Cambodian Kerry
John Kerry's story over his Christmas Eve in Cambodia has been unraveling, and painfully. Here is a good summary of where we started with Kerry's claims:

I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what is was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khme 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....

and

I remember spending Christmas Eve 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.

(btw, Richard Nixon didn't even take office until 1969. And Kerry was only in Vietnam for five months, so he couldn't have just remembered the wrong Christmas.)

Glenn Reynolds has been following this closely since then. See from Aug 10, morning and afternoon, Aug 11, and Aug 12 to the point where the Kerry campaign admitted that his "seared" memory was a "mistaken recollection":

On Fox News' "Fox and Friends," Kerry Campaign Advisor Jeh Johnson had this to say to the show's co-host Brian Kilmeade:

JOHNSON: John Kerry has said on the record that he had a mistaken recollection earlier. He talked about a combat situation on Christmas Eve 1968 which at one point he said occurred in Cambodia. He has since corrected the recorded to say it was some place on a river near Cambodia and he is certain that at some point subsequent to that he was in Cambodia. My understanding is that he is not certain about that date.

KILMEADE: I think the term was he had a searing memory of spending Christmas - back in 1986 in the senate floor in Cambodia.

JOHNSON: I believe he has corrected the record to say it was some place near Cambodia he is not certain whether it was in Cambodia but he is certain there was some point subsequent to that that he was in Cambodia.

Apparently he was only "near" Cambodia. But isn't that the whole point? He had to actually be in Cambodia for his charges against the US government to be true. Yet another case of him slandering the US war effort in Vietnam.

Just for fun, if you're a Kerry supporter, try putting the shoe on the other foot. Let's pretend George W were running for President on the strength of his service record, and then it was discovered that he had been misrepresenting it, and then attempted to cover that up, allowing people closedly tied to his campaign, such as the featured Jim Rassman, to slander the hundreds of veterans who are blowing the whistle. (I quote: "vicious", "hate-filled", "dishonest and dishonorable" and "without decency".)

Do you think the media might happen to at least mention this to the millions of American voters?

After all, when Bush's military record was in question, the media spent about a month of coverage on it, and went so far as to openly speculate whether a dentist's signature was forged. And in that case, there was no story -- media research had already shown Bush had a clean record.

Now that Kerry's campaign has admitted his "seared memory" was invented, I can only assume Jennings, Brokaw and Rather will finally bring this to the public's attention. We shall see...

- posted by The Dutchman @ 7:25:00 PM