Help needed re: one of the Swift Boat Liars

[quaoar]

Does anyone here have a link that specifically addresses the accusations from George Bates about Kerry torching a village and shooting animals?

I've tried the Kerry site and there is nothing there I could find in the Rapid Response page.

[chiburb]

1. I thought he torched the animals and shot the village...

Though I could be wrong.

[rkc3]

5. Nope, he raped the fields and pillaged the women.

[chiburb]

9. .

;)

[quaoar]

11. It was a serious question

I've been in a debate with a Republican about this and he threw up the Bates quote about Kerry torching a village. And I can find nothing on that particular person.

But if you want to make a big joke out of it, just forget it.

[chiburb]

12. Ok, why don't you ask him to PROVE it to you?

Then ask him since Kerry had 10 of his 11 swiftboat crewmen on stage with him at the convention, how many National Guardsmen will Bush have on stage at the Repukefest?

[quaoar]

13. That's not much of a reply

I'm looking for something that addresses Bates, such as whether he was really anywhere near Kerry. Bates claims he saw kerry running around with a Zippo torching the village. Has anyone else on that mission said anything about that? Is Bates the only guy who saw this? Is Bates just a psycho who dreamed the whole thing up? Has he been changing his story over the years?

I can find that stuff about the other guys, but not Bates.

[chiburb]

14. Well, you managed to get every RW talking point into this thread...

Any other details of Bate's allegations you want to share while you're here?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. Don't play their game

quaoar wrote: "Is Bates just a psycho who dreamed the whole thing up?"

Short answer: almost certainly.

Longer answer: They need to get more substantial evidence than statements from such obviously partisan antagonists.

Don't play their game. Counter-attack. Ask them how many times Bush put himself in harm's way before he put so many Americans and Iraqis in harm's way. Get them to prove that Bush "knows what he is doing."

[DCdem87]

2. You can't

because no one is going to address any of this stupid bullshit from the swiftboat liars for shrub and darth cheney. Even the conservative dominated media isn't going further into that because there is nothing to it plus they know that if they do, they will have to give further thought to bush's desertion unless they want to be seen for the liars they are.

[quaoar]

6. I went to this site

http://www.johnkerry.com/rapidresponse/080504_truth.html

which does a good job addressing the other liars' backgrounds and accusations.

But nothing there on Bates.

[quaoar]

3. I'm serious

I can't find anything about this guy (Bates).
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[RobertSeattle]

4. Is his first name "Master" ???

:evilgrin:

Sorry - 9th grade joke...

[chiburb]

8. LOL! I'm in 8th grade so I thought it was funny!

:-)

[displacedtexan]

7. I googled "George Bates and Swiftboat" and found this...

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/7108

[quaoar]

10. I found that one

All it does is recite the accusations. But thank you for trying.

[lunarboy13]

16. If you are sincere, you have fallen for a trick...

The repubs used this same ploy during the 2000 primaries against John McCain. They pushed the story that McCain had fathered a black child out of wedlock. Now, the story was so absurd that McCain never even addressed it, thinking that most people would just not believe it. But that little lie did settle in the minds of many throughout South Carolina. When Bob Jones of Bob Jones University was questioned about his involvement in spreading the lie, his response was somewhat shocking.

He said "how can you prove he didn't father a black child out of wedlock -- that's a universal negative!"

So, basically, they put out a crazy lie that most of the population hears and then dismisses (because there is no real proof offered).

And the most important point is this: one person claiming to be a witness to something is not proof of anything. When Michael Moore claimed that Bush was AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard, he didn't base this on a witness who "saw him at the local 7-11" when he was supposed to be flying psuedo-combat missions over Texarkana. No, this was based on an examination of George Bush's military record. There is a paper trail that to this day spells out AWOL.

Unless this republican friend of yours offers some measure of tactile proof regarding this allegation, then it should not even be brought up or acknowledged in any true debate.

[chiburb]

18. "If you are sincere, ..."

The rest of your post is spot-on, but your 1st 4 words are the best.

[quaoar]

19. Your helpfulness

Just overwhelms me.

[Dem_Strategist]

17. Check Daily Howler's archives from yesterday

about this issue.

[quaoar]

20. I checked the archives

Thanks for that tip. I searched through yesterday's stuff, which went heavily into Hannity's show. He had posted there the quote from the Dick Cavett debate in 1971 that Kerry had with O'Neill:

"I personally didn't see personal atrocities in the sense I saw somebody cut a head off or something like that," Kerry said. "However, I did take part in free-fire zones, I did take part in harassment and interdiction fire, I did take part in search-and-destroy missions in which the houses of noncombatants were burned to the ground. And all of these acts, I find out later on, are contrary to the Hague and Geneva conventions and to the laws of warfare. So in that sense, anybody who took part in those, if you carry out the application of the Nuremberg Principles, is in fact guilty. But we are not trying to find war criminals. That is not our purpose. It never has been."

I don't know if that is referring to the same thing that Bates is referring to or not. If it is, then Bates is basically old and stale news.

By following some leads there, I did, however, find an interesting piece from the Boston Globe that includes a transcript of a Taped conversation between Nixon and Haldeman about Kerry. Haldeman actually told Nixon that Kerry shot babies out of the arms of woman. Even Nixon couldn't believe that and Kissinger reassured him that no Navy man would ever do a thing like that.