Swift Boat Shyster: Another Lie From John O'Neil

[Elfdart]

Having seen many politicians' careers killed by opportunistic pieces of shit like this, I've taken a new adage where political scandals are concerned:

"Where there's smoke, there's probably a smoke machine."

Or "Where there's smoke, there's an arsonist."

[MKSheppard]

[Iceberg]

"That's Kerry's problem, if he has one. Eighteen years in the U.S. Senate changes a man, and not all for the good. Listening to him at the Q&A, I was impressed, of course -- whole grammatical sentences came out of him, that formed paragraphs, that contained information -- but sometimes the sentences were too long, a little ornate, a little too nuanced, which is maybe the result of 18 years in a plush club where nobody dares interrupt you. But then most people in management have the same problem. On the other hand, to imagine having a president who is capable of sustained speech in which you can hear his mind working as he weighs his words -- as we say in Minnesota, that would sure be interesting." - Garrison Keillor

[Darth Wong]

<snip pic>

Cute cartoon. How does that 30-year about-face compare to:

Year 2000: "Compassionate conservatism"

Year 2001: "Tax cuts for the rich, oil drilling in ANWR, free lunch for big corporations, get into bed with Enron, fuck the poor, fuck the environment"

Year 2002: "Fuck everyones' civil rights; you could all be terrorists. And fuck the rest of the world too."

Year 2003: "Bring it on!"

Year 2004: "Ummmm ... we've turned the corner. We're compassionate conservatives again. Vote for us."

[MKSheppard]

Cute cartoon. How does that 30-year about-face compare to:

Despite all the gloom and doom in your statement, I don't see toxic waste
being dumped en masse all over the country, nor SUPREME HIGH EXECUTIONER ASHCROFT striding the earth and executing the infidels.

[MKSheppard]

"Of course, the president keeps telling people he would never question my service to our country. Instead, he watches as a Republican-funded attack group does just that. Well, if he wants to have a debate about our service in Vietnam, here is my answer: 'Bring it on.'" -- Sen. John Kerry

Dear John,

As usual, you have it wrong. You don't have a beef with President George Bush about your war record. He's been exceedingly generous about your military service. Your complaint is with the 2.5 million of us who served honorably in a war that ended 29 years ago and which you, not the president, made the centerpiece of this campaign.

I talk to a lot of vets, John, and this really isn't about your medals or how you got them. Like you, I have a Silver Star and a Bronze Star. I only have two Purple Hearts, though. I turned down the others so that I could stay with the Marines in my rifle platoon. But I think you might agree with me, though I've never heard you say it, that the officers always got more medals than they earned and the youngsters we led never got as many medals as they deserved.

This really isn't about how early you came home from that war, either, John. There have always been guys in every war who want to go home. There are also lots of guys, like those in my rifle platoon in Vietnam, who did a full 13 months in the field. And there are, thankfully, lots of young Americans today in Iraq and Afghanistan who volunteered to return to war because, as one of them told me in Ramadi a few weeks ago, "the job isn't finished."

Nor is this about whether you were in Cambodia on Christmas Eve, 1968. Heck John, people get lost going on vacation. If you got lost, just say so. Your campaign has admitted that you now know that you really weren't in Cambodia that night and that Richard Nixon wasn't really president when you thought he was. Now would be a good time to explain to us how you could have all that bogus stuff "seared" into your memory -- especially since you want to have your finger on our nation's nuclear trigger.

But that's not really the problem, either. The trouble you're having, John, isn't about your medals or coming home early or getting lost -- or even Richard Nixon. The issue is what you did to us when you came home, John.

When you got home, you co-founded Vietnam Veterans Against the War and wrote "The New Soldier," which denounced those of us who served -- and were still serving -- on the battlefields of a thankless war. Worst of all, John, you then accused me -- and all of us who served in Vietnam -- of committing terrible crimes and atrocities.

