Jim Geraghty who writes KerrySpot at National Review Online cites what Hugh Hewitt believes is perhaps the most devastating revelations in the forthcoming book on Kerry's Viet Nam service titled Unfit For Command. Kerry appears to have deliberately lied on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1986 when he said that he was ordered into Cambodia on Christmas Eve of 1968 (Hewitt's permalinks are down so once at his site you'll have to scroll to the piece on Kerry's Christmas Eve in Cambodia).
Geraghty quotes from
Unfit for Command:
Kerry also described, for example, for the Boston Herald his vivid memories of his
Christmas Eve spent in Cambodia: "I remember spending Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was
very real."
Problem One: Nixon hadn't taken office yet.
Problem Two: "During Christmas 1968, he was more than fifty miles away from Cambodia. Kerry was never ordered into Cambodia by anyone and would have been court-martialed had he gone there. During Christmas 1968, Kerry was stationed at Coastal Division 13 in Cat Lo. Coastal Division 13's patrol areas extended to Sa Dec, about fifty-five miles from the Cambodian border...
All the living commanders in Kerry's chain of command-Joe Streuhli (Commander of CosDiv 13), George Elliott (Commander of CosDiv 11), Adrian Lonsdale (Captain, USCG and Commander, Coastal Surveillance Center at An Thoi), Rear Admiral Roy Hoffmann (Commander, Coastal Surveillance Force Vietnam, CTF 115), and Rear Admiral Art Price (Commander of River Patrol Force, CTF 116)-deny that Kerry was ever ordered to Cambodia...
At least three of the five crewmen on Kerry's PCF 44 boat-Bill Zaldonis, Steven Hatch, and Steve Gardner-deny that they or their boat were ever in Cambodia. The remaining two crewmen declined to be interviewed for this book.
The Cambodia incursion story is not included in Tour of Duty [the book on Kerry's war years by Douglas Brinkley]. Instead, Kerry replaces the story with a report about a mortar attack that occurred on Christmas Eve 1968 "near the Cambodia border" in a town called Sa Dec, some fifty-five miles from the Cambodian border.
Somehow, Kerry's secret illegal mission to Cambodia, which he recounted on the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1986, is now a firefight at Sa Dec and a Christmas day spent back at the base writing entries in his journal.
Unless O'Neill and Corsi have made some major error in their reporting, this is pretty stunning. Either Kerry is a pathological liar, or every man in his chain of command is.
Hewitt fills in some details of Kerry's recollections and adds that:
[I]f he lied about being sent to Cambodia, Kerry's narrative is in trouble. It will remain true that he saved a man's life, but that day's undeiable courage does not validate or protect Kerry's record then or since. A powerful demonstration of obvious falsehood on a key claim is a major blow to Kerry.
Which is why the focus ought to be on the Cambodia story, over and over again. Did Kerry make that claim? Did he do so in the Senate as part of a political argument about Nicaragua? If so, what's that tell us about his willingness to invent personal history to serve his political ambition?
Viewpoint wonders how long it will take the major media to start reporting on these revelations. By sitting on them they are doing a serious disservice to the American people who have a right to know the truth about the men they are being asked to elect as president. One thing we can be sure of, if new questions about George Bush's integrity had emerged they would be splashed across every headline and news broadcast all weekend and every day until November 2nd.
Unfit For Command has the potential to dampen a lot of enthusiasm for Kerry, an enthusiasm which, like Lake Okachobee, is miles wide and only inches deep to begin with. The danger to the Democrats is not just that undecideds will be persuaded to move toward Bush by the indictments of Kerry's character that the book contains, but that the millions who are moderately disposed toward Kerry and who are not driven by any particular animus toward Bush will simply stay home on election day.
