ABC to air Kerry video showing "flip flop" of throwing away medals

[noahmijo]

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/Politics/Investigation/kerry_vietnam_medals_040425.html

I'm the type that likes to know what the opposition is planning and this is what I found.

After reading it seems to me that Kerry threw away his own ribbons and other soldier's medals but NOT his own medals as he has clearly stated.

Of course the RW is going to milk and distort this story for all its worth.

[aquart]

1. There will never be footage of George Bush doing this.

He was never awarded any medals. Or ribbons. Or even a merit badge for attendance.

[jpgray]

2. The problem is, he never said "I threw my medals over the fence"

Everyone assumed he had thrown his medals, lacking any statement on his part to back those assumptions up. How this is Kerry's fault, I leave you to guess at. He threw his ribbons, kept his medals. Those medals he threw he was asked to throw by other veterans.

[dsc]

3. In politics it is not a good idea to let a false impression lie

and apparently that is what he did. My dad and I routinely discuss politics and this is one of the things which he doesn't like. It isn't a deal breaker or anything but he doesn't like it. For someone who is less anti Bush than he is though, who knows what it would be.

[jpgray]

5. So Kerry is responsible for the false assumptions of others?

That doesn't hold a lot of water. He didn't falsely claim that he threw his own medals, people assumed he did without asking him, and then were apparently upset at Kerry that their own assumptions were not correct. Not exactly a fair reason to be upset at the guy, but of course this election isn't going to be fair. Should he have waved his hands around at the event, declaring: "Please note that I am throwing my ribbons and some medals I was asked to throw on the part of veteran friends. My own medals are not present." Not really in the spirit and solemnity of the event, right?

It would be like someone who assumes from Dean's deferment that he shouldn't be able to ski. That's not correct, and Dean can't be responsible for it, because it's someone else's false assumptions that are the problem.

[dsc]

11. fairly or not

that is the way it works. You don't think the skiing cost Dean? I think it did, at the margins. In the case of Kerry, this impression went uncorrected for over a decade. Kerry is likely to lose some number of votes for this. I have no earthly clue how many. The disaster would be if this becomes one of those 'defining' momnents like what the press did to Gore. This is one of those stories with a tangability to it.

On edit: It should also be noted that it wasn't a ridiculous assumption. Kerry threw a bunch of his ribbons, which he said were his, and medals over the fence. He did this with a large group of people who were throwning their medals and ribbons over the fence. It isn't like this was some made up thing on the part of a FOX news anchor.

[jpgray]

13. It's pretty weak, as far as that goes

"We thought he threw his medals without asking him, but he didn't!" isn't much of a rallying cry. It's lamer than the kind of shit they tried on Gore, plus Kerry won the Weld race handily with this stuff out there. Whether this will kill him when magnified on the national stage is anybody's guess, but blaming Kerry for it doesn't make any sense. He's responded to it, he didn't lie, what more should he do? The more time he spends on it, it can become a bigger issue than it ought to be.

[dsc]

14. I just read the piece

I would suggest you do that to. Assuming that ABC News didn't edit a tape he did say, in 1971, that he threw his medals. I will wait to see the report before I make a final judgement but this appears to be a new thing. I only recalled the 1984 and 1988 stuff.

On edit: I am referring to this:

I gave back, I can't remember, 6, 7, 8, 9 medals," Kerry said in an interview on a Washington, D.C. news program on WRC-TV's called Viewpoints on November 6, 1971, according to a tape obtained by ABCNEWS.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Kerry has denied that he threw away any of his 11 medals during an anti-war protest in April, 1971.

His campaign Web site calls it a "right wing fiction" and a smear. And in an interview with ABCNEWS' Peter Jennings last December, he said it was a "myth."

But Kerry told a much different story on Viewpoints. Asked about the anti-war veterans who threw their medals away, Kerry said "they decided to give them back to their country."

Kerry was asked if he gave back the Bronze Star, Silver Star and three Purple Hearts he was awarded for combat duty as a Navy lieutenant in Vietnam. "Well, and above that, gave back the others," he said.

[jpgray]

15. He gave back medals, but not his own

That's kind of the point, isn't it? Without the Viewpoints transcript, especially the question that elicited the repsonse, it's hard to know the context of the later edited quote. Once I have that, I can make a determination. If he did imply or directly say that he gave them back, he has a problem and should issue a statement dealing with it.

[dsc]

16. that is why I am waiting for the report to make a judgement

This is the first I have seen of this interview. It was always subsequent ones which were discussed in the versions I saw.

[jpgray]

17. Kerry walks a pretty thin rhetorical line at times

So it may be another example of that, or it may be a false statement or implication. And this is the first I've heard of an explicit statement as well.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

10. How about making people think that you actually served honorably,...

...when you were actually AWOL from your National Guard unit?

At least Kerry can walk the walk when it comes to service in the military.

[dsc]

12. and I know people who won't vote for Bush

due to exactly that. Not a bunch of them but some.

[fearnobush]

4. You decide, whats worse: AWOL or Medel throwing?

[seventhson]

6. no comment

my lips are sealed

[bigtree]

7. progress

:)

[noahmijo]

8. Whoa whoa take it easy guys

I'm probably one of the biggest supporters of Kerry on here! he's the reason I became a democrat.

