Kerry Tales, Part XXXVIII

More flip-flops. . . I mean nuance. My head's spinning faster than a mid-court spectator at a men's championship match. And more press bias as well--the hits just keep on coming. The story's long and complicated. But revealing.

Start with today's WaPo story headlined "FBI Tracked Kerry in Vietnam Vets Group." Wow--sounds bad. Our gov'mint--the Nixon Administration!--spied on long-haired liberal war protesters. That can't be good; might even be illegal. The headline and 78 percent of story provide plenty of fuel for anti-Republican outrage.

Yet paragraph 8 (out of 9) hints the easy answer is wrong. FBI agents were investigating an organization called Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). Kerry admits he was a member of VVAW. The Post calls the organization, and particularly its November 1971 meeting in Kansas City, "controversial." But the story never elaborates--there's no "why" or "what."

Here's what the WaPo didn't print. The FBI was interested in VVAW, and its members, for good reason. At the November 12-15th session, VVAW member Scott Camil proposed "The Phoenix Project," which would "execute the Southern senatorial leadership that was financing the Vietnam War. Senators like John Stennis, Strom Thurmond, and John Tower were his targets, according to Mr. Camil. They were to be killed during the Senate Christmas recess the following month." The VVAW rejected Camil's plan.

Surely the VVAW proposal qualifies as "controversial," if not "attempted treason." Viewed in that light, Kerry's FBI investigation seems, well, appropriate, even benign. Today's NY Times has details from the FBI files, just released:

[An] F.B.I. teletype marked "urgent" [said] "A review of subject's file indicated there is nothing to associate him with any violence or any violent-prone group or organization," said the memorandum, from the Boston F.B.I. office. "It is being recommended that no further investigation be conducted re the subject."

This hardly suggests police-state overkill. Sounds like the FBI did its job, including (correctly) determining John Kerry wasn't a threat. But the WaPo prevented its readers from weighing the facts for themselves.

The second issue is Kerry's truthfulness when opposing the Vietnam war. Remember, VVAW members Kerry and Al Hubbard appeared--in uniform--on "Meet the Press" in April 1971 "alleging that U.S. troops were committing widespread atrocities against Vietnamese civilians." Days later, as the sole representative of VVAW, Kerry repeated these claims before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Kerry never said he saw war crimes--but Hubbard claimed he did.

Hubbard lied. Hubbard "was introduced as a former decorated Air Force captain who had spent two years in Vietnam and was wounded in the process. In reality, Hubbard had lied about his military rank and other issues." Further diligence showed Hubbard had never been awarded a Purple Heart or even served in Vietnam. It's hard to witness Vietnam war crimes from New Jersey.

That didn't stop Kerry--as recently as March 11th--from defending his VVAW public appearances:

"I think our credibility was tremendous," Kerry told CNSNews.com's Marc Morano during a press conference on Capitol Hill Thursday. . .

"I think that was one of the most moving and important weeks in an effort to end a war that needed to be ended, and I'm proud of the role that I played in helping to do that," Kerry said, referring to his television appearance with Hubbard and congressional testimony. "I think people all over this country joined together in trying to get our servicemen home," Kerry added.

This makes no sense. Kerry's recitation of U.S. atrocities in Vietnam was instrumental in shifting Senate opinion. Yet Hubbard's account was fiction--which Kerry discovered days after their joint Meet the Press interview. Kerry's "evidence" was anecdotal. And, it turns out, fantasy--subsequent investigations were unable to substantiate any atrocity Kerry described. Though less brazen than Hubbard, Kerry also lied. And slandered Vietnam vets--the same ones he cynically cultivates today.

Finally, and most importantly, Kerry's flip-flops are becoming falsehoods. No one disputes Kerry resigned from VVAW. The question is: when? On March 12th, the Haughty Hairdo told the Kansas City Star "he 'never, ever' attended a meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War after a heated and public argument with the group's executive secretary in St. Louis in June 1971." The day before, Kerry campaign spokesman David Wade told the NY Sun that:

Mr. Kerry resigned from Vietnam Veterans Against the War 'sometime in the summer of 1971 after the August meeting in St. Louis, which Kerry did not attend.' Mr Wade also said, 'Kerry was not at the [November 1971] Kansas City meeting.'

Also on March 12, according to the Star, Kerry campaign veterans operation chief John Hurley claimed: "'There was no way' [Kerry] attended the Kansas City meeting. . .'He was not there.'"

Two books addressing the issue agree with Kerry :

Tour of Duty, a largely sympathetic book about Kerry's war record and anti-war activism, author Douglas Brinkley wrote that the senator from Massachusetts did not attend the Kansas City meeting. The book cites a Nov. 10 resignation letter saying that Kerry had been proud to work for the group but that he was leaving it because of "personality conflicts and differences in political philosophy.". . .

In his book Home to War, A History of the Vietnam Veterans Movement, Gerald Nicosia writes that Kerry resigned from the organization at its St. Louis meeting in July 1971.

Sounds honorable. If Kerry quit VVAW in summer 1971, he wouldn't have attended the November meeting in Kansas City and could legitimately claim to have distanced himself from an organization transforming toward treason. Issue over, right?

