OK - SOME of the Swift boat Veterans claims MAY have been shaky. But, there were plenty of hard facts in what they said also.

For example, here is one provable fact: In Kerry's authorized biography, he claimed to have been sent into Cambodia under Nixon. Kerry was not in the Navy under Nixon. Period. And, his navigator and the quartermaster logs for his boat disprove his claim that his boat ever went Cambodia. He later claimed he might have been confused. About what? About who was president? Or, about having a Navy vessel 60 miles from where you though it was?

On just this one claim (and there are others) it was clear that Kerry could not react quickly. He needed to come up with a story. Finally, he managed to pick holes in one or two Swift Boat Vets claims. That was all his campaign and the main stream media needed to discredit ALL of their claims. It was not easy to put together such a complete counter-attack.

In truth - I wish the Swift Boat vets had left some allegations out of their attacks if they couldn't be rock solid proven. It's not that I don't believe them necessarily, it's just that this kind of counter-attack really could have been forseen.

John Kerry has no one to blame except himself. I can't tell you how many people I know that wanted to vote Bush out of office, yet realized that in John Kerry they were getting even worse than what they disliked about W.

I agree with this statement, "His problem was that the message he was presenting didn't inspire enough voters to vote for him." Kerry has nothing!

Matt, what were the figures again, the percentage of those who voted for Kerry broken down into how many actually voted FOR Kerry and how many actually were just voting AGAINST Bush?

Because I seem to remember that more than 50% of those voting Dem did not hesitate to admit they were really just voting against Bush.

So Kerry is really delusional (news flash!!) if he is pretending that the anti-Bush campaign did not help him. It apparently got him about half of the votes he did get.

I sure hope the Republicans dig out that old information and put it out there, loud and strong, in the 2008 election. Without Bush to use as a whipping boy, the election might just come down to issues, which has got to be pretty scary to the Dems.

And I think if the Dems try the personal attack smear campaign against yet another Republican, they are going to scare off some of their moderates, who will have to wonder why EVERY Republican deserves name-calling and nonstop hate campaigns. At some point some of them HAVE to start wondering just what it is the Dems are FOR.

One of my favorite Kerry stories, and I think one of the strongest, was about the time they were supposed to tuck the boat in against the bank, under the overhanging vegetation, and watch the radar for supply boats heading to Viet Cong hideouts. The plan was, when a boat showed up on radar, the Swift Boat would slip out into the current and head off the oncoming boat, stop it, and search it.

The gunner, Larry Something, said he was sitting up in the gun "tub" and suddenly there was a boat coming toward them. There had been no warning from the radar man---the Captain---to get anyone in position. The boat carried a man and a woman holding a baby.

When the man saw Larry in the gun tub, he reached down and came up with a rifle, and aimed it at Larry, who responded with 50-cal machine gun fire. He not only killed the man, but the man's young son, who was in the cockpit of the boat with his father.

Larry said the crew were badly shaken by the incdent, and totally p o'd at Kerry for not watching the radar and letting them get into position to be seen early enough for the man to stop in time, and not suddenly come upon a machine gun pointing at him out of the underbrush.

Larry said that night he and another crew member talked about how long it would take to get them all hauled in for a court-martial, and they were surprised when nothing happened. But war is war, and they went on with it and it slipped behind them.

Then Kerry's book came out, all those years later, and Larry and the other crew found out why they had not been hauled in before a review board. Kerry's version eliminated the foulup with the radar, put two Viet Cong spies in the boat instead of a family, forgot about the deaths, and had him---Kerry---leaping up into the gun tub to single-handedly spray the oncoming boat with machine gun fire and take the two spies captive.

Larry said that he never, not once, saw Kerry in the gun tub. And they never captured a boat with two northern spies. But the civilan deaths were covered up, and=----surprise, surprise---Kerry got a medal for his heroism.

The Left says that if there were any truth to the Swift Boat Vwts stories, they would have come forward years ago, instead of waiting till some rich Republicans paid them off for the election. But the fact is, no one kept track. His crew did not always know what was in his reports, or why he got the medals he got, if they even knew he got a medal at all. It was not till he started bragging about being a war hero that they found out what he had been saying back then, and how he had gotten his awards.

Thanks Almiranta for the abridged version of what I was dreading having to pen. You're right on target with all your salient points.

Not much I can add. Not much more needs to be added, except...

So many people I know who voted for this loser last time around (whether "against Bush" or "for Kerry") have admitted to me since then how disappointed they were with Kerry's campaign. So many of them have stated that if Kerry had just stood for SOMETHING - ANYTHING with any amount of consistency, they wouldn't be so down in him after his loss. Whether this aging gigolo of an ersatz Senator wants to admit it or not - his loss was due to him and how he campaigned.

He's worse than pathetic since the election though. He also seems to have come down with an acute case of Gore-itis as well, continuing to harp and moan about everything the President does as if to say, "If I had been elected..."

He's a Loser. I repeat. Loser. That's with a capital "L."

dbogdan, I agree. But at least he didn't go completely insane like Gore.

Actually, I did vote for ol' Spitball--right before I voted against him!

I listened to this jerk today on Late Edition, I think. Ol' Spitball and his three-part plan to withdraw troops from Iraq.

Someone needs to remind him that he lost in '04, and the decision to bring troops home isn't his. As if he's a serious contender for '08...

Oh please, God...please please please PLEASE let Kerry be the 08 nominee.

And please let him have kept that CIA agent's hat.

The man has not a lick of common sense, on top of being a total dweeb, a liar,a poseur, a parvenu, and having a political tin ear!!!
I remember reading a comment after one of the debates when his camp declared victory.
"Since when did making assertive hand gestures while talking complete drivel, constitute a victory?"

Poor poor Kerry. If only this, if only that, coulda woulda shoulda...

He was a born looser. Anyone with half a brain knew that in 2004.

Wow, this thread passed ten comments without our troll kookbats chiming in. They must be all dying their hair black, in preparation for tomorrow's big immigration rally...

Si Señor Keefer,

It's all those government goodies that are being waved in their direction. It's a siren call that cannot be ignored!

LOL!!

More garbage in and garbage out with that guy. I can not believe he said something to the effect, " I can not believe I'm losing to that idiot (Bush)..."

Shouldn't the title read "John Kerry Blames His Loss in 2004 On Taking Federal Money"? The current title makes it sound like a bout of depression drove him to take federal money. The misleading reporting makes it seem like I'm reading the New York Times LOL CONSERVATIVE HIGH FIVE!

Buenas Dias, amigos!

"He was a born looser. Anyone with half a brain knew that in 2004."

I voted for Kerry, even though I knew he wasn't a strong candidate. There was no other choice.

I threw my vote away in 2000 by going with Ralph Nader. I still feel guilty because it was people like me that allowed the Cowboy to win.

John who???

IMHO Kerry lost because being anti-Bush isn’t enough, BUT, Ladies and Gentlemen: Over the weekend I heard that the “message” of the GOP in the upcoming mid-term election is “Speaker Pelosi.

If this is what the Party is going to stand on, I suggest we better get used to being called the minority party.