A VERY unscientific poll, Bush or Kerry?

[poltroon]

Oh. My. God.

The Economist endorsed a Democrat for President?

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Many readers, feeling that Mr Bush has the right vision in foreign policy even if he has made many mistakes, will conclude that the safest option is to leave him in office to finish the job he has started. If Mr Bush is re-elected, and uses a new team and a new approach to achieve that goal, and shakes off his fealty to an extreme minority, the religious right, then The Economist will wish him well. But our confidence in him has been shattered. We agree that his broad vision is the right one but we doubt whether Mr Bush is able to change or has sufficient credibility to succeed, especially in the Islamic world. Iraq's fledgling democracy, if it gets the chance to be born at all, will need support from its neighbours—or at least non-interference—if it is to survive. So will other efforts in the Middle East, particularly concerning Israel and Iran.

John Kerry says the war was a mistake, which is unfortunate if he is to be commander-in-chief of the soldiers charged with fighting it. But his plan for the next phase in Iraq is identical to Mr Bush's, which speaks well of his judgment. He has been forthright about the need to win in Iraq, rather than simply to get out, and will stand a chance of making a fresh start in the Israel-Palestine conflict and (though with even greater difficulty) with Iran. After three necessarily tumultuous and transformative years, this is a time for consolidation, for discipline and for repairing America's moral and practical authority. Furthermore, as Mr Bush has often said, there is a need in life for accountability. He has refused to impose it himself, and so voters should, in our view, impose it on him, given a viable alternative. John Kerry, for all the doubts about him, would be in a better position to carry on with America's great tasks. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Time to start building our snowmen in hell, people.

[SGray]

I would like to thank the COTH, Erin and everyone that has participated in these discussions. The discourse has been informative, interesting and entertaining - while remaining amazingly civil. I have enjoyed reading the various points of view.

THANKS for better discussions than we see on television shows

[LBM]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by CessnaPilot:
I have read those speeches too. And when combined with ... the three band-aid purple hearts... you get the TRUE Kerry. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I just wanted to share my experience about someone who received what some might call a 'band-aid' purple heart. This particular individual was 22 when called upon to serve his country in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Marine Lance Corporal, he was an anti-tank missileman that travelled with the 2nd Tank Scout Division.

His platoon was caught in a particularly nasty ambush en route to Baghdad. He was shot in the arm, nothing life threatening or disabling - mainly just a flesh wound. I can not overstate the psychological trauma that he underwent because of this particular experience, or the difficulty he had adjusting after he came home. It haunted him.

Yes, he was awarded a Purple Heart and I fully believe it was appropriate. Would you consider that a 'band-aid Purple heart' also?

While I understand that your quote was specifically meant to insult John Kerry, please keep in mind that you are also insulting many others as well. I would personally have an extremely difficult time characterizing any Purple Heart as being "only a band-aid Purple Heart".

[poltroon]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Saud banking issue (blanking on the acronym <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

BCCI was a bank explicitly set up to launder money for middle eastern terrorists. Bin Laden had accounts there, for example. Kerry's investigation brought it down.

Boston Globe on BCCI, Iran-Contra, and Kerry

Newsweek article on Kerry's Senate record

[CessnaPilot]

LBM - Being shot in the line of duty by the enemy is a lot different that being woulded by rice flying from a rocket that one launched himself.

Believe me, unlike Kerry I have respect for the men in uniform...

[CessnaPilot]

Sgray - I to agree that this is fun and in no way a personal attack to ANYONE participating. I am just glad to be able to participate since I can't be a part of the "do you like your breasts" forum

[Erin]

Cessna, how can you have respect for men in uniform and yet still claim they don't deserve medals that OUR MILITARY gave them for their efforts in combat?

Hell, if the military is in the business of handing out Purple Hearts for everyone who had a hangnail during combat, well, so be it. I ain't gonna complain. Those people were still over there getting shot at.

BTW, factcheck.org also has a good synopsis of the Purple Heart story:

http://www.factcheck.org/article231.html

I'm quoting the one I assume you're referring to.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>The Third Purple Heart

The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth further says Kerry didn't deserve his third purple heart, which was received for shrapnel wounds in left buttocks and contusions on right forearm. The Swift Boat group's affidavits state that the wound in Kerry's backside happened earlier that day in an accident. "Kerry inadvertently wounded himself in the fanny," Thurlow said in his affidavit, "by throwing a grenade too close (to destroy a rice supply) and suffered minor shrapnel wounds."

