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Friday, August 20, 2004
New SwiftVets ad
The new SwiftVets ad, entitled "Sellout," is now available (Windows media version).
Its focus is on young Kerry's 1971 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and it intersperses Kerry's own sonorous, condemning voice with reactions from former American POWs and woundeds-in-action. (Mudville Gazette has some background on these folks.)
I personally found this ad less powerful than the first one, but I suspect that is because I'd already read Kerry's testimony so many times, and even heard his recorded words. If one hasn't heard his distinctive voice mouthing these words before, however — and I suspect that the vast majority of the American electorate hasn't — the ad may be quite shocking. The ex-POWs' comments seem almost unsurprising — how could they not be outraged that Kerry, as one of them put it, "gave the enemy for free what I and many of my comrades in North Vietnam, in the prison camps, took torture to avoid saying."
I'll be curious to see Sen. McCain's reaction to this ad. One can argue that it's ancient history, that it's irrelevant to today; one can argue that Kerry himself has subsequently distanced himself (slightly) from these words (although he's never made a genuine apology). But while one can argue over its significance, no one can argue about the truth of this ad. And I suspect that in the eyes of most who are encountering Kerry's 1971 testimony in his own voice for the first time, it is a very ugly truth.
Posted by Beldar at 01:39 PM in Politics (2006 & earlier), SwiftVets | Permalink
TrackBacks
Other weblog posts, if any, whose authors have linked to New SwiftVets ad and sent a trackback ping are listed here:
» The Swift Boat Ad Sequel from CALIFORNIA YANKEE
Tracked on Aug 21, 2004 9:33:15 AM
Comments
(1) cjg made the following comment | Aug 20, 2004 2:05:51 PM | Permalink
All I know is my reaction when I read his words for the first time. I was stunned, I read it again and again to make sure I was seeing it correctly.
I was, and from that day forward I was reading wintersoldier.com and Kerrylied.com following the actions of the vets now known as the Swiftvets, to learn more.
The more I learned the lower my respect became for Kerry. I learned he is wanting it both ways, the hero at war and the hero who stopped the war with his lies.
He lies, plain and simple. Not nuance, not spin not a wee bit of exaggeration.
He just lies and is now not able to remember what is lies and what is the truth.
Well, we are finding out the lies, which is the truth about him and it should be looked at with great care.
The thought of him being the president scares me. The damage he could do is not to be thought about.
(2) jim rhoads made the following comment | Aug 20, 2004 3:05:20 PM | Permalink
Have you seen this?
The timing is interesting. Undoubtedly those eeeeevil republicans.
(3) Jim Bender made the following comment | Aug 20, 2004 8:59:57 PM | Permalink
The one thing that I had remembered about John Kerry was his testimony to the Senate committee about "war crimes". I didn't even remember his name, but when I heard the audio of his testimony on Hugh Hewitt's radio show, earlier this year, I had a flashback.
I had been in the Navy for slightly more than a year, and my brother had come back from 17 months in Viet Nam, where he had been near places like Khe Sanh and Landing Zone Vandegrift from 1968-1969 (when there wsa all the action).
I was not in a place to hear an anti-war protestor complain about what we now believe were non-existent war crimes.
Then as now, John Kerry was building his career and reputation on his ability to tell compelling stories. Only now are they being fact-checked, and it is making John Kerry squirm, as it is quite inconvenient.
Regards,
Jim Bender
http://dreadnought-cruisers.blogspot.com/
http://kentishknock.com/
http://anglo-dutch-wars.blogspot.com/
(4) Roofer made the following comment | Aug 20, 2004 9:57:05 PM | Permalink
I find this ad to be even more powerful than the first, due to the quote that Beldar used: "[Kerry] gave the enemy for free what I and many of my comrades in North Vietnam, in the prison camps, took torture to avoid saying."
That puts a name, a face and something tangible to the "Kerry betrayed his comrades" meme. It resonates with me, and I graduated from high school in 1976. To me, it goes beyond the proverbial knife in the gut and kick in the balls: it's rhetorical castration.
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