Thursday, August 05, 2004

Aiming for John Kerry's Purple Heart

The opposition is renewing the claims against Kerry's service they made back in May but they are shooting blanks.

"several of the same officers now criticizing Kerry had written strongly positive evaluations of him as a young lieutenant decades ago."

"Kerry's first wound occurred on Dec. 2, 1968, which was the very first night he went on a swift boat patrol. Although several witnesses who were present that night remember that Kerry's arm was creased during a firefight with National Liberation Front guerrillas, a former commander who wasn't there has claimed that there was no report of enemy fire."

Among the witnesses who does recall the firefight is Pat Runyon, a former crew member on Kerry's boat. He too spoke with Rupprath when the detective contacted him recently -- and told Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne Slater that he was stunned to find serious inaccuracies in a version of the interview that Rupprath later sent to him. The most damning mistake, Runyon said, was an insinuation that Kerry's injury had been caused by a flare rather than a bullet.

Sanders said he has heard lately from a pair of other Navy veterans interviewed by the detective. "They told me that he sent them transcripts [of their interviews] and that they told him that his version was a misrepresentation of what they said."


This is old news but today the opposition is getting all frothy about it. Witnesses give one story, people who weren't there give another, and there's a guy out there making stuff up. Now if you believe the sources of all this are credible then I can see why it might be of interest. But they prove that they aren't when lies and twisted stretches are promoted as unequivocal truth.

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