Hoffman was censured by the Navy! Anybody notice THIS??

[A_Possum]

Friendly Fire: The Birth of an Anti-Kerry Ad--NYT

Mr. Hoffmann had commanded the Swift boats during the war from a base in Cam Ranh Bay and advocated a search-and-destroy campaign against the Vietcong - the kind of tactic Mr. Kerry criticized when he was a spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1971. Shortly after leaving the Navy in 1978, he was issued a letter of censure for exercising undue influence on cases in the military justice system.


******

Let's get an investigation going about THIS guy! The one who gathered up the smearvets and found O'Neill, cause he didn't like what Brinkley said about him in Tour of Duty.

[blondeatlast]

1. If nothing else, it makes a great meme in light of the Bush/SBVL

connections:

"undue influence," indeed.

[A_Possum]

2. I want to know what he did to get censured

Undue influence on cases in the military judicial system--that sounds pretty creepy.

And in line with what he's doing now to Kerry too.

Could he be "exercising undue influence" on the smearvets who served under him?

[blondeatlast]

3. Yes, it does indeed.

Damn, I wish I had Lexis/Nexis.

[KoKo]

4. Here's clip on Hoffman from Salon.com. Interesting.

Until now, Hoffmann has been best known as the commanding officer whose obsession with body counts and "scorekeeping" may have provoked the February 1969 massacre of Vietnamese civilians at Thanh Phong by a unit led by Bob Kerrey -- the Medal of Honor winner who lost a leg in Nam, became a U.S. senator from Nebraska and now sits on the 9/11 commission.

After journalist Gregory Vistica exposed the Thanh Phong massacre and the surrounding circumstances in the New York Times magazine three years ago, conservative columnist Christopher Caldwell took particular note of the cameo role played by Kerrey's C.O., who had warned his men not to return from missions without enough kills. "One of the myths due to die as a result of Vistica's article is that which holds the war could have been won sensibly and cleanly if the 'suits' back in Washington had merely left the military men to their own devices," Caldwell wrote. "In this light, one of the great merits of Vistica's article is its portrait of the Kurtz-like psychopath who commanded Kerrey's Navy task force, Capt. Roy Hoffmann."

Arguments about the war in Vietnam seem destined to continue forever. For now, however, the lingering bitterness and ambiguity of those days provide smear material against an antiwar war hero with five medals on behalf of a privileged Guardsman with a dubious duty record. The president's Texas allies -- whose animus against his Democratic challenger dates back to the Nixon era -- are now deploying the same techniques and personnel they used to attack McCain's integrity four years ago. Bush's "independent" supporters would apparently rather talk about the Vietnam quagmire than about his deadly incompetence in
Iraq.

Salon.com