The grenade incident is actually supported by Kerry's own account, but the shrapnel wound was only part of the basis for Kerry's third purple heart according to official documents. The evidence here is contradictory.

Kerry's account is in the book Tour of Duty by Douglas Brinkley, who based it largely on Kerry's own Vietnam diaries and 12 hours of interviews with Kerry. "I got a piece of small grenade in my ass from one of the rice-bin explosions and then we started to move back to the boats," Kerry is quoted as saying on page 313. In that account, Kerry says his arm was hurt later, after the mine blast that disabled PCF-3, when a second explosion rocked his own boat. "The concussion threw me violently against the bulkhead on the door and I smashed my arm," Kerry says on page 314.

And according to a Navy casualty report released by the Kerry campaign, the third purple heart was received for "shrapnel wounds in left buttocks and contusions on his right forearm when a mine detonated close aboard PCF-94," Kerry's boat. As a matter of strict grammar, the report doesn't state that both injuries were received as a result of the mine explosion, only the arm injury.

The official citation for Kerry's Bronze Star refers only to his arm injury, not to the shrapnel wound to his rear. It says he performed the rescue "from an exposed position on the bow, his arm bleeding and in pain." The description of Kerry's arm "bleeding" isn't consistent with the description of a "contusion," or bruise.

Rassmann's Aug. 10 Wall Street Journal article states that Kerry's arm was "wounded by the explosion that threw me off his boat," which would make that wound clearly enemy-inflicted.

In any case, even a "friendly fire" injury can qualify for a purple heart "as long as the 'friendly' projectile or agent was released with the full intent of inflicting damage or destroying enemy troops or equipment," according to the website of the Military Order of the Purple Heart. All agree that rice was being destroyed that day on the assumption that it otherwise might feed Viet Cong fighters. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

(Emphasis mine.)

[LBM]

CessnaPilot - put in the context of a presidential election and all of the other issues on the table, I think it's a relatively minor point - so I don't want to harp or get into it too deeply.

There are lots of people who have suffered relatively minor injuries during wartime - the causes are varied - and I think ALL Purple Heart recipients should be able to stand up proudly and not worry about being questioned / torn down for it. Just my opinion :-)

I also don't necessarily equate supporting a war with supporting the troops fighting that war.

As the sister of someone who was over in Iraq, I had to listen to many retired Marines go on and on about how anyone questioning the war was unpatriotic and unsupportive.

It just annoys me when people lump those two issues together, regardless of their thoughts on either one.

Pardon me if this is a bit rambling, I was up all night with Red Sox Fever last night!

[DMK]

poltroon, let me see if I get this right? The Sox won the World Series AND the Economist endorsed a democrat?

Get out your ice skates folks, there are still good seats left in hell!

However, if the Economist did endorse Kerry, is it possible that our allies might just be a wee bit ahead of us on the "war is a mistake" idea? I know Bush is concerned about their feelings on this matter, so it might be a good idea for someone to let him know they already figured it out...

[CessnaPilot]

No Erin - I am quoting this -

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May 04, 2004, 4:26 p.m.
Kerry Purple Heart Doc Speaks Out
The medical description of his first wound.

By Byron York

Some critics of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry have questioned the circumstances surrounding the first of three Purple Hearts Kerry won in Vietnam. Those critics, among them some of Kerry's fellow veterans, have suggested that a wound suffered by Kerry in December 1968 may have made him technically eligible for a Purple Heart but was not severe enough to warrant serious consideration, even for a decoration that was handed out by the thousands. Whatever the case, Kerry was awarded the Purple Heart, and, along with two others he won later, it allowed him to request to leave Vietnam before his tour of duty was finished.

Kerry was treated for the wound at a medical facility in Cam Ranh Bay. The doctor who treated Kerry, Louis Letson, is today a retired general practitioner in Alabama. Letson says he remembers his brief encounter with Kerry 35 years ago because "some of his crewmen related that Lt. Kerry had told them that he would be the next JFK from Massachusetts." Letson says that last year, as the Democratic campaign began to heat up, he told friends that he remembered treating one of the candidates many years ago. In response to their questions, Letson says, he wrote down his recollections of the time. (Letson says he has had no contacts with anyone from the Bush campaign or the Republican party.) What follows is Letson's memory, as he wrote it.