On April 22, 1971, under oath, you told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that you had knowledge that American troops "had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam." And you admitted on television that "yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed."

And for good measure you stated, "(America is) more guilty than any other body, of violations of (the) Geneva Conventions ... the torture of prisoners, the killing of prisoners."

Your "antiwar" statements and activities were painful for those of us carrying the scars of Vietnam and trying to move on with our lives. And for those who were still there, it was even more hurtful. But those who suffered the most from what you said and did were the hundreds of American prisoners of war being held by Hanoi. Here's what some of them endured because of you, John:

Capt. James Warner had already spent four years in Vietnamese custody when he was handed a copy of your testimony by his captors. Warner says that for his captors, your statements "were proof I deserved to be punished." He wasn't released until March 14, 1973.

Maj. Kenneth Cordier, an Air Force pilot who was in Vietnamese custody for 2,284 days, says his captors "repeated incessantly" your one-liner about being "the last man to die" for a lost cause. Cordier was released March 4, 1973.

Navy Lt. Paul Galanti says your accusations "were as demoralizing as solitary (confinement) ... and a prime reason the war dragged on." He remained in North Vietnamese hands until February 12, 1973.

John, did you think they would forget? When Tim Russert asked about your claim that you and others in Vietnam committed "atrocities," instead of standing by your sworn testimony, you confessed that your words "were a bit over the top." Does that mean you lied under oath? Or does it mean you are a war criminal? You can't have this one both ways, John. Either way, you're not fit to be a prison guard at Abu Ghraib, much less commander in chief.

One last thing, John. In 1988, Jane Fonda said: "I would like to say something ... to men who were in Vietnam, who I hurt, or whose pain I caused to deepen because of things that I said or did. I was trying to help end the killing and the war, but there were times when I was thoughtless and careless about it and I'm ... very sorry that I hurt them. And I want to apologize to them and their families."

Even Jane Fonda apologized. Will you, John?

[Elfdart]

Gee, Shep trots out a convicted perjurer and known supporter of coke dealers and terrorists in order to attack John Kerry. Of course North has good reason to dislike Kerry since Kerry helped expose North's role in drug and gunrunning.

What's wrong, Shep? Terry Nichols wasn't available?

[Darth Wong]

Cute cartoon. How does that 30-year about-face compare to:

Despite all the gloom and doom in your statement, I don't see toxic waste
being dumped en masse all over the country, nor SUPREME HIGH EXECUTIONER ASHCROFT striding the earth and executing the infidels.

Let me get this straight: you're arguing that his massive flip-flop is somehow OK because his administration did not quite reach cartoon-supervillain levels before trotting out that "compassionate conservatism" crap again?

[MKSheppard]

Let me get this straight: you're arguing that his massive flip-flop is somehow OK because his administration did not quite reach cartoon-supervillain levels before trotting out that "compassionate conservatism" crap again?

What massive flip flop? Bush has always been consistent, right from
day one of his administration; or don't you think the billions he
shoveled at social programs wasn't "compassionate conservatism"?

Seriously, I don't see how pushing for drilling in an arctic wasteland
or allowing roads to be cut through national forests that would make
it easier to also fight fires is somehow raping the environment.

[Darth Wong]

What massive flip flop? Bush has always been consistent, right from day one of his administration; or don't you think the billions he shoveled at social programs wasn't "compassionate conservatism"?

Which ones? The Faith-based ones?

http://www.thousandreasons.org/social.pdf

Seriously, I don't see how pushing for drilling in an arctic wasteland
or allowing roads to be cut through national forests that would make it easier to also fight fires is somehow raping the environment.

http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/
http://www.environment2004.org/
http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/

[MKSheppard]

Which ones? The Faith-based ones?

This one.

"Spending is up across the board," said Brian Riedl, a budget expert at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research center. "In the past year and a half, we've had the biggest education bill in history, we've had the biggest farm bill in history, and now we're about to have the biggest expansion of the Great Society."

