First - how did the troops react to his visit? and Second: How did the troops react to the way he was talking? Maybe his plane will get shot down - by one of our guys. :-)

Cindy

What war hero's museum will that picture be graced with?

Kerry met with U.S. troops in Iraq and lurched into full attack-Bush campaign mode

Hilarious choice of words.

Kerry doesn't get it. I doubt the jihaddies will put a picture in their war museum like Hanoi did.

GO READ GREYHAWK/MUDVILLE ON THIS RIGHT NOW! That's an order!

http://www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/001988.html

Is there anything in the article that indicates that Kerry has violated the Logan Act. I don't think that talking to someone violates that law.

Further, it was hardly "full-on campaign attack mode". And what if it was. Bush made mistakes. Need I list them for you?

farkesota

The so-called Massahole Senator has no right to talk to anyone or say anything to anyone about President Bush, his cabinet, or policies unless he is under direct order from the President himself. It is the Senators who decide everything including war and Kerry cannot and should not ever speak against the man who is in office. If anyone has made mistakes, Kerry has over 20 plus years of them, so Farkesota, grow up.

Cindy

Kerry cannot and should not
ever speak against the man who is in office

Hey Cindy, read the First Amendment

I figured that the whole Vietnam thing was a fluke, and maybe Sen. Kerry learned his lesson. In fact, one could even write off the visit with Vietnamese leaders as an attempt to free POW's.

Now he's proven that it's not a fluke, and I'm glad that 51% of the population had more sense than I did. There's just no excuse for the man now.

If this doesn't disprove the "not-Bush" argument in favor of the Democratic candidate, I don't know what will. I can't believe what I'm seeing, and I could only imagine how bad it could get with Kerry actually in charge. If Kerry tries to run again in '08, I'm doing my best to keep him as far away from the presidency as possible.

To any Bush supporters -- I have to hand it to you, the guy may not be my favorite, but at least he didn't haul off and do stupid things like this when he wasn't in office.

Hey, Blogesota! Since when is the First Amendment a defense to a violation of the Logan Act? Hint: never.

He has already intimated to the media that he is hoping to run again in 2008; I think he wants to stay in the limelight instead of disappearing underground like Al Gore did after the recounts finally fizzled out.

Or maybe he wants to be the next Jimmy Carter, the Democrat-genteel-elder-statesman foil to the gutsy-guy-in-the-White-House. Except that Carter actually was President before he started doing that....

I think the Logan Act issue is interesting, and I apprecaited the link to it so we could read it. It is clear that individual Americans do NOT have the Constitutional right to meet with foreign heads of state to undermine the official agenda of the United States government (just create a blog instead!). It is not clear that Kerry meets this element - this is a specific-intent crime, and he has to have had the intent to work against our interests (and we do have an interest in getting Syira to stop meddling in Iraq - perhaps that was all they talked about). And apparently he does have a right to meet with foreign heads of state, or foreign thirteen-year-old boys named Mustafa (see here), to commiserate about his inability to beat one of the most controversial Presidents in history. (I'm not a Bush-hater, but there's enough of them around, it seems...). (Speaking of Kerry and little kids, did anyone else think it was odd for him to end his concession speech with a discussion of 6-yr-old girls who sent him money? Is he going to give it back out of his enormous personal wealth, or just let the kid learn a hard lesson about donating money to politicians? He took money from little KIDS? I thought his concession speech was sort of dignified until he got to that part...stick with George Soros as your sponsor next time. And nobody cares what little Mustafa in Damascus thinks.)

The real crux of the Logal Act issue, though, is the phrase "without authority of the United States." Kerry is on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (for better or worse), and may have authority therefore to meet with foreign dignatries about American foreign policy. It's not clear to me that "without authority of the United States" means "without authority of the Executive."

Apart from liability under the Logan Act, though, the photo-op with Syrian leaders was truly in bad taste; he knows he represents to the world nothing but contentious animosity toward the current Executive.

In answer to Cindy's question about how the troops reacted, the article Newsmax references is titled "Kerry cheered in Baghdad, decries Bush team's 'blunders'..." It reads:

"Kerry, who repeatedly charged during the presidential campaign that President Bush had botched the war effort, was greeted warmly by U.S. soldiers in Baghdad.
...
"U.S. soldiers approached Kerry inside the restaurant of the Rashid Hotel, asking him to pose for photographs and sign T-shirts."

---
As for Cindy's smiling hope that our troops shoot down the Senator's flight, I think that's beneath contempt.

Why is there so much surprise at Kerry's conduct? We all know the man is a kneejerk traitor. The fact that he tries to undermine our military efforts comes as no surprise to me. Actually, his criticisms of Bush and of the war are pretty mild considering what Kerry and his ilk truly believe. The man is scum. He's always been scum. And he'll always be scum. And his defenders are scum bubbles.

I've been wondering if someone is impersonating our long-time commenter "Cindy" here recently. In another thread, "Cindy" advocated confiscating all Iraqi citizens' guns and various other violations of our Bill of Rights. Sounds so much like a troll trying to soil this site - things the MSM would drool at quoting to discredit a conservative site.

I wonder if instead these same troops were ordered to meet with Kerry, just as some troops had to be ordered to meet with Bill Clinton when he was still President.

And it could have come at a "Benefit": "Son, if you comply with my 'order'...I'll give you three additional days of Liberty!"

I would suppose that they were requested to go and to be nice to Lurch, ot they were all disgruntled reservists and guard troops, who joined the military just to get an education, not to fight in wars.

Disclaimer: I was in the military, for 20 years. Having said this, I'm not trying to paint all reservists and guard troops with a broad brush. It's just that it is different being on full-time active duty and being in the reserves/guard. Also, there are some Kerry supporters in the military. Don't ask me; I don't know why...

