondering aloud in his journal what was across the Cambodian border. So when was Kerry in Cambodia again? er, never?