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opinion
Also in this section:
Leis, What our newly inaugurated officials should do
Jackson, Things that Panama's Americans must decide
What they're saying about the attacks on Kerry's military record
Giuliani, Thank God George W. Bush is our president
Aldredge & Kelley, Protests at the Republican National Convention
Thomas & Thomas, SouthCom's contortions to define its role
Human Rights Watch, The Guantanamo military tribunals
Vacca, The Greater Caribbean This Week
Bolivarians, About the pardons of Cuban terrorists
Bernal, Where is the University of Panama going?
 
What they're saying about the attacks
on John Kerry's military record
The pro-Kerry campaign is nasty and personal. The pro-Bush campaign is nasty, personal and false.
No informed person can seriously believe that Kerry fabricated evidence to win his military medals in Vietnam. His main accuser has been exposed as having said the opposite at the time, 35 years ago. Kerry is backed by almost all those who witnessed the events in question, as well as by documentation. His accusers have no evidence except their own dubious word.
Los Angeles Times editorial
I agree with the president that third parties should stop impugning the integrity of the two men who seek to lead our nation for the next four years. I also believe that Kerry needs to stop reminding us that he is a war veteran and do a better job of articulating why he should be chosen to serve this country's highest office.
Jeff Smyth, columnist, the Southern Illinoisan
If bullet holes don't prove those boats were under fire, then Vietnamese termites are in a league of their own.
Denver Post columnist Bob Ewegen, a Vietnam veteran
Kerry and his stooges are fully aware that the veterans' are exercising their right to free speech and that the president has no power to repeal that constitutional right.
They keep asking the president to disavow the veteran's ads, but in order for him to do that he would have to have all the information on everything that is talked about in the ads to learn what is true and what is not true, and what is factual and what is not factual.† That's not the president's job because it's not his ad. Nor has the president the power to stop these ads from running, and the Kerry campaign knows that.
Republican pundit Michael Reagan
These scurrilous attacks on John Kerry's credibility in war, courage and valor are false and George Bush is behind it.
Max Cleland, Vietnam veteran
Well liberals, you've just shown us your colors . . . yellow, yellow, yellow. And it looks so natural on you.
GOPUSA columnist Debbie Daniel
It takes real courage to desert your post and then attack a wounded vet.
It is between those who feel you have to serve your country right or wrong versus those who believe what makes America different is we can voice our opinion and try to change the government policy.
John A. Calhoun, Vietnam veteran
Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry is providing a frightening preview of what would happen to the United States if he is ever elected to its most powerful office.
Not only is his campaign trying desperately to persuade Regnery Publishers to stop publishing the Swift Boat Veteran book "Unfit for Command," but Kerry himself tried to stop another activity of the Swift Boat Veterans: two absolutely devastating one-minute TV spots.
Conservative radio talk show host Len Kinsolving
A Navy report filed five days after a disputed incident in Vietnam supports John Kerry's version and contradicts critics who say the Democratic presidential nominee never came under enemy gunfire when he won two medals.
No offense to Ketchup Boy, but I'm thinking that if you get shot three separate times, maybe combat is not your sport.
The Signal columnist John Boston
At the very least, Sen. Kerry has a record to distort and scrutinize! I served four years in Vietnam. I missed one day of duty, and somewhere the Pentagon has a record. With Bush, he fixed his teeth, which is more than I can get. The dental record is all the verification the National Guard has.
Jim Condurelis, Vietnam veteran
The issue here is one of deception. The Bush campaign repeatedly denied anyone on staff, including its legal counsel, had any ties to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
Democratic National Committee spokesman Jano Cabrera
In response to Newt Gingrich's remark that the Swift Boat Veterans' independent ads were "the conservative movement's answer to Michael Moore," O'Reilly said, "I don't want either of them."
In Nazi Germany, O'Reilly would have condemned both Hitler's death camps and the Warsaw ghetto uprising. In Bill O'Reilly's world, King Solomon would have actually cut the disputed baby in half.
Republican pundit Ann Coulter
Has any campaign smear ever collapsed factually as fast as the charges of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth?
Not collapsed on the talk radio circuit, or in the words of eager Bush mouthpieces like Bob Dole, who attacked his "good friend" John Kerry with two flat lies, then bleated he was just playing "hardball politics."
But utterly collapsed factually, as it became clear that Kerry's accusers had previously told very different stories, that their new memories were sharply contradicted by official Navy records, that several unexpected (but very angry) new figures emerged to bolster Kerry's account.
The Oregonian columnist David Sarasohn
This Swift Boat stuff is making life very, very difficult for Vietnam veterans, no matter who they support for president.
Colleen Helmstetter, Vietnam veteran
I suddenly have this vision --- that when you guys reach the nursing homes, you're going to be leaning on your walkers and beating each other with your canes, because you still will not have settled the arguments from the Sixties.
Washington Post columnist David Broder
I feel like the politicians are using us. They just won't let that war go.
Frank Stephens, Vietnam veteran
Criticizing your opponent for not condemning supposedly sleazy attack ads is maximum hypocrisy for a guy who let Michael Moore have a VIP seat at his nominating convention, and trying to legally silence commercials is just plain dirty pool.
Eric Spratling, Arizona State University State Press columnist
Kerry's starting to look like a serial exaggerator and opportunist to me.
The Mississippi Press columnist Gaylon Parker
Mr. Kerry's meltdown is a triumph for the Swifties, whose meager budget permitted them to place only a handful of ads on a few mid-market TV stations in Ohio, Wisconsin and West Virginia. Now lots more people have heard of them, and will be curious about what they have to say.
Reverend Sun Myung Moon's paper, The Washington Times
Can farce be brilliant? If so, the Bush campaign's current production merits rave reviews.
New York's Jewish weekly, Forward
In an election where voters are eager for a sense of vision from each of the candidates, the swift-boat flap has drowned out discussion of current policy issues.
Christian Science Monitor reporter Linda Feldmann
As a brother in arms with John Kerry, I feel these ads attack me and all other veterans too.
Former US senator and Marine Corps vetaran John Glenn
Now Kerry accuses 250+ decorated Swift Boat vets as liars.
The Republican attack machine that's gone nuts today is going to discover that John Kerry is pretty tough.
Kerry campaign strategist Bob Shrum
There is the war in Iraq, high rates of unemployment, especially among African Americans, and high numbers of people who do not have health insurance, and we are debating about someone's Vietnam records. It's ridiculous.
Joe Wynn, Vietnam veteran
Mr. Kerry called them "a front for the Bush campaign" --- a charge the campaign denied. A series of interviews and a review of documents show a web of connections to the Bush family, high-profile Texas political figures and President Bush's chief political aide, Karl Rove.
Records show that the group received the bulk of its initial financing from two men with ties to the president and his family --- one a longtime political associate of Mr. Rove's, the other a trustee of the foundation for Mr. Bush's father's presidential library. A Texas publicist who once helped prepare Mr. Bush's father for his debate when he was running for vice president provided them with strategic advice. And the group's television commercial was produced by the same team that made the devastating ad mocking Michael S. Dukakis in an oversized tank helmet when he and Mr. Bush's father faced off in the 1988 presidential election.
The strategy the veterans devised would ultimately paint John Kerry the war hero as John Kerry the "baby killer" and the fabricator of the events that resulted in his war medals. But on close examination, the accounts of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth prove to be riddled with inconsistencies. In many cases, material offered as proof by these veterans is undercut by official Navy records and the men's own statements.
New York Times reporters Kate Zernike and Jim Rutenberg
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