I've now read the original article from San Francisco Chronicle entitled "Kerry cheered in Baghdad, decries Bush team's 'blunders'", dated 1/6/05.

It's interesting how misleading the title and text are. The writer never says the cheering occurred at the same time or place as his denigrating statements. He could have been given a nice welcome by gracious soldiers as he got off the plane, and then may have later spouted his venom "...during an informal lunch meeting with a small group of reporters and representatives of nongovernmental organizations."

Also, remember the AP scandal when an AP reporter who was not even present reported that a Bush audience "booed" when Pres. Bush expressed condolences for Bill Clinton's illness? Reporters who WERE present, later said there were no boos.

Boos and Cheers - always question the MSM before believing their smearing of conservatives and our Armed Forces:

AP Retracts 'Clinton Booed' Story and

Wizbang Archives, 9/3/04.

Fascinating to read the full thread - the last commenter happened to be personally present at the event.

This happened just 5 days prior to CBS airing the fake docs.

Déjà vu all over again!

AP Reporter in 'Clinton Booed' Flap Stands by Claim, 9/13/04.

CBS stands by challenged documents on Bush AP Wire 9/11/04.

: ) Then there's a headline on Google that links AP and Rather:
"AP Story Reports Boos Rather than Bush's Act of Kindness."

But back to the suspect "cheers" reported by SF Chronicle:
Will the Chronicle stand by "Borzou Daragahi, Chronicle Foreign Service"? Or were the headline and misleading slants added in by SF Chronicle editors?

Borzou Daragahi has a website at http://www.borzou.com . He has also written for AP. It would be interesting to find out what he thinks about SF Chronicle's article under his name.

Jay Tea - would you like to e-mail Mr. Borzou Daragahi and ask him to be a guest commenter here in your thread? (His e-mail address is available on his site.) Maybe he can shed some light on this "military cheering for Kerry" allegation - whether he actually heard cheers in response to Kerry's anti-Bush, anti-war comments or whether the SF Chronicle added the slant in the title and misleading second paragraph? Perhaps Mr. Daragahi still has the draft he submitted to the SF Chronicle.

Friendly fire is a good way to end Kerry's politcal life.

It would make my day, if he were finally prosecuted for all of the travestys he's committed. Can we throw in 'Don't take a swim' Kennedy?

The point here is continued mainstream media lies, not Kerry. He's a has-been already, so stop making physical threat implications.

mshyde: DEFINITELY add "Don' t take a swim, Kennedy!"

hahaha

Cindy

BR - I don't think anyone is impersonating me. I did say that. OUR Bill of Rights is not the same as Iraq's bill of rights or their constitution; they don't have one yet. I said certain things could be done NOW to protect the Iraqi people and a way to tell the difference between an honest Iraqi citizen and a terrorist. They already tried it once in Fallujah but that didn't work out very well. Probably because most of the people in Fallujah were the terrorists.

Oyster - ah, joke?

BR again, we don't need scum like him helping to run this country; it would be no loss to lose him.

Cindy

Dear Cindy, look at "mshyde" e-mail: hyde@jeckyl.com.
Obviously a false e-mail address. He/she's echoing your first post. Please think of the consequences and implications. Enough said.
(Reference archives at http://wizbangblog.com/archives/004123.php )

Sorry I missed your joke, Cindy. Friendly fire humor goes right over my head.

Sunday night - wizbangblog was inaccessible for hours. Same with LGF and Powerline.

Been reading elsewhere:

Alert - MSM, NY Times blackout on breaking story of Hillary Clinton's involvement in her own Senate campaign's finance fraud: Hillary's Indictment Problem.

Details of Hillary Clinton's involvement here.

From the caption of an AP photo:

Kerry met with Soldiers from his state, asking them what he should tell Congress about the war in Iraq. The troops complained to Kerry that the good work that they are doing is not getting reported in the United States.

(Let's see if Kerry says or does anything about it. I'd like to think he would, but I'm not holding my breath. It doesn't fit into his agenda.)

~the other Oyster~

Where does the line form to start kicking his stupid a--?

If Kerry were going to be prosecuted under the Logan Act, that would have happened in 1971 after he met with the the Viet Cong and Peoples Republic of Viet Nam representatives in Paris in an attempt to learn the terms for the immediate (and as it turned out, unconditional) surrender of the United States.

BR - a lot of people use fake addresses, so it doesn't concern me.

But thanks for looking out for this bedbound newshound anyway.

Cindy

"AP Retracts 'Clinton Booed' Story"

BR, I was actually watching this on tv and Pres Bush was extremely gracious, and no one booed.

As to physical harm, the man should disappear and I wish the "massoles" would stop voting straight Democrat down the line so we can get rid of both Kerry and Kennedy.

Many moons ago, my parents used to run the campaigns for the Kennedy's in our city; we got Christmas cards every year until he and his wife split. I couldn't stand him then and can't stand him now. I have nothing but utter contempt for both of these men and for good reason. What Kerry did and what Kerry said during his run for the presidency took away any respect he might have had from people who didn't know him for the traitor and creep he was and is and the things he said about our troops over in Iraq. He should never be forgiven for the hurt he caused them and their families and his arrogance towards the office of the Presidency. This man does not belong in office and I can only hope and pray that the soldiers who had to put up with his presence didn't puke after having to be nice to this man because if you read any of the milblogs you'd know how much he was disliked by them. They are the true heroes. I also hope and pray that the people in MA start realizing this jerk is only living off their money and put someone in his seat who will actually work for them.

Cindy

as to consequences and implications, even "oyster" finally got the joke.

doh

Cindy