WP: Swift Boat Accounts Incomplete And Flawed

[Trajan]

Swift Boat Accounts Incomplete And Flawed
Clashes Roil Kerry Campaign

By Michael Dobbs
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 22, 2004; Page A01

When John F. Kerry rescued James Rassmann from the Bay Hap River in the jungles of Vietnam in March 1969, neither man could possibly have imagined that the episode would become a much-disputed focus of an American presidential campaign 35 years later.

For Kerry, then a green and gangly Navy lieutenant junior grade and now the Democratic challenger to a wartime Republican president, that tale of heroism under fire has become integral to his campaign. A centerpiece of public rallies, videos and a new campaign advertisement last week, it has helped distinguish the candidate from his Democratic primary rivals and from President Bush, who spent the war at home as a member of the Texas Air National Guard.

For the Massachusetts senator's critics, who include three of the five Swift boat skippers who were present that day, the incident demonstrates why Kerry does not deserve to be commander in chief. They accuse him of cowardice, hogging the limelight and lying. Far from displaying coolness under fire, they say, Kerry was never fired upon and fled the scene at the moment of maximum danger.

Establishing the facts 35 years later is complicated not merely by fading memories and sometimes ambiguous archival evidence, but also by the bitterly partisan nature of the presidential campaign.

-snip-

This is a pretty decent analysis of the differing stories presented ....

What bugs me most about all this: Is the willingness of the GOP to smear anyone, INCLUDING DECORATED VETERANS, with innuendoes and lies, all for their 'cause' of electing Bush ....

What despicable, dishonorable trash the SBL are ! ...

SHAME on them ....

and SHAME on their supporters who apparently hate legitimate military heroes if they happen to not be republican ....

GOP ? ..... FUCK YOU ! ..... WHY do you hate America ? ...

[NMDemDist2]

1. 3 of the 5 skippers that day?

what?

[zbdent]

2. We should challenge Bush to recall anything from 1969

Hell, we'll allow him through 1980.