I have a very clear memory of an incident which occurred while I was the Medical Officer at Naval Support Facility, Cam Ranh Bay.
John Kerry was a (jg), the OinC or skipper of a Swift boat, newly arrived in Vietnam. On the night of December 2, he was on patrol north of Cam Ranh, up near Nha Trang area. The next day he came to sick bay, the medical facility, for treatment of a wound that had occurred that night.

The story he told was different from what his crewmen had to say about that night. According to Kerry, they had been engaged in a fire fight, receiving small arms fire from on shore. He said that his injury resulted from this enemy action.

Some of his crew confided that they did not receive any fire from shore, but that Kerry had fired a mortar round at close range to some rocks on shore. The crewman thought that the injury was caused by a fragment ricocheting from that mortar round when it struck the rocks.

That seemed to fit the injury which I treated.

What I saw was a small piece of metal sticking very superficially in the skin of Kerry's arm. The metal fragment measured about 1 cm. in length and was about 2 or 3 mm in diameter. It certainly did not look like a round from a rifle.

I simply removed the piece of metal by lifting it out of the skin with forceps. I doubt that it penetrated more than 3 or 4 mm. It did not require probing to find it, did not require any anesthesia to remove it, and did not require any sutures to close the wound.

The wound was covered with a bandaid.

Not [sic] other injuries were reported and I do not recall that there was any reported damage to the boat.

[hamptonmeadowfarm]

I am aghast that no one has corrected the mistaken belief that because KY has the electoral college votes all sewn up (not true, just an estimate by the press) their votes doesn't count.

This is a gross misunderstanding of the electoral college. The electoral college is historically bound to vote according to the popular vote of the state they represent. It is true they are not legally bound to vote that way, but they have never done so. All hell would break out if they did such a thing.
So vote please.

The PIPPA survey which surveyed both Bush and Kerry supporters was quite fascinating. Bush supporters were in fact less educated and held lower paying jobs. They did not know the issues.

Kerry supporters had better jobs and were more educated and knew the issues for both parties.

They, indeed have different realities. Bush supporters, if pre- disposed to support him at all costs, did not want to know the issues and gave no weight to clear and credible information to the contrary.

I think this explains the rush to wacko web sites saying that Kerry is an alien who has come to rush us into a socialist society and will meet with the terrorists and his wife will give them the money to build more cells in the US.

How can they believe this stuff? Because the president either says it or implies it. It reminds me of the propaganda program instituted by Hitler against the Jews. If you say something long enough, people will believe it.

Use your brain. Go to factcheck.org or snopes and see the truth of what either candidate says. That is the responsible thing to do: not parrot the trash that is floating around.

Your blind acceptance of this stuff is embarrassing to you and our country.

[Erin]

Okay, in that case, I will quote this part from the same factcheck.org article.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>First Purple Heart

Two who appear in the ad say Kerry didn't deserve his first purple heart. Louis Letson, a medical officer and Lieutenant Commander, says in the ad that he knows Kerry is lying about his first purple heart because “I treated him for that.” However, medical records provided by the Kerry campaign to FactCheck.org do not list Letson as the “person administering treatment” for Kerry’s injury on December 3, 1968 . The person who signed this sick call report is J.C. Carreon, who is listed as treating Kerry for shrapnel to the left arm.

In his affidavit, Letson says Kerry's wound was self-inflicted and does not merit a purple heart. But that's based on hearsay, and disputed hearsay at that. Letson says “the crewman with Kerry told me there was no hostile fire, and that Kerry had inadvertently wounded himself with an M-79 grenade.” But the Kerry campaign says the two crewmen with Kerry that day deny ever talking to Letson.

On Aug. 17 the Los Angeles Times quoted Letson as giving a slightly different account than the one in his affidavit. The Times quotes him as saying he heard only third-hand that there had been no enemy fire. According to the Times, Letson said that what he heard about Kerry's wounding came not from other crewmen directly, but through some of his own subordinates. Letson was quoted as saying the information came from crewmen who were "just talking to my guys … There was not a firefight -- that's what the guys related. They didn't remember any firing from shore."

Letson also insisted to the Times that he was the one who treated Kerry, removing a tiny shard of shrapnel from Kerry's arm using a pair of tweezers. Letson said Carreon, whose signature appears on Kerry's medical record, was an enlisted man who routinely made record entries on his behalf. Carreon signed as "HM1," indicating he held the enlisted rank of Hospital Corpsman First Class.

