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Turning A Blind Eye... And Then Closing The Other
Edward L. Daley
Daley Times-Post
August 12, 2004
The results of three polls published in the Washington Post and conducted on March 7th, May 23rd, and June 20th of this year, found that 61%, 61% and 55% (respectively) of Kerry supporters stated they were going to vote for their candidate because they are AGAINST Bush rather than FOR Kerry. In contrast, when asked whether Bush supporters were voting more FOR Bush or more AGAINST Kerry during the same time periods, the results were markedly different. Only 13%, 11% and 16% (respectively) of Bush supporters said they were going to vote primarily to prevent Kerry from winning the election.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/trend_062104.html
What these results essentially mean is that most Kerry supporters would be willing to vote for virtually any Democratic candidate in November, regardless of his/her policy positions, political record or personal history. With that realization in mind, it is then not so difficult to understand why so many liberals behave as if they're oblivious to certain troubling accusations surrounding the Senator's Vietnam War experiences, post-war escapades, and notably unproductive political career. It's not that they're unaware of the controversial nature of what John Kerry has done during certain times in his life. They'd have to be living in a hole in the ground for that to be the case. No, the truth is that most of them simply don't care.
The ones who are willing to address these matters, virtually without exception, seem incapable of discussing Kerry's various questionable activities without turning the discussion around and focussing almost exclusively on what they perceive to be the trouble with George W. Bush. When forced to confront evidence of Mr. Kerry's blatant hypocrisy, assorted lies concerning nearly every aspect of his life, and the commision of war crimes to which he once admitted, they resort to one of two strategies... change the subject or call the questioner and/or his sources right-wing fanatics.
Among those "fanatics" that leftists have derided, and who's scandalous assertions about John Kerry they've dismissed out of hand, are the following Vietnam veterans: Rear Admiral Roy Hoffmann (commander of Kerry's task force in Vietnam), Grant Hibbard (Kerry's former commanding officer), George Elliot (another of Kerry's former commanding officers), John O'Neill (the commander who replaced Kerry on his swift boat), Roy Alexander, Kenneth Andrews, Dan Armstrong, Ray Ballew, Ross Barker, Alexander Bass, George Bates, Richard Beers, Paul Bennett, Edward Bergin, Henry Berman, Barry Bogart, Bob Bolger, M.T. Boone, David Borden, Vern Boyd, David Bradley, Richard Brant, Robert Brant, Kenneth Briggs, Carlyle J. Brown, Kenneth Buckholz, Michael C. Burton, Joe Cahill, Joe Cantrell, Jack Carlson, Billy Carwile, Jack Chenoweth, Allan Clapp, George Clatterbuck, William Colgan, Bill Collins, Daniel Corbett, James M. Corrigan, Terry Cosstello, John H. Davis, William Daybert, James Deal, Tony DeLuna, David Desiderio, Verne DeWitt, John Dooley, Dale Duffield, Robert G. Elder, William Ferris, Jim Fitzgerald, Wallace Foreman, William Franke, Robert Franson, Alfred French, Paul Fulcomer, Ray Fuller, Steve Fulton, Mike Gann, Steve Gardner, Bill Garlow, Les Garrett, Tony Gisclair, Monte Gluck, Robert Gnau, Donald Goldberg, Morton Golde, Kenneth Golden, Gerald Good, John Graves, Charles Green, Dennis Green, H.C. Griffin, Jr., Boyd Groves Jr., Charles Grutzius, Bill Halpin, Don Hammer, Rock Harmon, Keith Harris, Stirlin Harris, Stewart Harris, Gene Hart, Bob Hastings, Curt Hatler, John Hecker, Chuck Herman, Raul Herrera, Tom Herritage, Don Higgins, Rocky Hildreth, Larry Hobson, William Holden, Wayland Holloway, Robert Hooke, Alvin Horne, Andy Horne, John Howell. Warren Hudson, Charles Hunt, Robert Hunt, Robert Johnson, Gail Ikerd, John Jones, Tom Jones, Walter Jones, Eddie Kajioka, John Kipp, Thomas Klemash, Kenneth Knipple, Robert Koger, Mike Kovanen, Bob Kreyer, Jack Lane, William Langham, William Lannom, Joseph Lavoie, Louis Letson, Adrian Lonsdale, Jim