Swift Boats

Read their statements against Kerry.
Or my shorter version:
"John Kerry is unfit for command because we wrote a book about it. Also he really shouldn't have been against the war after he was in it."

That's about all they say. No mention of poor service. I'd assume this is the brunt of the book. Incidentily, there are two problems here in my mind. One you've got these vets trying to bash Kerry for being against the way after being involved in it. Well to my knowledge that was fairly normal with Vietnam. I mean didn't you guys see "Forrest Gump"? Seriously though, I think the other big problem has to do with the comments made about his medals. One of these guys refers to them as specious, and there have been several attacks on Kerry's record in receiving those awards. Doesn't this seem a little bit odd. To attack the system that rewards our servicemen in order to bash a candidate? Think about it. Let's say Kerry got his medals on a sham ticket. He shot himself in the foot for a Purple Heart and ambushed some little kids in Cambodia for a few more honorable tokens. The officers that commented on his service record as well as the officers that reviewed those records and decided upon the medals all lied somehow. This makes every medal ever awarded by the military in Vietnam suspect doesn't it? If one medal is awarded speciously, how many countless others were there? Is it worth destroying the honor of thousands of veterans to disgrace one man? These guys wrote an editorial for Salon responding to the swift boats vets for truth:
"As was shamefully done previously against decorated veterans like John McCain and Max Cleland, extreme right-wing groups such as the so-called 'Swift-Boat Veterans for Truth' are again spreading lies meant to discredit a decorated veteran. A veteran who volunteered for combat, who was brave enough not only to withstand the rigors of battle but then the equally difficult struggle to speak the truth about war's inevitable dark side: savagery, stupidity, recklessness, maiming, and death. These are the truths of every war -- those necessary and those avoidable; those just and those unjust.
"The slander about John Kerry's Purple Hearts and courage in command is fallacious at best and spuriously shameful. More, the attacks against Kerry's post-discharge protest of Vietnam represent a concerted attempt to prevent others from speaking the necessary truth of their experience by those too cowardly to admit their own share in our flawed humanity -- and war is nothing if not a showcase for our flaws. The old veterans' saying goes: If you haven't been there, you just don't know. But more, if you've been there and perpetuate the myths, you know even less. "
One more comment on this topic, why is it that George H. W. Bush's war record wasn't brutilized when this story was released.
"Former President George Bush, who bailed out of a crippled Navy Avenger bomber 53 years ago, jumped again in March of this year. His World War II jump is historic. It made Bush the only president to ever bail out of an airplane and the only president whose crew mates were sent careening into the ocean because their pilot had abandoned the aircraft. "
Does anyone else smell double standard?