Swiftboats, cocaine and the National Guard

I don’t care all that much whether George W. Bush used cocaine at Camp David or not. We all know he’s had a substance abuse problem sometime in the past. That doesn’t mean someone can’t be President. But I’m glad the smear is out there, so as to counter the smear against John Kerry by the Swiftboat Veterans. If there’s enough smear going around, perhaps people will get sick of it and start looking at more substantive issues like war, peace, health care, jobs, nuclear proliferation, terrorism and the environment.

About Kevin

Just an old guy with opinions that I like to bounce off other people.
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4 Responses to Swiftboats, cocaine and the National Guard

  1. Kevin says:

    I can remember Lt. Calley and the My Lai massacre back in 1969 when it hit the news. I said then, and I say now, that war does things to people and makes them behave in ways they would never behave in normal life. I really think I would trust someone who knows first hand what war does to soldiers and the innocent with the decision of whether to start a war or not. It’s the generals who are the last to want to go to war, and the politicians the first.

    A clarification, though. I did not serve in the military. I had a high draft number.

  2. anonymous says:

    I agree with Kevin, and thank him for his service. However, can you ever trust someone again, who admits to committing war atrosities himself, just because he has “grown” over the years? I say NO. I don’t want a President who was once a murderer of woman and children, nor a leader who says “against his own conscience he did those things because he was ordered to”. Kerry should never have brought vietnam up in the first place, and now it will cost his party dearly.

  3. Kevin says:

    I find it fascinating how folks on opposite sides in the policital debate not only differ on policy, but on facts. I would have considered the Swiftboat veterans pretty completely discredited based finally on statements by the President on a review by the Navy, as well as the independent comments of the Chicago reporter who was there at the time.

    While my comments about the President’s substance abuse problem referred to his drunk driving arrests and not cocaine abuse at Camp David (those things that when asked, the President says “I’m not going to talk about what I did when I was a child”), we would still differ on the facts, because my view is that Cocaine abuse by George Bush at Camp David is pretty well confirmed.

    Depending on who is ultimately right or wrong, one or both of us is believing what they want to hear, and not what is true.

    On the other hand, what Senator Kerry said after his service in Vietnam is perhaps relevant, but I wouldn’t simply extend what he said as a young man about one war to a more mature person’s view of another. I’m about Kerry’s age and I certainly don’t think the same way I did during the Vietnam war.

    PS. Thanks for the comment!

  4. Anonymous says:

    A smear is something said that is untrue. It apears that the Swiftboat For Truth Vets are telling the truth about Senator Kerry. To answer their charges he has had to change his versions of stories, i.e. his account of being in Cambodia. Therefore Senator Kerry has not been smeared. The story about President Bush using cocain at Camp David has no substantiation and is written by an author who has been discredited on numerous other occasions in the past. It is likely that story is untrue-therefore it is a smear. I do agree that we need to get past all of this and start talking about the issues. My concern is that in the course of these discussions we have unintentionally revealed Senator Kerry’s real position on the war on terror-He will handle it the same way he handled Veitnam by attempting to make us out to be the bad guys.

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