Guest from NW, you are a bit too facile for my taste.

1. You are correct with the denials which appeared after my threads date line. I simply regard this as the Gennifer Flowers portion of the investigation, not that I have one wit of proof to the contrary. But, to use an instant example, when Bush made his denial of the AWOL issue, complete with a prima facie honorable discharge, which is the dispostive document, the Dems even went for Bushes dental records. I want Kerry's underwear checked on this one; remember his cohort is Kennedy, of love'm and drown'em fame.

2. The only photo I saw was an AP of the rally. If the date of the rally is after Jane's photo shoot in Hanoi on the AA gun, then to appear with her afterwards is repellant, and needs to be clearly understood by the electorate.

3. Hanoi John was a "brown water squid", and never served a day with the infantry. Where he got his testimony that atrocities were occurring "every day" with apparent allusions to the entire country side, is beyond me, as I was in the DMZ at the time (LT. USMC) and we never saw any females to be raped, villages to be burned, etc. As many people know in the MudCat, I was the platoon commander of the 1st Plt, Kilo Co. 3rd Btn, 3rd Marine Reg., and Oliver North was the 2nd Platoon Cmdr. Several years later, when he was just a 1st Lt., he spoke on a TV talk show that he never saw an atrocity, and I can back his testimony. Later, in the book, Defiant Patriot, written about North, by Ben Bradlee, I am quoted as saying it was like fighting in the hills of San Diego, with burned off cliffs and craggy peaks. Thus, what I saw may not have been representative of the jungle fighting in the South. But even so, Kerry knew nothing of what we were going through, and his general remarks are nothing short of a stain on our performance. I have been searching for his entire testimony, and will read it to confirm the press accounts of Kerry's 1972 testimony. Then I will ensure that every veteran I know gets a copy...

I realize that atrocities did occur, but no where near the level the leftists portray, and the that Kerry's location gave him no source to speak of. It was massive overstatement at best and a stain upon the very men he seeks to surround himself with.

4. No one has disputed his medals, only the stain he put on them. When, in a public ceremony, he threw "his" medals over a fence at the Pentagon in 1972 (caught on TV) it turns out that many years later, after he had been elected to the Senate, that they were not his medals but a friends. He knew that the DoD would not replace his medals except for "good cause", so he used his buddies in this "public act of conscience" (his very words) so he could hold on to his own. This story was verified by the Boston Globe in a series of articles, and yet now seems to have been forgotten.

Remember that Kerry received a Silver Star and a Bronze medal, but so did Oliver North... The Dems started this round, and it ain't over...