It is not completely orchestrated because much of the material has developed this week but every day since the convention started, Drudge has a new problem for Kerry and company.
Today’s edition might become a big problem for Kerry. Multiple people who served with Kerry in Vietnam are claiming that the 8mm footage of him in combat was staged. This is not something new, this was reported by the Boston Globe in 1996.
One of the main reasons it is a problem is that, in effect, those images are icons of his campaign. In fact they are an icon for John Kerry- They represent his very being. If they are bogus, he is bogus. Further, every time the media talks about him, they run that footage. If the footage is bogus, the media will no longer air it. I doubt it will have this big an effect but if I worked for the Kerry campaign, I’d be more scared of this than the “shove it” story.
If the allegations are supported, it also makes Kerry look like he used his service time for his own political gain, a claim made repeatedly by many who knew him then.
The people making the charges are long time critics so the media has an excuse to ignore them and the liberals are sure to attack.
Still, it has my interest. As a photographer, those images never sat right with me. I always thought they looked kinda staged but I never really thought they might be staged literally. The mere fact a camera is pointed at someone makes them act differently, so in effect every time a camera is on someone it is “staged.” And who is to say how someone should look in a war zone? But they just struck me as odd for some reason I never could put my finger on.
I’ve never studied the footage but it always reminded me of that (now discredited) bigfoot footage. Next time I see it, I’ll pay more attention. If this story grows legs, we’re sure to see a lot of it in the near term.
UPDATE: The story apparently has some legs. Basically it is up to the media. If they decided to kill him they can.
Kerry ‘War Hero’ Film to Air at Convention — But Is It a Fake?
A recent report has surfaced telling that “Kerry reenacted combat scenes for film while in Vietnam.” He did so with his own 8mm days after skirmishes.
New York Times bestselling author Lt. Col. Robert “Buzz” Patterson reveals the truth about Kerry as a soldier in his new book Reckless Disregard and deals with the reenactment issue specifically.
“On February 28, 1969, now in charge of PCF 94, Kerry came under fire from an enemy location on the shore. The crew’s gunner returned fire, hitting and wounding the lone gunman. Kerry directed the boat to charge the enemy position. Beaching his boat, Kerry jumped off, chased the wounded insurgent behind a thatched hutch, and killed him. Beaching the boat was foolish; leaving the boat as the commander was stupid. Killing a wounded man ran counter to the Geneva Conventions and naval regulations. Yet his killing of the wounded man behind the hutch earned Kerry the Silver Star.
“With an amazing and unbelievable agenda, Kerry and his crew returned within days, armed with a Super 8 video camera he had purchased at the post exchange at Cam Ranh Bay, and reenacted the skirmish on film. He wanted to document the incident upon which he would stake his military, national security, and political bona fides for years to come. In a bizarre, utterly outlandish sense, he was already running for political office: He was already staging campaign commercials.” (pp 43-44)
At the risk of pointing out the obvious it should be real easy to get to the bottom of this… Who took the footage? It is unlikely that a random grunt would be focusing on a specific soldier during a fire fight. I’m sure he’d be more interested in shooting bullets over film. If a news reporter took it then the footage would be property of the news service. Who owns the copyright? All we need to know is who took it and the whole thing is cleared up in 10 minutes.
Snarkfest below the fold.
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If the footage is bogus, the media will no longer air it.
Wanna bet? They’ll just pretend there was never any question of its authenticity — just as they’ve always pretended there was never any question of Kerry’s authenticity.
I couldn’t help but think of this when I saw the video still, seems appropriate now.
Matt Drudge, then Human Events (most notable for publishing Ann Coulter) – yes, it must be true!
Great one Aaron! Everytime I saw that still photo I had this unsettled feeling that I couldn’t quite seem to pinpoint.
Thanks for helping me sleep better last night.