And as for those links, can you please try and find something linking to a more reputable
site than those sites? I used to be at that level of environmentalist screaming when I was
10 years old. Then I grew a brain and realized that things have vastly improved since the
1960s, and right now the environmentalist movement is fighting over ever incrementally
smaller percentages of improvement.

[Elfdart]

For those too young to remember Oliver North:

www.geocities.com/thereaganyears/olivernorth.htm

Drugstore Marine

by David Hackworth

LET ME TRY to describe Oliver North in a few fast bursts. He's a jackass. He is so preposterous that there is a temptation to laugh at him. He's smarmy, a flatterer, a brownnoser. He's also a twisted impostor, a drugstore Marine with an apparent compulsion to bullshit just about all the time. But while he tries to fool people with his fantasies, he is also very easy to fool. He boasts that he was a can-do guy when he was in the White House, but the record spells no-can-do. North did terrible damage to the U.S. until he was caught. One thread runs through his performance--getting conned. The Iranians conned him, the contras conned him, the crooked arms dealers conned him and even Manuel Antonio Noriega conned him.

North is also one of the most dangerous men in America today. I've talked with him only once, by telephone on Michael Jackson's radio talk show on KABC in Los Angeles. I had done my homework and wasn't surprised when North put on his usual act. By the time I debated him I had talked with dozens of Marines and soldiers who knew him, as well as with former National Security Council staff colleagues. I had seen him on countless TV shows, had read about him in several books and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. "Does Oliver North Tell the Truth?" was the title of a June 1993 investigation in Reader's Digest. The writer, Rachel Wildavsky, presents a watertight case, providing names and dates and plenty of reasons why the answer to the headline is no. My own sources confirmed or amplified what Wildavsky reports: North "could not be believed--even under oath." One of his former colleagues is quoted as saying North "had trouble distinguishing between what was true and what he wished to be true."

In almost 50 years of being around soldiers, I have bumped into my fair share of bullshitters, but Ollie would have to take the first-place ribbon. His record shows that he is totally untrustworthy.

During the radio show I asked him to clarify a few of the contradictory stories he has told about himself. North bobbed and weaved and said that if we could get together he would explain everything. I don't want to go near the guy, and he can't make facts disappear by trying to flatter me. At the end of the show he said, "I'm under posttraumatic stress disorder from this interview." The fact is that North is the sort of guy who cringes at the truth.

His relationship with Ronald Reagan, for example, was close, according to Ollie. Part of his line is that he persuaded Reagan to invade Grenada in 1983 and that he and Reagan watched the live broadcast of American students returning from Grenada and kissing the tarmac. According to Ollie, Reagan emotionally embraced him. Evidence says that North was never alone with Reagan and that he did not even see the president on the day the students came home. Reagan himself has accused North of making various "false statements."

North was convicted on three different counts: for helping deceive Congress about the Reagan administration's trading arms to Iran for release of hostages, for destroying documents and for illegally accepting a home security system that was paid for by a government contractor (Richard Secord), whom North had brought into his operations. Now he claims he was "exonerated," which is another lie. An appeals court threw out the convictions on a legal technicality.

During the radio show he called his house in Virginia a "plain old farm." Some plain old farm. It cost more than $1 million and comprises nearly 200 acres and a large stone house in one of the plushest areas of Virginia. He ignored my mention of its worth and said, "We have succeeded with a business that I started." True, he did start a business, Guardian Technologies, which manufactures bulletproof vests, but the major sources of his wealth are well known. Within a year of his appearance before Congress, North started what has become a successful fundraising effort (more than $23 million so far) of which he has been the chief beneficiary. The money he received has also funded his campaign to be the Republican candidate in Virginia's Senate race this year.

If you think he did a lot of damage as a light colonel with a record on contempt for the law, imagine the trouble he could get us into as a senator and later as President North. Then he wouldn't merely disregard our Constitution--he could burn it.

He probably would not be our first psychopathic president, but he would be the most dangerous.

