Quote from NewsMax.com
"Sunday, Sept. 5, 2004 10:38 a.m. EDT
Polls Show Swiftvets Scored Direct Hit
Media wags will say it was the successful GOP convention that catapulted President Bush to a double-digit lead over John Kerry in Time magazine and Newsweek polls released this weekend.
But insiders know that even before Republicans gathered in New York to re-nominate Bush, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had turned George Bush into a front-runner for the first time since John Kerry locked up the nomination in January.
Story Continues Below
The proof that the Swifvets had scored a direct hit against the SS Kerry came Thursday night when the top Democrat staged an emergency rally to accuse Dick Cheney of dodging Vietnam and complain that George Bush had "attacked my fitness to serve as commander in chief."
But it wasn't Bush or Cheney who challenged Kerry's fitness to lead. It was the Swiftees, whose book "Unfit for Command" now sits atop the New York Times best-seller list for the second week in a row.
For the mainstream press, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth didn't appear on the radar screen until late July, when the group began running TV ads in key battleground states attacking Kerry's Vietnam story.
But way back in April, when no one had heard of the Swiftees, NewsMax readers knew that the men who served with Kerry in Vietnam were preparing the bombshell revelations that would turn the 2004 presidential campaign upside down.
Specific details on the gathering firestorm actually surfaced on talk radio on April 4, when NewsMax contributor and WABC radio host Steve Malzberg interviewed B.G. Burkett, author of the definitive book on false Vietnam War claims, "Stolen Valor."
Under the headline "Navy Commanders to Cast Doubt on Kerry's War Record," NewsMax had the first print account of the bombshell to come:
Several Navy officers who supervised Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry when he commanded a Swift Boat in Vietnam are preparing to publicly question his war record – including the circumstances under which he was awarded three Purple Hearts – a noted Vietnam War historian revealed on Sunday.
Burkett, whose book, "Stolen Valor," is considered to be the definitive history of falsified Vietnam War claims, told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg that Kerry's former commanders would allege that the top Democrat's Purple Hearts were awarded for "self-reported injuries that were virtually nonexistent."
"He never got a day of treatment, he never spent a day in a medical facility," Burkett said. "These were all self-reported wounds, which you're going to hear from some Swift Boat guys in the future as to the nature of those wounds."
Burkett said he had personally spoken to the Navy commanders who were preparing to go public about Kerry's decorations.
"You're going to get quite a showing [of those speaking out]," Burkett told Malzberg. "I don't know [the number] yet. They're trying to get it to be unanimous of every Swift Boat guy who ever served."
As to the timetable for the upcoming revelations, Burkett said that Kerry's superior officers "were still discussing that."
Burkett's book was the first to expose Kerry's false claims made in the early 1970s about U.S. war atrocities, as well as Kerry's claim – later found to be untrue – that he trashed his war medals.
"You've got some major rallys being planned against John Kerry by Vietnam veterans on the [National] Mall, at the convention – this type of thing," he said. "And we're going to make America aware of John Kerry's military record."
Less than a month later, on April 26 – and a full week before the Swiftees staged their debut press conference in Washington, D.C., to announce their group's plans – Malzberg interviewed the group's spokesman John O'Neill.
Again, NewsMax was first with exclusive coverage of one of O'Neill's first 2004 media appearances under the headline "Kerry Boatmate: Vietnam Troubles Just Beginning":
Sen. John Kerry's Monday morning meltdown on "Good Morning America" may be just the beginning of his troubles, according to one of his Vietnam boatmates, who is warning that more of the men who served alongside the Massachusetts Democrat are preparing to go public with their accounts.
Texas lawyer John O'Neill, who served on Kerry's Swift Boat after he left Vietnam just four months into his tour, told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg on Sunday: "I was in exactly the same unit. There were many people who were there simultaneously with him who are all about to speak."
O'Neill gained brief fame in 1971 when he debated Kerry on "The Dick Cavett Show" and forced him to admit he never personally witnessed the war crimes he'd been accusing U.S. troops of committing.
Though he's been contacted by Kerry's opponents every time the Massachusetts Democrat has run for office in the 33 years since, O'Neill has refused to speak out.
Until now. Referring to reports this week in the Boston Globe questioning whether Kerry may have exaggerated his combat record, O'Neill told Malzberg: "This is just the first opening. They'll be many different people. But I'd prefer to let the people who were actually there speak directly."
O'Neill cited a Jan. 29, 1969, firefight that Kerry claims on his campaign Web site he and his boatmates were in.
"But according to the Boston Globe," said the Swift Boat veteran: "Kerry was not even on the boat that night. The guy that was really on the boat was a fellow officer of ours named Ted Peck. He remembers well that fight because he was terribly wounded in three places."
"There was no Kerry anywhere around," O'Neill said. "And yet it appears on his Web site as some pitched battle that Kerry was involved in."
Noting that the Democratic presidential candidate has made his Vietnam war experience the centerpiece of every campaign for office, O'Neill complained, "It's [Kerry's] self-promotion that infuriates most of the people from his unit, who actually know what he did."
"He would be a terrible commander in chief of U.S. forces in the world at a time of crisis," the Kerry boatmate warned.
Even before Burkett and O'Neill spoke out, the Liberty Broadcasting Network's Geoff Metcalf had the inside track on plans within the Vietnam veterans community to challenge Kerry's war record.
Way back on March 15, Metcalf reported for NewsMax:
Republicans may be scared spitless to criticize a "decorated war hero," but thousands of "decorated war heroes" with significantly greater service, scars, experience and insights hate the pampered prince’s guts ... and they are not only willing but also anxious to articulate their myriad concerns. . .
There is a growing group of Vietnam vets who are openly challenging the derring-do of Kerry in combat. These guys, not content to pick at the scabs politicians don’t dare acknowledge, are intent on ripping the scabs off. . . .
end quote"
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