need help rebutting this smear of kerry

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

this is from mark hyman, a wingnut whose commentaries run during the local newscasts on sinclair broadcasting tv stations- what is the biggest glaring error with it in your eyes that i can back up with evidence?:

Kerry And The Purple Heart


Controversy has surrounded the Massachusetts Senator's first Purple Heart. John Kerry claims to have been wounded in battle on December 2nd, 1968, and therefore, deserving of the medal. The officer in command of the event was an eyewitness. He reports there was no enemy fire. That John Kerry had a self-inflicted wound.



The doctor who treated Kerry called the wound a scratch, which was treated with antiseptic and a band aid. Kerry's request for a Purple Heart was turned down by his chain-of-command. Yet he somehow finagled one by other means.



Kerry challenges his critics to examine the official Navy records. So, we've taken up his challenge. Here are the facts. There is no after action report, which was required had there been enemy fire. There is no personnel casualty report detailing Kerry's wounds. The December 2nd event didn't qualify for either.



In an exclusive, The Point can report that a casualty card does not exist for Kerry's wound. Described by Navy offiicials as "valuable as gold," a casualty card documented a wound qualifying for a Purple Heart. While casualty cards exist for Kerry's 2nd and 3rd Purple Hearts, none exists for the first (see them here).



The complete absence of these three documents thoroughly discredits John Kerry's claim that he suffered a combat wound.



In his dishonest efforts to try to create an image that he is some kind of war hero, Kerry insulted each and every serviceman who was legitimately wounded. Many of whom who refused to apply for Purple Hearts even when they qualified for them.



The Point issues a challenge to John Kerry to produce these three documents. So far, his campaign has released hundreds of pages of documents, but the ones that matter most, simply don't exist.



And that's The Point.



I'm Mark Hyman.

[jfxgillis]

1. Well first ..

.. it's not an exclusive. The missing casualty has been well known for months.

Second, the other documentation FROM the Pentagon certifying the card DOES exist. So a piece of cardboard got lost in the Pentagon shuffle in 1968. Big deal.

[DoBotherMe]

2. There must have been some

documentation of the first purple heart or he wouldn't have it. Nor would he have been relieved of combat duty after the third.

[truhavoc]

3. Common RW talking point

The major way to refute them is to state them for what they are, utter falsities.

This is taken directly from the so-called "swiftboat veterans for truth", where the entire pitch has been basically proven to be false. The doctor that is mentioned is not who signed Kerry's documents, and has no proof that he ever treated Kerry other than his "word". The officer mentioned said in his very own after action report (for his purple heart) that they were under heavy enemy fire.

Also you might want to mention what the hell this has to do with anything? Why are the merits on a man who answered his call to duty with open arms being compared to a man who did everything he could to shirk his duty to the service.

The question of Kerry's purple heart being a "scratch" is reprehensible and is the cause of the purple heart bandaids seen at the repug convention.

[Cronus Protagonist]

4. I want to know what Bush did with HIS Purple Hearts

What did he do with them?

Why is he afraid to come clean with the American people? I thought he was supposed to be on our side! What on earth can he be hiding behind all that secrecy? I just can't trust him.

Thank God Kerry's got tons of experience going after government law breaking. And Edwards is a top lawyer as well. I think I can trust that they'll get to the bottom of it for us after they're elected.


http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

[LTR]

5. A little about Mark Hyman

http://www.newscentral.tv/station/bios/mhyman.shtml

He served briefly in the Army before attending college on an Army ROTC scholarship. He was later accepted to the U. S. Naval Academy from which he graduated in 1981. He served as a naval officer on ships assigned to the East and West coasts and he served in the U.S. Navy’s European headquarters in London. He has conducted worldwide travel with extensive time spent in the Middle East. He left active duty in 1989 and became employed as a civilian in the Office of Naval Intelligence, which included assignments with the U.S. On-Site Inspection Agency as a disarmament treaty weapons inspector in former Warsaw Pact countries. A Captain in the Naval Reserve, he has served in leadership positions in CIA’s National Warning Staff, the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office and he is currently a Commanding Officer in the Naval Reserve’s Space and Network Warfare Program.

(snip)

The military organizations in which he has served have been awarded four CIA National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Commendations during his service, and he has been awarded the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award, and several Navy and Joint military awards. He was selected as an International Who’s Who of Professionals for 1998 and 2001 and Who’s Who for 2001 and 2002. He is active in several area community and charity groups. Mark is married and has 4 children.

In short, he never fought in a war.

http://www.alternet.org/story/15718

Tune into the evening news on Madison, Wisconsin's Fox TV affiliate and behold the future of local news. In the program's concluding segment, "The Point," Mark Hyman rants against peace activists ("wack-jobs"), the French ("cheese-eating surrender monkeys"), progressives ("loony left") and the so-called liberal media, usually referred to as the "hate-America crowd" or the "Axis of Drivel." Colorful, if creatively anemic, this is TV's version of talk radio, with the precisely tanned Hyman playing a second-string Limbaugh.

More fun here:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=%22Mark+Hyman%22+sinclair

[noamnety]

6. biggest glaring error

is that it's already been debunked on http://snopes.com/politics/kerry/service.asp

[mopinko]

8. big scoop

debunked in FEBRUARY! those rw-ers sure are sharp.

[JimmyJazz]

7. I have a question about receiving a military award:

Does someone out there have a definitive answer on whether or not soldiers "ask" for their awards? I keep hearing this from the Not-So-Swift people, Sean Insanity and anyone else who tries to dispute Kerry's reputation. The picture they are painting is one of Kerry continually knocking on his superiors tent: "Sir, I cut myself shaving, can I have a Purple Heart." OR "I rescued a dog from being hit by a car, can I have a bronze star?"

I am very non-military, but this doesn't seem to me how the system works. If people have a problem with the awards Kerry received, it seems to me their argument is with the NAVY, not John Kerry.

And what's with the dude (yeah, I know his name) who got a bronze star on the same day for the same incident saying Kerry didn't deserve his? Wow, does he have a side job with the South Korean gymnastics team?

[yardwork]

11. Soldiers can't request medals - they have to be recommended

in writing, by the commander above them. One of the swift boat slime's lies is that Kerry actually ghost-wrote the report for his commander, but the initials they claim to be Kerry's on the report are not JFK.

Some of these swift boat guys have been cranky with Kerry since he protested the war, but NOBODY has ever questioned his medals until this summer - more than 30 years after the fact.

This whole story has been exposed as one enormous lie from beginning to end.

[JimmyJazz]

12. Yes, but Sean Insanity keeps discussing it as though

it were the truth and, in fact, had John O"Neill on his show last night to discuss the Kitty Kelly book (it may have been the document incident - it's hard for me to pay attention when I'm yelling at the television).

I was pretty sure that was the case, but why is this never mentioned? People are constantly discussing the topic as if Kerry requested the medals and requested to go home after four months...

[yardwork]

9. The doctor in question did NOT treat Kerry

He was nowhere near Kerry when the incident occurred. This doctor has fabricated the entire story.

There is no evidence whatsoever that Kerry was ever turned down for a medal and then finagled one anyway.

Everything this Hyman said is false. It's probably pointless trying to point that out to him or his audience. It sounds like the right-wing radio morans are just making things up about Kerry now - they aren't even relying on the lying swift boat slime.

[Renew Deal]

10. Mark Hyman is a VP at Sinclair broadcasting if I remember.

And he has donated a ton of money to the pukes. He is a partisan broadcaster.