North has a magic mouth. He's part natural politician and part huckster. He could sell camel shit back to the camels. He has the aura of a savior and he instinctively plays to his audiences. He wants to be looked upon as a military hero, the hairy-chested underdog who can save our country, a kind of leader stud who will follow the example of other warriors who continued to serve and defend our country after they took off their uniforms. North is a perversion of that great tradition.

He was not faithful to the Marine Corps, nor to his country, nor to his God. When he became a Marine he took an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic" and to "bear true faith and allegiance" to the Constitution "so help me God." He then proceeded to lie under oath to the Congress and generally treated the Constitution and other laws as obstacles.

What is scary is that North's propaganda has worked on a whole bunch of people whom he has successfully exploited. The perception of many of his devoted flock is that only a strong leader can stop America from being flushed down the toilet.

Like Ross Perot, North is a lightning rod for many people who are dissatisfied with America. But North is a lightning rod that is not grounded, and the kind can start fires. He calls himself a conservative and talks about traditional values, but in fact he has flouted most of them. He should instead call himself a chameleon.

The fact that North invokes a war-hero image offends me and disgraces all the brave warriors who serve our country with honor, not deception. North is the sort of guy who could give war stories a bad name.

I've spent a lot of my life defending America with either rifle or pen, and I view Ollie as I would a defective weapon system that will blow up when things get hot.

Besides shredding evidence, North shredded the trust that soldiers hold close to God, country and their fellow men. Trust is the glue that causes units to be cohesive and to accomplish the impossible.

Part of North's spiel is that he was a warrior who followed the orders of his masters--the lowly, good Marine who was the fall guy for the White House ratbags.

Nazi generals used the just-following-orders plea when they explained their mass murders. The Uniform Code of Military Justice protects American soldiers from obeying unlawful orders.

There is no sign that Oliver North has changed his mind about our Constitution. If he were elected I have no doubt he would do a constitutional bypass, in the interest of efficiency, on the document that efficiently guarantees our freedom.

North exaggerates his experiences in a way that makes real warriors gag. Lines in his standard speech include references to Marines who "died facedown in the mud" and remarks such as "this old Marine is prepared for the mission ahead." Sanctimonious shit.

North offended many Marines when he showed up for the congressional hearings with his uniform and medals. It was as if he had donned a costume designed to prove he was a hero, and to win sympathy. To the civilian eye, that splattering of fruit salad seemed to confirm the myth he had already spun about himself with the Washington press corps: that he was a leatherneck who had plenty of experience leading men in combat where people get the medals that count.

His Silver Star is no big deal by the standards of the Vietnam war. In Vietnam a total of 21,630 Silver Stars were awarded to Army personnel. Marines received more than 2500. I have nine altogether (five from Korea and four from Vietnam) and gave back a tenth because the action that I was cited for never happened. All too often in Vietnam, officers got medals just for showing up. North also won the Bronze Star. There were 720,000 awarded by the Army during the Vietnam war. No one can count the stunning acts of heroism that was obscured by the excesses of the medal count. Many Vietnam veterans got medals, but most don't try to exploit them or make more of them than they are worth.

Retired Major General John Singlaub, a man well-known for his physical and moral courage, said, "To people all over the world Ollie North was a hero. But I knew better. There was a wide gap between the media image of Ollie North--the honest, loyal Marine--and the sordid reality of his true character and performance."

Let's keep things in perspective. In 1968 and 1969 North spent 12 months in Vietnam. During the first nine months he skippered a rifle platoon on a tough I Corps battlefield and was wounded twice. He was not short on guts or leadership ability and his men rated him as a gung ho and caring leader. For his last three months in Vietnam North was a staff officer, away from combat, with mostly administrative duties.

Between 1969 and 1974 he spent most of his time in offices and classrooms and on training assignments. In late 1974 he again took charge of troops when he became a company commander, as a captain, on Okinawa. Just 29 days into the assignment, North--described to me by a follow officer who saw him at the time as an "emotional wreck"--surrendered his command.

