I lied
Here, I said it would hopefully be my final word on the Swift Boat Vets. That’s not the case. It turns out O’Neill was part of the 1970 Cambodia incursion. Nothing to see here, keep moving.
And take this SayUncle quiz:
1 – Have you ever spent Christmas away from home? If yes, go to 2. If not go to 5.
2 – Did you somehow think Christmas that year occurred in, say, February or March? If yes, go to 3. If no go to 5.
3 – Do you suffer from a mental defect that causes you to think Christmas may occur in February or March? If no, go to 4. If yes, go to 5.
4 – You’re making it all up, aren’t you? If yes, go to five. If no, go to six.
5 – Sorry to hear it. Thanks for your time. You’re free to go.
6 – Thanks for reading my blog, Senator.
August 26th, 2004 at 10:47 am
Now hold on. There are 12 days of Christmas, and some Eastern churches (like the Copts of Egypt) use a different calendar from ours, so it’s conceivable that somebody could be speaking of Christmas during January. Or something.
August 26th, 2004 at 10:52 am
I think it makes a difference if you’ve spent months or years away from home in a war zone as opposed to a week off for Christmas as a vacation.
August 26th, 2004 at 11:05 am
Uncle:
How does this change the fact that in the book, O’Neill said:
August 26th, 2004 at 11:05 am
OK, apparently the list tags don’t work here.
August 26th, 2004 at 11:36 am
O’Neil said Kerry was never in Cambodia. O’Neil was there after Kerry, and participated in the public and ballyhooed April 1970 INVASION of Cambodia.
August 26th, 2004 at 5:13 pm
O’Neill said in the book (and reiterated last night on Hannity and Colmes) that he [O’Neill] was never in Cambodia, contrary to his statement to Nixon in ’71. Xrlq has a link to the transcript. If you read it, you’ll get to see O’Neill play the “it depends what the meaning of ‘is’ is” game on the issue.
August 26th, 2004 at 10:14 pm
Almost. More specifically, it depends on what the meaning of “in” is, and whether “in” includes the border itself. It’s a little inartful, but it’s clear what O’Neill was saying to President Nixon: “I patrolled the border.” It’s certainly not anything on the order of John Kerry’s “I was five miles inside Cambodia at Christmastime, but that means I was only somewhere near Cambodia some other time, oh, nevermind” game.
All this assumes that Phelps is mistaken about O’Neill having participated in the April 1970 invasion. If he did, then he had no business claiming never to have been in Cambodia, no matter how one defines “in.”
August 27th, 2004 at 12:52 pm
It should also be noted that Kerry’s diaries confirm that he was at least near Cambodia on Christmas Eve 1968.
August 27th, 2004 at 4:44 pm
If 50 miles is your idea of “near,” then I suppose so. More importantly, so what? If Kerry was only “near” Cambodia, his whole story is meaningless. It was never a big secret that we had troops near Cambodia, so there’s nothing ironic about him being shot at there.
By contrast, nothing of consequence turns on the semantic question of whether or not patrolling the border puts you “in” the neighboring country.