Also appearing in the ad is Grant Hibbard, Kerry’s commanding officer at the time. Hibbard’s affidavit says that he “turned down the Purple Heart request,” and recalled Kerry's injury as a "tiny scratch less than from a rose thorn."

That doesn't quite square with Letson's affidavit, which describes shrapnel "lodged in Kerry's arm" (though "barely.")

Hibbard also told the Boston Globe in an interview in April 2004 that he eventually acquiesced about granting Kerry the purple heart.

Hibbard: I do remember some questions on it. . .I finally said, OK if that's what happened. . . do whatever you want

Kerry got the first purple heart after Hibbard left to return to the US . <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It's worth noting that since this was the FIRST Purple Heart, the argument that Kerry was trying to rack up PHs so he could go home quicker doesn't fly. He still had two more to go.

Factcheck concludes by saying: "At this point, 35 years later and half a world away, we see no way to resolve which of these versions of reality is closer to the truth." Which I think is important to note. If you read William Rood's account in the Chicago Tribue (a paper that endorsed Bush, BTW), even he said that soldiers all have different memories of things.

Out of respect for the military, I'm not going to begrudge anyone a Purple Heart or any other medal. And I think it's very sad that this has been made such a big issue in this election, as it really seems to have VERY little bearing on anything.

[LBM]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by CessnaPilot:
According to Kerry, they had been engaged in a fire fight, receiving small arms fire from on shore. He said that his injury resulted from this enemy action.

Some of his crew confided that they did not receive any fire from shore, but that Kerry had fired a mortar round at close range to some rocks on shore. The crewman thought that the injury was caused by a fragment ricocheting from that mortar round when it struck the rocks.

That seemed to fit the injury which I treated.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm no lawyer, but isn't this considered hearsay? One man's recollection about what other people told him many many years prior?

I am not fully versed on this subject, but this one interview seems like scant proof of what actually happened.

[CessnaPilot]

Lbm - He is the doctor that treated Kerry, if it was one person, heresay - a group as stated in the article, then you have corroboration.

[Erin]

He is the doctor who SAYS he treated Kerry. That is not corroborated by the records. (Although it may very well be true.)

And no, it is still hearsay. Definition, according to dictionary.com:

1. Unverified information heard or received from another; rumor.
2. Law. Evidence based on the reports of others rather than the personal knowledge of a witness and therefore generally not admissible as testimony.

Also note from the facthcheck article: "But the Kerry campaign says the two crewmen with Kerry that day deny ever talking to Letson." As far as I'm aware, no one has ever stepped up to corroborate Letson's story. It is a he said/he said affair.

[CessnaPilot]

Erin - Face it, we can both get as much information from sources we consder to be correct, it is still not going to change anyones mind, and that is what makes this such a great country, we can disagree on things.

I am quite surprised that nobody has brought up the tapes that ABC has and the CIA has authenticated...

Nor has anyone talked about the constitution and hosw the electoral college and electing a president is actually handled.

[CessnaPilot]

Erin - Don't you find it interesting that there are GI's who spent YEARS in Vietnam on tours of duty, yet Kerry comes in, and is out 4 months later having received 3 purple hearts? Then he spends the next years trashing those he served with. Doesn't that strike you as odd, and the inconsistencies with his recollection.

[CessnaPilot]

Lets move this discussion a different direction -

What is it about Kerry's position that makes you vote for him..

Same question for the Bush crowd...

Forget anything in the past - what is it about either one that makes you think they are the one for the future...

[Erin]

Cessna, I am all for disagreeing. I just want people to form the ideas that we disagree on based on "reality-based" information.

Factcheck.org has been cited by BOTH parties as being a good source of info. It is non-partisan. Of course we can both find information somewhere to back up damn near anything, including the fact that Kerry is an alien and Bush is a potato. However, it probably behooves us to not just blindly stick with one story when we happen to find one we like in print, but rather look for sources of good, factual, hopefully bias-free information. That's why I'm citing things from Factcheck rather than one of the liberal-slanted publications or groups.

[lauriep]

Erin, since you occasionally allow OT topics about important issues to be posted at non-OT times (like the WTC), when you close OT day, can you leave this one open until election day? VERY informative, excellent ADULT participation...