He returned to the U.S., where he spent as much as three weeks at Bethesda Naval Hospital for some deep-shrinking by psychiatrists. The episode is shrouded in mystery. North himself is vague about it in Under Fire, his autobiography reports that parts of his medical record were expunged. Meanwhile, there have been published reports (which North never legally challenged) that provide details about the apparent nervous breakdown. In one account he ran around naked, babbling incoherently and waving a .45 pistol.

I asked him about his emotional problems on the radio and he did not want to talk about them. Voters in Virginia should ask him about this and demand to see his Marine medical record. Watch him say it's secret because of national security. Hell, he may believe it himself.

North never afterward commanded troops. For the rest of his career he was a staff wienie--and by all accounts a good one, if sometimes overzealous.

"You had to keep an eye on him or he would get everyone in trouble," an officer who worked with him told me.

He tirelessly shuffled papers, taught classes and for the last five years before Iran-contra exploded, worked as a presidential advisor on national security matters. In the White House his dangerous and destructive fantasies took on the hallmarks of megalomania, perjury, double-dealing and gullibility. He was still a serving Marine, but he wore civilian gear and his weapons during those five years were a word processor, a file cabinet and one mean shredder.

And now he is on a roll as the comeback colonel.

We are lucky to have survived his first effort at shaping policy. He was incompetent. No matter how slapstick some of his antics were--like taking the keyshaped cake and the pistols to Tehran--his incompetence caused grave harm to American national interests.

The record shows him to be an extraordinary sucker. He wants to please everyone and has this thing about being the ultimate insider. Real insiders can smell pretenders like Ollie. They let them inside only when they can use them. And, boy, was Ollie used.

According to one of his colleagues, North boasted that Ronald Reagan "loves my ass."

North certainly brought the power of the White House to his projects. And for some of the worst people in the world it was a lucky day when Ollie walked in. He was an answer to the prayers of sleazebags from Panama City to Beirut. It was as if they had one of their own in the White House.

The Iranians Ollie dealt with were basically the same people who had seized the U.S. embassy and taken hostages in 1979. Most of the world regarded them as criminals. During the war with Iraq the Iranians were having trouble getting arms. But, with Ollie's help, they managed to get tons of weaponry during 1985 and 1986. In return they prevailed upon their allies in Lebanon to turn loose some kidnapped U.S. civilians. North himself, in a message sent to John Poindexter (a message that he attempted but failed to destroy), lays out the chain of organizations from Tehran right down to the hostage holders--a well-known Middle Eastern terrorist group called the Hezbollah.

It was the Hezbollah who carried out the bombing of the Beirut barracks in October 1983, in which 241 Marines and servicemen were killed. Two years later, despite the rhetorical denunciations of all terrorists by the Reagan White House, Ollie did business with them.

So Ollie did succeed in getting people out, right? Yes, except that when three hostages were released, the terrorists simply snatched three others to get ready to bargain for more arms.

"The net accomplishment of North's arms deals with the Iranians was to create a market for hostages," said Tom Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C. The NSA, a nongovernmental library of declassified documents, is the greatest single public repository of hard facts about North and the whole Iran-contra scam. "The market featured prices--a.k.a. ransoms--running from $1 million in cash to as high as $8 million in missiles. That's an incentive for a revolving door."

Remember: the official line was that North and his colleagues worked only with moderates in Iran. The joke back in 1987 was that a moderate in Iran was anybody who was low on ammo. Voters in Virginia should ask him if the people who killed the Marines and sailors in Beirut were moderates.

North also dealt with other people who dwelt in the terrorist sewer. Back in 1987 he testified that terrorist Abu Nidal wanted him dead. It was, North said, Nidal's threats that made him install the security system. Nidal and his associates must have had a good laugh when they saw how North had fooled the American public. They knew about Ollie. Abu Nidal and Ollie bought weapons from the same Syrian arms dealer, Monzer al-Kassar. So did Abul Abbas, the man who carried out the seizure of the Achille Lauro and the murder of Leon Klinghoffer. The terrorist underworld wanted a patsy like Ollie alive and doing business.