Madden, William S. Mann, David Marion, Jim Marohn, Douglas Martin, Tom Mason, Donald Matras, Thomas Mason, Louis Masterson, Richard McFarland, Kenneth McGhee, James McNeal, Larry Meyer, Jack Merkley, James Miller, Martin Miller, Marc Milligan, Benjamin Montoya, Bub Morgan, Edgar Morrill, Tom Morrill, Wayne H. Moser, Kurt Moss, Frank Mueller, Marc Mulligan, Ed Mundy, Richard Olsen, Benny O'Brien, Richard O'Meara, Albert Owens, Tedd Peck, Robert Phalen, Joseph Ponder, Charles Plumley, Chuck Rabel, Rex Rectanus, Skip Ridley, Bill Rogers, Jennings Rogerson II, Patrick Sage, Gary Sallee, Joe Sandoval, Jimmy Sanford, Robert Sattergood, Jim Schneider, Clair Schrodt, Jack Shamley, Patrick Sheedy, Paul Shepherd, Robert B. Shirley, William Shumadine, Stanley Simonson, Darryl Skuce, John Skura, John Slagle, Gerald H. Smith, Roy Smith, Tony Snesko, Mike Solhaug, Jack Spratt, Patrick Stevenson, Fred Stith, David Stefferud, James Steffes, Lawrence Stoneberg, Weymouth Symmes, W.P. Taylor, James Thomas, Eldon Thompson, Emmett Tidd, Charles Tinstman, Gary Townsend, William Trainer, Michael Turley, ChrisVedborg, Jeffrey Wainscott, David Wallace, Greg Ward, Larry Wasikowski, Pete Webster, Steve Watts, Robert Wedge, Steven Weekley, George White II, Shelton White, Gary Whittington, James Wiggins, Dennis Willess, Thomas Withey, Barnard Wolff, Thomas Wright, Raymond Wroten, John Wyatt, and John Yeoman.
I don't know about you, but I find it extremely unlikely that each one of these individuals is a Republican, or that all of them are such staunch admirers of George W. Bush, who is not a war veteran, that they would all conspire to spread false allegations about someone who is. It seems to me that any reasonable person has to consider that at least a few of these brave men have a little honor left in them after having put their lives on the line for this country. Certainly SOME of them have damned good reasons, other than the political kind, for believing that John Kerry is unfit to be our Commander in Chief.
How anyone could just disregard the claims of these people, and the many thousands of other Vietnam vets who feel the same way they do, is dumbfounding to me. To write their accusals off as merely the machinations of a bunch of extremists involved in some vast right-wing conspiracy to ruin Kerry's sparkling clean reputation, is more than just an act of the naive, the ill-informed or the politically partisan. Something is seriously wrong with John F. Kerry's nebulous accounts of what took place during his brief tour in Vietnam, and during the years immediately following his early release from military service in that war. His recollections of the 22 years he has spent in politics since then are equally as questionable, and one would have to be literally blind not to see that.
That, of course, is the whole point. Most liberals in this country ARE blind when it comes to the Democratic presidential candidate, and it wouldn't matter if that candidate was John Kerry or Mao Tse Dung. They have turned a blind eye to the history of a man who might well be the next leader of the free world, and whether or not he may prove to be pathological liar, a war criminal or a traitor is of no interest to them whatsoever. The collective win-at-any-cost mindset of these people is as shameful as anything John Kerry may have done, and the hatred they exhibit toward George W. Bush is more than just substantial, it's practically pathological.
In time we may be able to determine the validity of the many charges leveled against Mr. Kerry by people like the members of 'Swift Boat Veterans For Truth' and 'Vietnam Special Forces Against Kerry'. One can only hope that we do, and that at least a few concrete conclusions will be reached by the majority of American voters concerning his sketchy four month stint in Vietnam, before the election in November. One thing appears to be certain though, no matter what we find out, or how convincing the evidence is, you can count on about half of John Kerry's current supporters remaining as optically impaired as they have been since before he became the presumptive Democratic nominee earlier this year.
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