Ed Morrissey has been doing an incredible job. Today he shows David Alston of the band of brothers to be lying in support of Kerry. Another unbelievable mistake by Kerry, since the lies are so easy to prove. (Well, I guess they wouldn’t be proven, pointed out, or alluded to, if the job had to be done by professional journalists!)

Steyn skewers Kerry too:

”I remember Christmas of 1968, sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by the Vietnamese and the Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and the president of the United States telling the American people that I was not there, the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory, which is seared — seared — in me.”

Though the seared senator peddled this searing memory for a quarter-century, it had evidently been seared into him pretty haphazardly. It turns out at Christmas 1968 he wasn’t in Cambodia but was instead 55 miles away at Sa Dec, South Vietnam. So the Kerry campaign’s begun riffling hurriedly through its Sears Rowback catalog for more or less watertight back-pedaling of the story: They now say that ”many times he was on or near the Cambodian border,” which is true in the sense that 80 percent of Canadians live on or near the American border. But most folks in Vancouver don’t claim to be living in the Greater Seattle area.

Earlier, senior Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan told ABC News: ”The Mekong Delta consists of the border between Cambodia and Vietnam, so on Christmas Eve in 1968, he was in fact on patrol … in the Mekong Delta between Cambodia and Vietnam.” For a crowd of ostentatious multilateralists, they can’t seem to hold the map the right way up: The Mekong River isn’t the border between Cambodia and Vietnam; it cuts through the heart of Cambodia and then runs through Vietnam to the sea.

But this question isn’t about geographical degrees of latitude so much as psychological ones. Here’s the real reason Lt. Kerry wasn’t spending Dec. 24, 1968, on a secret mission in Cambodia: On the previous day, Dec. 23, the U.S. government finally secured the release, after a five-month diplomatic stand-off, of 11 Americans whose U.S. Army utility landing craft had made a navigational error and strayed into Cambodian waters. Prince Sihanouk had rejected U.S. apologies and threatened to try the men under Cambodian law. It’s unlikely, 24 hours after their release, anyone in Washington was thinking, ”Hey, we need to send that hotshot Kerry in there.”

So what are we to make of Sen. Kerry’s self-seared 30-year-old false memory of Christmas in Cambodia with its vast accumulation of precise details? Of being shot at by the Khmer Rouge (unlikely in 1968) and of South Vietnamese troops drunkenly celebrating Christmas (as only devout Buddhists know how)?

But you know the Kerry campaign has turned the corner into a bad neighborhood when the serious critiques give way to parody and ridicule. This from a site I was just referred to, called Horsefeathers.

THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS (CAMBODIAN VERSION)

The Horsefeathers poetry corner thanks Ruth King for sending us this tribute to John F. Kerry, by another fellow Vietnam vet, Russ Vaughn:

‘Twas the night before Christmas and we were afloat
Somewhere in Cambodia in our little boat.
While the river was lightened by rockets red glare
No one but the President knew we were there.

The crew was all nestled deep down in their bunks,
While the Spook and I watched the sampans and junks.
Our mission was secret, so secret in fact,
No one else would remember it when we got back.

When out on the water there arose such a clatter
I leaped down from the bridge to see what was the matter.
The incoming friendly was starting to flash
And I knew that the ARVN’s were having a bash.

The snap of friendly fire on the warm tropic air
Convinced me for sure no one knew we were there,
On a clandestine mission so secret it’s true
That I’m still convinced only Tricky Dick knew.

While I huddled for safety in the tub on the bow,
I thought of a title, “Apocalypse Now.”
To give to the films I was I making each day
To show all the voters when I made my big play.

As I sat there sweating in my lucky flight jacket,
Spook said, “Merry Christmas!” and tossed me a packet.
And what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a new lucky cap, which I still have right here.

I keep it tucked here, in this leather brief case,
Just sharing with the press its secretive place
As I regale them again with my senate refrain,
That Christmas in Cambodia is seared into my brain.

Don’t bother to quibble with history my friend,
By pointing out Johnson was President then.
Don’t listen to Swiftees who try to explain,
For I tell you that night is seared into my brain.

Down Hibbard, down Lonsdale, and you too O’Neill,
So you don’t remember? Well it’s something I feel.
I don’t need all you Swiftvets to support my campaign,
Cause Christmas in Cambodia is seared into my brain,

Into my brain, into my brain, into my brain…

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

Two and a half months to go! More fun ahead.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 14th, 2004 at 11:55 am and is filed under General, New Media, Polling, Red Shift. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.