It's a good bet that the contras did not get their money's worth out of the weapons Ollie got for them from Monzer al-Kassar. For all the money he raised for the contras, little of it did the grunts in the field any good. They were eating monkeys and suffering supply problems while the Miami leadership team with whom North worked bought expensive suits and lived comfortably.

North's involvement with Manuel Noriega would be funny of if had not damaged the U.S. so much. Ollie regularly kissed the Panamanian's ass in exchange for promises of help with the contras. An American who knew them both said, "To North, Noriega was like Brando up the river in Apocalypse Now. No rules."

Noriega's reputation--as a narcotrafficker, election fixer, double or triple intelligence agent and accomplice to murder--did not deter Ollie. When Noriega got some bad press in the summer of 1986 he went to Ollie and told him he wanted his image buffed up in Washington. In return, Noriega offered to blow up some Sandinista targets inside Nicaragua. North enthusiastically reported all this to Poindexter and, ever gullible, judged Noriega's offer "sincere." Thank God, North got caught just two months later. Voters in Virginia should ask North why he wanted to improve the image of someone like Noriega, who played such a crucial role in shipping cocaine to Americans.

North should not call himself a conservative, at least not in the way my family and friends in Virginia define the word. If he qualifies as the leader of any cause it is the neo-fruitcake movement. I hope the good people of Virginia realize he is the opposite of a patriot and make that clear with their ballots. My family first settled in Virginia in 1622 and my ancestors would spin in their graves if he were to represent the state. I hereby volunteer for his enemies list.

Or just for a cheap thrill, try a Google search of "Oliver North", "John Hull" and "Penca".

[Elfdart]

Shep wants info from credible sources, yet quotes Oliver North and the Moonies.

[MKSheppard]

by David Hackworth

Ah there's your problem. Hacky is a fraud too. He drove Admiral Boorda to
suicide over bronze Vs on his decorations, yet Hacky had his own problems with wearing the RANGER tab, which he never even went
through the training for.

[Elfdart]

by David Hackworth

Ah there's your problem. Hacky is a fraud too. He drove Admiral Boorda to
suicide over bronze Vs on his decorations, yet Hacky had his own problems with wearing the RANGER tab, which he never even went
through the training for.

Bullshit, Boorda had been battling severe depression for years before he killed himself.

Hackworth said that the Ranger tab was a mistake. Which is probably true since he has nine Silver Stars. If he wanted extra decorations, all he had to do was accept a tenth that he was offered -and turned down. Hackworth wasn't a REMF claiming falsely to have served in combat. And unlike Ollie North, he didn't falsely claim to have gone on commando raids in Cambodia (see Asa Baber's article about North).

[Rogue 9]

Gee, Shep trots out a convicted perjurer and known supporter of coke dealers and terrorists in order to attack John Kerry. Of course North has good reason to dislike Kerry since Kerry helped expose North's role in drug and gunrunning.

What's wrong, Shep? Terry Nichols wasn't available?

Elfdart, I don't know much about Oliver North, but given the fact that a known supporter of terrorists would currently be a detainee somewhere, I have to say you're probably exaggerating. Besides, even if you're not and he's somehow just managed to avoid the FBI's notice as a terrorist suspect while writing public editorials (yeah, sure), dismissing what he says because of who he is constitutes an ad hominem fallacy.

[Elfdart]

Elfdart, I don't know much about Oliver North, but given the fact that a known supporter of terrorists would currently be a detainee somewhere, I have to say you're probably exaggerating. Besides, even if you're not and he's somehow just managed to avoid the FBI's notice as a terrorist suspect while writing public editorials (yeah, sure), dismissing what he says because of who he is constitutes an ad hominem fallacy.

