Kerry is fighting back, and I
like it:
John Kerry, a decorated Navy veteran criticized by Republicans for his anti-war activities during the Vietnam era, lashed out at President Bush on Monday for failing to prove whether he fulfilled his commitment to the National Guard during the same period.
Conservative critics have questioned whether Kerry deserved his three Purple Hearts for battle wounds, an issue the Democratic presidential candidate sought to put to rest last week by releasing his military records. On Sunday, a top Bush adviser criticized Kerry for leading anti-war protests after he returned from the battlefield.
"If George Bush wants to ask me questions about that through his surrogates, he owes America an explanation about whether or not he showed up for duty in the National Guard. Prove it. That's what we ought to have," Kerry told NBC News in an interview. "I'm not going to stand around and let them play games."
Maybe Kerry can ask why he had to face VC bullets while the current commander in chief was playing all-day pool volleyball games with those "ambitious secretaries" (an option not available to our men and women currently in Iraq).
As for the stupid "throwing the medals" controversy, it should be quickly put to death.
Bush supporters have tried to turn Kerry's service in Vietnam -- a centerpiece of his Democratic campaign -- against him even as they say they honor his service to his country. Kerry released his medical records when questioned about the extent of his war wounds, including a report showing he still carries shrapnel in one leg.
That criticism silenced for the moment, Bush adviser Karen Hughes turned to what Kerry did after returning from Vietnam. Hughes said Sunday she was offended by Kerry's anti-war activities in 1971 and accused him of not throwing back his medals when he and other veterans protested in Washington.
"He only pretended to throw his," Hughes said in a CNN interview. "Now, I can understand if, out of conscience, you take a principled stand, and you would decide that you were so opposed to this that you would actually throw your medals. But to pretend to do so -- I think that's very revealing."
Kerry has never said he pretended to throw away his medals. For years, he has said that he threw his ribbons over a fence at the Capitol, not his three Purple Hearts, Bronze Star and Silver Star. He also has said that after the protest he threw the medals of two other veterans [...]
Kerry told ABC on Monday that the terms ribbons and medals were interchangeable. He accused Republicans of trying to discredit his presidential campaign with a "phony controversy."
"The U.S. Navy pamphlet calls them medals," he said. "We referred to them as the symbols, they were representing medals, ribbons. Countless veterans threw the ribbons back."
Those ribbons are representative of medals, and are worn on the military dress uniforms. See these
Army,
Air Force,
Marine, and
Navy ribbon pages, and note what the ribbons are called. Or take my word for it -- "medals".
Of course, one really couldn't expect the chickenhawks in the Bush Administration to know these sorts of things. They "had other priorities than military service" and were busy playing all-day pool volleyball with "ambitious secretaries".