[honeychile]

Originally posted by G8Ralphaxi
My understanding is that the following facts are true:

1. Kerry served his country and fought in Vietnam.

2. While he was there, he did enough good, brave stuff to get several medals.

3. When he came back, he decided that it was not right for the U.S. to continue the war, and he spoke publicly about this opinion.

4. One of the places where he spoke against the war was to testify in front of Congress.

5. While testifying in front of Congress, he either exaggerated or flat-out lied about what he saw in Vietnam.

It's #5 that drives me insane. I'm not going to pick on his record over in Vietnam. I don't care whether his wounds were a paper cut or he almost got his whole damn leg blown off. The military thought he deserved the medals, so fine. (Likewise, I don't give a care about Bush's National Guard record. The military says he did what he was supposed to do and honorably discharged him. That's enough for me.)

And it really doesn't bother me that he decided the war was a bad idea and spoke out about it. The First Amendment means that's ok. Kerry could have walked around with a giant sign that said "Communism is Cool! America sucks!" and I would be fine with that. I wouldn't want to vote for someone who thought that way to be my President, but I would still think he was entitled to have that opinion.

However, the First Amendment (not to mention a reasonable person's sense of honor) does not support falsehoods. Kerry has admitted that he exaggerated or embellished or stretched the truth or whatever about his testimony. This is CRAP. He LIED.

"Testify" means you are swearing to tell the complete and total truth, not exaggerate or embellish the story to suit your purposes. Kerry is an intelligent, well-educated man. He knew better. And the thing that's so stupid about it is that the lies were unnecessary. If he wanted to say why the war was so bad, there were plenty of true stories he could have told. There were a lot of civilian casualties. It was an incredibly rough and dangerous area and there were a lot of American soldier dying too. Making up crap about American soldiers eating babies for breakfast undermines the whole message, especially when it turns out that it wasn't true.

But hey, I'm a Republican, so I must be completely biased and not giving Kerry a fair chance. Yeah, ok.

I agreed wholeheartedly. Hey, there are pictures of me in a stroller in anti-war demonstrations!

I also get a kick out of people who think Kerry's Irish, when he's not!