In 1983, Hezbollah rammed a truck filled with explosives into a Marine barracks in Lebanon killing 241. Hezbollah started kidnapping American citizens. A year later, North was sending cakes, bibles and TOW missiles to the mullahs in Iran, who were the chief sponsors of Hezbollah, in exchange for the hostages. This caused them to abduct more Americans.

In 1984, North was a big sponsor (with American tax dollars) of a group of cocaine-dealing rapists and murderers known as the Contras, who were trying to overthrow the lawfully elected government in Nicaragua. One of these narco-terrorists was an American citizen named John Hull who owned a "ranch" in Costa Rica that was a supply center for guns going from the US to Central America -and for thirty TONS of cocaine from South America to the US.

One of the Contras was Eden Pastora, the leader of Nicaragua's communist party, but like the other Contras, eager to overthrow the government. The problem was that Pastora refused to go on the game for North, Hull and the others. In April 1984 he was given ultimatum: "Join the other Contras in 30 days or else." Pastora refused and threatened to quit the war entirely. When he held a press conference at La Penca (on the Nicaraguan-Costa Rican border) a bomb went off killing eight people and wounding Pastora. When Hull was indicted for the La Penca murders, drug and gun running charges, he fled Costa Rica. Prosecutors in Costa Rica found out that Hull, North, Richard Secord and John Poindexter (Reagan's henchmen) and US ambassador Lewis Tambs were thick as thieves and the Costa Rican government barred Tambs, Secord, North and Poindexter from the country.

In the late 1980s John Kerry was head of the Senate Committe on drugs, law enforcement and foreign policy and exposed a lot of the mischief North & Co. were up to. According to eyewitnesses who testified in front of the committee, Hull personally supervised loading planes headed to the the US with cocaine. North has had a grudge against Kerry ever since. So much for the notion that Kerry didn't accomplish much in the Senate. His subcommitte exposed more corruption than the earlier Iran-Contra committee.

[Elfdart]

Kerry's crewmate Del Sandusky was just on the Randi Rhodes Show. He was asked about John O'Neil -a.k.a. Swift Boat Shyster #1. He said O'Neil was nicknamed John Wayne O'Neil because he was such a braggart and buffoon. He also said O'Neil's first action was opening fire on a friendly boat.

Sandusky said nobody liked John Wayne O'Neil and the crew considered him a tool.

[Elfdart]

John O'Neil has just committed identity theft:

www.atrios.blogspot.com see Swift Boat Liars

[Rogue 9]

Okay, all of that begs the question of why the hell he isn't in jail. Come on, if this is all such public knowledge, what's he doing on the outside of a federal penitentiary?

[Vympel]

Meh, I like Hackworth. When I think obscenely-decorated ex-soldier with a big mouth who doesn't give as shit who he pisses off and has no obvious party alleigances, I think Hack. Notice he used to be on Fox News, then they stopped using him? That's a ringing endorsement as far as I'm concerned.

[Edi]

Okay, all of that begs the question of why the hell he isn't in jail. Come on, if this is all such public knowledge, what's he doing on the outside of a federal penitentiary?

Actually convicting him instead of just sweeping as much of the mess under the carpet as is possible would have cast some serious shadows on the image of the American government. And I have some hazy memory of Bush Sr. pardoning him.

Edi

[Elfdart]

North was convicted of accepting an illegal gift, obstruction of justice and giving a false statement to Congress. These convictions were overturned on a technicality by Judge Silberman in D.C.. He ruled that North's testimony before Congress (where he confessed to his crimes) was not admisible, even though North was only granted partial immunity -he was not immunized for the things he confessed to. Silberman pulled out of his ass the notion that if part of your testimony has immunity and you squeal about something else, EVERYTHING is covered!

[The Yosemite Bear]

For those that repeat the "Demos don't sling mud fallacy" around you obviously have never seen Tom Brokow's anti Goldwater "Daisy" commercial.