No. Kerry's tale isn't true:

[A]ccording to the current head of Missouri Veterans for Kerry, Randy Barnes, Mr. Kerry, who was then 27,was at the meeting, voted against the plot, and then orally resigned from the organization. Mr. Barnes was present as part of the Kansas City host chapter for the 1971 meeting. . . In addition to Mr. Barnes's recollection placing Mr. Kerry at the Kansas City meeting, another Vietnam veteran who attended the meeting, Terry Du-Bose, said that Mr. Kerry was there.

Randy Barnes is no Republican plant--he's an "enthusiastic Kerry supporter." But he told the Kansas City Star that he:

remembered him attending at least the start of the group's national steering committee meeting and urging the organization to distance itself from radicals. "John said, I think his exact words were, 'You guys are getting way too radical, you're defeating your purpose, and I quit.'"

CNN agrees:

Kerry's break with VVAW came at the end of 1971 during a four-day convention for VVAW national coordinators. The organization's minutes record that Kerry and three other fellow moderates "resigned" their posts.

It's to Kerry's credit he opposed The Phoenix Project then quit a radicalized VVAW. But not in the summer of 1971, as the Senator claimed. Not before attending the "controversial" Kansas City meeting in November.

There's no evidence supporting Kerry's version. Even Brinkely's book says Kerry resigned on November 10th. Kerry admits he can't produce his resignation letter, whenever dated. That's understandable: few keep 33 year old papers. But the WaPo omitted mentioning Kerry's missing documentation--despite hounding President Bush over brief delays in releasing National Guard service records covering that same year! (see tpfp post 2/11 3:07pm.) Anyway, when you scrutinize the footnotes, Brinkley never actually saw the letter: "I could not locate Kerry's November 10 VVAW resignation letter supposedly housed at the Wisconsin archives. The quote I used comes directly from Andrew E. Hunt's essential 'The Turning: A History of Vietnam Veterans Against the War' (1999)." Quite the historian, Mr. Brinkley. So the book provides no lifeboat for Kerry.

Moreover, Senator Kerry's own records don't support his claim. How do I know? My source was the New York Times:

A Nov. 19, 1971, F.B.I. teletype marked "urgent" quoted an informant describing a group meeting six days earlier in Kansas City, Mo., at which many delegates wanted the group to take the initiative in peace efforts with North Vietnam. "John Kerry, V.V.A.W. national chairman, considered conservative by most V.V.A.W. members resigned for `personal reasons,' " the report said. . .The Kerry campaign released documents from his own F.B.I. file, including memorandums dated May 24 and July 31, 1972, stating that Mr. Kerry had severed ties with the antiwar group, was pursuing a career in politics and warranted no further surveillance.

Again, this supports Kerry's reason for resigning from VVAW. But it strongly undercuts the Senator's claimed timing. And the seeming certainty of Kerry spokesmen. Which is logical--why would Kerry resign over principle before the radical phoenix proposal was introduced?

Over the weekend, Kerry tried damage control and "all but conceded he attended a 1971 Kansas City meeting where a fellow anti-war veteran called for political assassinations." This might have concluded the controversy--faulty memory of three decade-old events isn't fatal (except for Republicans).

But new allegations surfaced Monday that Kerry's campaign staff pressured a former VVAW member John Musgrave to lie:

[A]n official with the Kerry presidential campaign called him this month and pressured him to change his story. The veteran, John Musgrave, says he was called twice by the head of Veterans for Kerry, John Hurley. . . Asked by The New York Sun if he felt pressured, Mr. Musgrave said, 'In the second call I did.' Mr. Musgrave said Mr. Hurley said Mr. Kerry had told him 'he was definitely not in Kansas City.'

According to Mr. Musgrave, Mr. Hurley said, 'Why don't you refresh your memory and call that reporter back?'

This from a card carrying liberal who hysterically insists "Bush lied!" Bush didn't. Kerry--and his staff--did. And encouraged others to do the same. How. . .um. . .Nixonian.

But why? Why on earth did Kerry lie? Especially when the actual facts suggest honorable conduct? Could Kerry's frequent flip-flops be symptoms of a narcissistic personality; a candidate who will say literally anything for your vote? That's certainly Kerry's consistent practice. Kerry's lied for so long he's unable to distinguish between truth and falsehood.

Candidate Kerry's flip-flopped on policy, on nuance and now on his past. He's got more positions than the Karma Sutra. And it's only March.

Would the real Senator Kerry please stand up?

Update:

Kerry's shady past--and his attempted cover-ups--finally are surfacing in the liberal media. And blogger Tom Maguire is on the case. Turns out anti-war activist John Kerry testified that he visited Paris in 1971--to chat with America's enemies:

I have been to Paris. I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government.

But suddenly, the Haughty Harido's back-peddling, as reported in today's Boston Globe:

Kerry, now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, yesterday confirmed through a spokesman that he did go to Paris and talked privately with a leading communist representative. But the spokesman played down the extent of Kerry's role and said Kerry did not engage in negotiations. Asked about the appropriateness of Kerry's saying that the United States had "murdered" 200,000 Vietnamese annually when the United States was at war, Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan said "Senator Kerry used a word he deems inappropriate."

So Kerry's flip-flopped on the meaning of "murder."

Kerry--for two decades, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee--surely knows it's a crime for ordinary citizens to negotiate with foreign powers. It's true no one's been prosecuted under the Logan Act for 200 years; it's safe to assume Senator Kerry won't break that streak. But it's equally clear that candidate Kerry has no convictions aside from expediency and self-promotion.