Oh. My. God.

How on earth can a candidate for president have hired such a bunch of amateurs? Or are they so rattled they can't think and say, "Kerry, Kerrey...must be a typo"?

You're right, it smells right.

Bob Kerrey WAS THE SECRET AGENT FERRIED INTO CAMBODIA BY JOHN KERRY!!

So the confusion is only natural.

Oh, I hope I hope I hope this meme spreads. I've always wanted to spread a 'net rumor.

I kid about the Cambodia thing, but I've got to say I suspect that's one of the few parts of his story that is actually true.

Obviously, his timing is off (he distorted for, ahem, "dramatic purposes"), but I figure that kind of thing was fairly common, and I really can't imagine him just completely making it up.

OTOH, I think all the rest of the SwiftVets charges are true. I think he falsified reports and used political/familial/social-status power to get out of Nam early.

And I fear that we're focusing on the wrong thing, and then Kerry will prove that this part (and only this part) of his Vietnam Fish Tale is true, and the SwiftVets' entire book will be discredited.

This is just as good as the "Mekong river is the boundary between Cambodia and Vietnam, so Kerry could have been right between the two countries" blunder. Any idiot with a map and thirty seconds can discover where the Mekong river goes, unless the idiot doesn't know where Vietnam is. Considering that amazing stupidity of the Kerry spin, I must conclude that Kerry staffers don't know where Vietnam is.

Same with this one. Any idiot with Google and a working knowledge of the English language can readily determine that John Kerry is not Bob Kerry. If Kerry's so smart, why does he surround himself with such morons?

Karol, guest blogging at Dean Esmay, has another great example of Kerry just making crap up.

Skull&Bones, 2.0 average, smoked a lot of dope, took a job nobody wanted(only trick to that in MA is being a dem), never went or now goes to work, what else could we really expect? I find it difficult to believe half the people in this nation want to put him in the WH. Wait, averagedopesmokingnowork, does sound a little appealing now doesn't it? This nation took it's cue from a golf cheat for 8 years. Wait, cheatatgolfIwinyoulose, a pencil with an eraser to go with that scorecard, PLEASE. He had to use Viet Nam(no longer Republic of) as the linch pin for this election, apparently his duties as a Senator included being somewhere other than the Capital Building or his office(unless you wanted to see his Kodak moments) enjoying the masses addressing him as Senator Kerry. The ghost of the Senate, unless the voting was about abortion, gun grabbing, gutting the military or castrating the CIA. So lets give him Viet Nam, all of it, from the lucky hat to the being under fire from the Khmer Rouge and start looking at him as an elected guv'mint official. My guess, more laughs there.

I just clicked on the link to the Kerry site from my own blog, and the offending information is still there. What's up with that? They have to know they've been nailed for this by now....

Skull&Bones, 2.0 average Legacy student, Driving under the influence, Snorted Coke, MIA National Guardsmen, vacationing for large amount of time, half the people didnt support him in 2000 election to put him in the WH, stole election, Cant use Vietnam as a "linch pin" since he didnt serve, cant pronounce certain words, doesnt support valuable research because of religious restrictions, thinks god is on his side, urges terrorist to "bring it on", assault weapon handing out, deficit spending, social services clipping, generational debt handing, roves pet...i wish those National Guard records hadnt deteriorated so they can prove he went AWOL, greatest laughs....

I believe the word is canard. Soon to be petard for Senator Kerry. And please brush up on your punctuation, especially if you are on the offensive. The particular deficencies of supporters are a direct reflection on the candidate himself. Thanking you in advance for your attention to this matter.

I believe that the Kerrey/Kerry matter is now official. Factcheck.org has weighed in:

http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docid=241

"Bush Nails Kerry's Poor Attendance at Intelligence Committee Hearings

Bush says Kerry missed 76% of public hearings. He could have missed even more.

08.17.2004

Summary

A Bush-Cheney '04 ad released Aug. 13 accuses Kerry of being absent for 76% of the Senate Intelligence Committee's public hearings during the time he served there. The Kerry campaign calls the ad "misleading," so we checked, and Bush is right.

Official records show Kerry not present for at least 76% of public hearings held during his eight years on the panel, and possibly 78% (the record of one hearing is ambiguous).

Kerry points out that most meetings of the Intelligence Committee are closed and attendance records of those meetings aren't public, hinting that his attendance might have been better at the non-public proceedings. But Kerry could ask that his attendance records be made public, and hasn't.

Aides also claimed repeatedly that Kerry had been vice chairman of the intelligence committee, but that was Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, not John Kerry."