Please don't shoot the messenger here I just posted this to let everyone know what the opposition are up to lately that's all...

I already told everyone what I thought of it..

[Lindacooks]

9. Oh, who the fuck cares?

People are DYING, the world is more polluted, and we are less safe from terrorist attacks. Anybody who actually cares about this is a moran (sic).

[tritsofme]

20. Lots of morons vote...

nt

[Lindacooks]

27. yeah, and they wouldn't vote for Senator Kerry

I am so screamingly sick of this tripe that the media trots out because journalists WON'T DO THEIR JOBS. There are innumerable impeachable offenses committed by chimp et al, yet THIS is news?

[Mari333]

18. I find it highly amusing that the people screaming about the medals

are all lowlife scumsucking chickenhawk cowards who wont enlist and never signed up to be in a war, not ever.
Comfortable cowards.

[pansypoo53219]

19. are any 'news' organizations

looking into where GEORGE was in 72'????

[gauguin57]

22. what the freak?

Why isn't John Kerry saying to George W. Bush:

"Listen, you Champagne Guard Unit-hidin', AWOL-perpetratin' coward-ass ... if your flying-monkey henchmen make one more comment about my Vietnam service in any way, shape or form, my peeps are gonna beat the bushes till we find out exactly what made you leave your guard service early. And get it published on the front page of every newspaper in this country. If I can find pix of you driving your girlfriend to the abortion clinic or of you snorting cocaine like a Hoover, those photos will be on the front page, too, you slimeball. You're not gonna McCain ME! Like it or not, you chickenhawk, I got three Purple Hearts. I saved people's lives. So, you popular-vote-losin' illegitimate "president," just keep on blabbering about my Vietnam service, and you're gonna find yourself exposed as the yellow-bellied loser that you ARE!"

Why doesn't Kerry just say THAT? Why is ANYTHING about his service being questioned when he was throwing his body in front of Viet Cong armaments when Bush was drinkin', partyin', pukin' and druggin' in Texas?

CRIPES!!!!!!!!!!!!

[seventhson]

31. very well put - you are worthy of your name

nt

[Kool Kitty]

21. Why don't the Dems make a commercial out of snips

from the 2000 debates? You know the ones-"I'm not into nation-building, we shouldn't be the world's policemen, I'm not going to send the troops all over the world, the country isn't ready to overturn Roe vs. Wade", etc. Talk about flip-flops. All these statements should be brought up-often and LOUDLY.

[thebigidea]

25. I was messing with the nation building quote a month or two back...

I couldn't put myself through the rest of the debate, forgot about those other lines, and got sucked into completely unrelated projects...

Thanks for jogging my memory... a good excuse to dig out the tape and withstand Bush's babble... time to make a little audio collage!

what would work great would be juxtaposing 2001-2004 bits of him saying the exact opposite of each of his debate claims...

Then again, someone has to have already done this.

[Ladyhawk]

29. Can someone make this?

Symbolman? American Stranger? Wonk?

Hello?

This would be great to spread around. :)

[Rageneau]

23. This is a contrived hit piece by the rightwing media.

ABC and the NYT can find time to scrutinize Kerry's every comment for 35 years, searching like Easter Egg hunters for a blinky to shape into a scandal. Meanwhile Dumbya consistently says one thing and does another; does one thing and says another; does no thing and says he did many things; does and has done things he says he didn't and doesn't do; says he says one thing when he never did, etc., etc. -- and neither the NYT, nor ABC, nor any other supposedly "liberal" media outlet notices any of it.

If Kerry, as a mean little kid, stuck cherry bombs in frogs and threw them in the air to watch them explode (as it has been reported Smirk used to do) I'd bet we'd hear every gruesome detail. But because its Bush...

[Democat]

24. The right wing media will try to destroy Kerry like they did Gore

The NY Times spent 8 years trashing Clinton and the last three licking Bush's asshole, along with just about every other major media company in the U.S.

We need our own version of Fox news.

[DieboldMustDie]

26. Is there video available of Bu$h throwing away his silver coke spoon...

or does he still have it? :evilgrin:

[iorg]

28. And the 30 seconds that cost Gore

a clear victory in 2000: a closer look at it and the subsequent distortion http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue5_10/wiggins/#w2

GORE: Well, I will be offering - I'll be offering my vision when my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be.

But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

During a quarter century of public service, including most of it long before I came into my current job, I have worked to try to improve the quality of life in our country and in our world. And what I've seen during that experience is an emerging future that's very exciting, about which I'm very optimistic, and toward which I want to lead.

[rumguy]

30. it blows my mind that was the basis for the whole "Gore created the

internet" meme...

Un-fucking-believable.

[Sparkly]

32. I think this is the email for feedback on content

[e-mail]

Let them know what you think of their dredging this up and giving the Chimp another free pass!!!

[Tellurian]

33. So What? If thats all they've got....just walk away-

After the video is pummeled to death...all Kerry should do is issue a statement of fact, apologize to the veterans for the viciousness of his opponents blatant disrespect for all armed services veterans, and be done with it.

It serves no purpose to get down in the mud to roll around with pigs.