Why should we believe his apology?

[sirs]

When Trent Lott made racially offensive comments four years ago his critics (including this columnist) looked back at things he'd said decades earlier to illustrate his poor record on racial issues. So it seems only fair to do the same to John Kerry. It turns out that what he actually said, as opposed to what he claims he meant to say, is very similar to what he said 34 years ago, when he was running for Congress, as the Associated Press reports:

In 1972, as he ran for the House, he was less apologetic in his comments about the merits of a volunteer army. He declared in the questionnaire that he opposed the draft but considered a volunteer army "a greater anathema."

"I am convinced a volunteer army would be an army of the poor and the black and the brown," Kerry wrote. "We must not repeat the travesty of the inequities present during Vietnam. I also fear having a professional army that views the perpetuation of war crimes as simply 'doing its job.'  "Equally as important, a volunteer army with our present constitutional crisis takes accountability away from the president and put the people further from control over military activities," he wrote.

The reason Kerry's comments have had such resonance is because many observers have long suspected that he has not abandoned, or even moderated, the antimilitary and anti-American views he espoused back in the early 1970s, when he told a Senate hearing this about his fellow veterans:

They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

And indeed, Kerry seems to stand by this outrageous slander. Yesterday he told Don Imus:

I've told the truth in the past. I've never done anything except tell the truth. And I'm not going to take anybody's comment to suggest that somehow my telling the truth was a mistake. The American people rely on the truth. And when I came back from Southeast Asia, I told the truth.

If he stands by his slanders from all those years ago, why should we believe him now when he says he was only trying to slander the president of the United States?



http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110009184

[The_Professor]

Well, it is clear to me at least that Kerry really believes this, just as Hillary really believes her " I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas" comment against stay-at-home moms.

Look at the timing: Kerry obviously apologized due to pressure from his one Party. Therefore, his "apology" is politically convenient and not necessarily "sincere" from an attitudinal viewpoint.

[Brassmask]

LOL

You guys are still on Kerry?  You DO know he lost two years ago, right?

[Brassmask]

Who's next to hammer on?  Dukakis? Mondale?

[Brassmask]

Oooo, you know what, you guys should just totally wail on Alton B Parker.  He only lost like a hundred years ago!  What a loser.

[terra]

LOL

You guys are still on Kerry?  You DO know he lost two years ago, right?

Heck Brass, it's easier for them to run against Kerry then those who are running...but then they are busy running away from Bush.

Hugs,
terra

[Brassmask]

Well, bless my soul as I live and breath.  Terra Gazelle pokes her head in.

[Michael Tee]

<<They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.
 >>

OK, so what part of this is a lie?

[Plane]

"OK, so what part of this is a lie?"


That he was a witness to any of it.

[sirs]

<<They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country. >>

OK, so what part of this is a lie?

Who is "they", and how does Kerry know what "they" did?