Small Victories: Meskheti Come to America
By Marc C. Johnson08/30/2004
The Meskheti are one of those little good-news stories that so often slips through the cracks, but their plight underlines a comment made by the Secretary of Defense last year. Speaking to a group of none-too-receptive Europeans at a NATO conference in Munich last February, Rumsfeld, clearly exasperated by the discussion, blurted out, “I know in my heart and in my brain that America ain’t what’s wrong with the world.”
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Book Review -- Reckless Disregard: How Liberal Democrats Undercut Our Military, Endanger Our Soldiers, and Jeopardize Our Security (Regnery Publishing, 2004)
By Marc C. Johnson08/27/2004
Didja hear? Seems there was this group of guys that patrolled up and down rivers in Vietnam and, er, Cambodia (maybe) in the late 60s. They were on these little boats that were really fast – so fast that they called them “swift boats.” One of them was a guy named Lt. Kerry; he might have been a hero, but it’s not entirely clear because there are a group of folks that have differing views on what happened 35 years ago.
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Bush's unanswered questions
By Mike Thomas08/25/2004
We’ve spent several weeks now consumed with the back-and-forth bickering over John Kerry’s service in Vietnam. It should be clear by now to anybody not completely blinded by partisan politics that the main charges brought by the Swift Boat Liars for Bush have been thoroughly vetted by the major media here, here, here, and here and in most every case have been absolutely refuted by either the official military records, or by eyewitness accounts of people who were actually there when the incidents occurred, unlike most of the veterans who appear in the Swift Boat ads.
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The Swift Boat Veterans ad does what the media refuses to do
By Marcos Rodriguez08/25/2004
The over-blown and hasty reaction from the Kerry camp vis-a-vis the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth TV ad is a tell-tale sign that things are not going well for the senator from Massachusetts. Indeed, ever since Mr. Kerry changed his mind and, contrary to what he had repeatedly promised, decided to make of his four-month period in South Asia more than 35 years ago a central pillar of his current presidential bid, the media at large has refused to question or objectively examine anything of what is spoon-fed to them by the Kerry headquarters --a posture that has proven a dramatic reversal from the very critical and aggressive position they took in 1996, when Bob Dole's heroic war record was not only questioned at nauseam but even mocked by such luminary publications as The Nation.
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My time with John Kerry and the boys of war in Vietnam
By Marino de Medici08/24/2004
In November 1968, I may have met a certain young Lieutenant Junior Grade in the Mekong Delta. At the same time, I met many young officers of the Riverine Assault Force while I was a war correspondent in Vietnam. I have forgotten many names and many faces, although I mentioned the names of several of them in my articles and in my war notebooks. Most probably, one of them was Lt. John Kerry. Lt. Kerry included, those young Navy officers on hazardous duty on the Mekong River were all heroes. They risked their lives daily, and they went out on their dangerous missions with courage and a sense of duty that to this day still astounds me. I know how dangerous it was--I was there with them.
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Why Vote for Kerry?
By Rand Fishkin08/23/2004
John Kerry is by no means a great politician. He has been very lucky and is gifted in certain technical details - biography, funding, etc - that have helped him to reach this point in his career. In order to vote for him this year, I have decided to learn as little as I can about his policies for fear of finding too many things I disagree with.
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Bush is Right on Redeploying U.S. Troops
By Jeff Myhre08/23/2004
Not even the Bush administration can get everything wrong. In announcing American intentions to reposition troops, eventually bringing 60-70,000 home, Mr. Bush has finally made the strategic moves needed now that the Cold War is over. His critics say that his plans are a disaster for U.S. policy in the Korean peninsula, but a thoughtful consideration of the situation suggests the changes envisioned offer a way to halt the saber-rattling there.
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More on the Swift Boat smear
By Mike Thomas08/20/2004
The New York Times has what should be the final word on the slimy Swift Boat Liars for Bush story.
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Yes, Kerry was in Cambodia
By Mike Thomas08/18/2004
Kerry critics have been salivating recently over this Christmas in Cambodia story believing they have caught the candidate in a lie about his service in Vietnam. However, it would appear that at worst Kerry may have gotten the dates confused by a few weeks. Historian Douglas Brinkley has now confirmed Kerry’s story about clandestine missions into Cambodia that he chose to leave out of his biography on Kerry. He says only t hat they took place in January of 1969 and not around Christmas of 1968 as Kerry had remembered.
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Rassmann Attacks Swift Boat Vets
By Stephen Macklin08/10/2004
Jim Rassmann, the soldier famous for having been rescued by John Kerry, has joined the throng of those speaking out against those who are critical of the four month stint in Vietnam that Kerry has made the centerpiece of his campaign for the presidency. There is a very disturbing pattern becoming evident. Early on in the primaries the Kerry campaign asserted that those who did not serve had no place questioning one who had. Now that the questions are being raised not only by those who served, but by those who served with Kerry it would seem that they have no right to question either.
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Monitor This!
By Marc C. Johnson08/10/2004
The Europeans are coming! The Europeans are c... Wait a second here. When our democracy was in diapers, most of them were still living under monarchs, and were quickly headed in the direction of communist or fascist autocracies. We had finished our Civil War decades before most of them had come around to the mere idea of representative government. And it was America, after all, who allowed Western Europe to have a fighting chance at constitutional governance in the first place. After nearly 230 years, what does Europe have to teach us about democracy?
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Kerry Campaigns Out West
By Mike Pechar08/09/2004
From Gallup, New Mexico, to Flagstaff, Arizona, John Kerry traveled by train and straddled the fence by refusing to take any position on the high-profile issue in Arizona over a proposal to deny state benefits to illegal aliens. Kerry also is unwilling to support federal help to the border states that incur tremendous expenditures for federally mandated services "as well as imprisoning those illegal entrants who have broken Arizona law." So, basically he's telling Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and California to suck it up.
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Deporting the "Huddled Masses"
By Amy Phillips08/09/2004
The U.S. government is revoking the refugee status of 292 former residents of the Caribbean island of Montserrat, which has been experiencing deadly volcanic activity since 1995. The reason: it's not safe for them to go home, and it may never be.
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Robert McNamara, Cuban Missiles & the Absurd
By Rand Fishkin08/03/2004
Watching Errol Morris' "Fog of War," a documentary about Robert McNamara, was exceptionally informative. There are literally hundreds of topics to discuss that pertain to this film, but for now, I want to focus on these two:
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Tom Ridge Cries Wolf
By Jeff Myhre08/01/2004
Tom Ridge announced at a Sunday afternoon press conference that the U.S. government had information that warranted raising the Crayola terrorism threat level from yellow to orange. However, this only applies to Washington, New York and part of northern New Jersey.
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