I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Jesse for the ads embedded in the content. I wouild be angry except they are of comely young women in tight tee-shirts. Yummy

A capitalist at hear.

These guys have figured out that Kerry is, in fact, not the Democratic candidate for president this year.  Right? 

I mean, I think he might be up for reelection to the Senate, but voters in Ohio, New Mexico, And Colorado don’t vote in Massachusetts Senatorial elections so I fail to see how smear footage of Kerry aired in those states is going to help the Massachusetts Republicans defeat him…

It’s like they prepared all this stuff a year or two ago, assuming either that Kerry would run again or whoever won the nomination would have some kind of ties to anti-Vietnam protests they could exploit via the Kerry footage.  though even that is a stretch considering that Hillary was off campaigning for Barry Goldwater around then, and none of the other contenders has real anti-Vietnam 60’s lefty connections.

Wait, now I’m confused.

The Swifties are back now and purchasing ads in these states, or this is all old stuff from 2004?  Bleh,      Monday.  Brain no understand.  More coffee…

Sorry Jesse, but this post does not show that ol’ Bud was a “member” of the Swift Boaters, unless we have all of a sudden redefined who the Swift Boaters were and what they did.

If Day’s sole involvement (and I don’t know if it was) was to appear in an ad and say what he said above, that doesn’t make him a Swift Boater, even if they paid for the ad.

The whole point of the Swift Boaters was to challenge the veracity of Kerry’s war record - Day doesn’t do that in this example - he just asks a question that is perfectly legitimate in a negative campaign ad.

We gotta keep up our standards, ya know?

Not mentioning that Day is a Medal of Honor winner is be exactly like neglecting to mention that Moore is the writer/director of Farenheit 9/11. It is disingenuous in the extreme for you to equate irrelevant bio material with that singular honor - something CNN couldn’t bring themselves to include in the article.

I suppose I shouldn’t expect much from you guys but really, not mentioning the guy was awarded the highest decoration the military doles out and that might have been an oversight on CNN’s part wouldn’t have caused you to be drummed out of the left wing glee club for God’s sake.

The reason Greyhawk and other servicemen are angry at CNN’s description of Col. Day is that it does not accurately describe who he is. They aren’t asking for his bio to be read, but for an accurate description of who he is and what he has accomplished.

Day is not a Swift Boat vet (Navy) but an Air Force vet. His involvement with SBVFT had nothing to do with Kerry’s service in Vietnam, and Day never commented on Kerry’s service in Vietnam. He testified only against Kerry’s Winter Soldier testimony (made in front of Congress), which Day felt was biased and dishonest in it’s characterization of American servicemen in that conflict.

Is he not entitled to his freedom of speech?

Day is not primarily known as a member of SBVFT, but as one of America’s most celebrated and decorated war heroes, in a very rare class reserved for men such as Audie Murphy or Alvin York. He would next be known as John McCain’s cellmate in the Hanoi Hilton. After that, he is most famous for filing a class-action lawsuit against the Clinton-era Air Force for stripping veterans of their medical care. Limiting his description to merely being “a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” is to ignore the vast majority of his accomplishments in order to attempt to undermine his credibility for things he never said or did.

CNN avoided Day’s life’s work and his most famous accomplishment in order to dismiss him for being part of a group that merged with SBVFT.

Apply a simple test to see if this is fair.

Imagine a media organization took one of your heroes, ignored his most notable 3-4 top accomplishments, and attempted to undercut his credibility by only mentioning that he made remarks or shared his opinion in front of a group your political opponents find loathsome.

Would a news story remembering Martin Luther King for his association with openly gay Communist Party member USA Bayard Rustin at the exclusion of everything else he accomplished in his life be “fair?”

King is of course far more famous for all the other things he did with his life, but according to Jesse, that is apparently all just irrelevant biographical information. Simply calling King an associate of a gay Communist, and giving him no credit for the things he is best remembered for, would be “accurate.”

King of course,  is known far better for his other more notable accomplishments So is Col. Day.

Bob Owens-
You mean like how Swift Boaters ignored all of Sen. Kerry’s accomplishments over the years and instead focused on narrow claims about how he only served in the military to get hurt, get medals and then run for office. Sorry not going to buy your crying over people being unfair to your side.

Is he not entitled to his freedom of speech?

Yes. He is free to say what he did, and we are free to point it out.

Give me a break.

CNN was just trying to discredit Day through association with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth but I suspect that like the tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of other Vietnam Veterans who supported the SBVT campaign (like me) he is quite proud of his contribution (appearing in an ad which exposed Kerry’s dishonorable appearance before Congress in the early 1970s) in 2004.

Was CNN wrong in failing to mention his CMOH?

Hell yes. While I value and appreciate Day’s contribution in 2004 his mark in history is that CMOH.

To omit a mention of the CMOH is at best incompetent.

Imagine a media organization took one of your heroes, ignored his most notable 3-4 top accomplishments, and attempted to undercut his credibility by only mentioning that he made remarks or shared his opinion in front of a group your political opponents find loathsome.

Simply calling King an associate of a gay Communist, and giving him no credit for the things he is best remembered for, would be “accurate.”

you forget that we consider such an association neither problematic nor “loathsome.” Damn, you people can’t hide the bigotry for, like, one second even, can you?

‘Should the crazies decide that this post is inaccurate because I don’t mention kind Michelle’s family, education’

Most of them, including Malkin herself, seem to loathe the fact that she graduated from uberliberal Oberlin College, so I don’t think they’d get too upset about leaving that out.

sorry Jesse, but you’re splitting hairs here.

I am not a winger (and BTW, it’s great to have you back here - Pandagon is back on my daily “to read” list) but calling Day a Swift Boater is really strecthing things. At most, he was a member of POW’s for Truth (maybe - the article is pretty sloppy about who belongs to what - what exactly is a “member”? - I’ll need to check that out more. WaPo’s not The Word, after all). The real question for me is whether he engaged in the “Swift Boat” rhetoric - the bucket o’lies that O’Neill was spreading all over creation -and I don’t see that he did, nor do I see that he supported it (directly, at least).

And if you haven’t already, you should check out Day’s Wiki entry. Quite a story (though his politics suck). He’s the hero McCain pretends to be.

jesse,

Well, I’m leaning more towards your view at the moment, after seeing this:

http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/2008/06/30/campaign-08-takes-detour-into-campaign-04/

If he wasn’t a swift boater in 2004, he’s certainly joined the fold full throttle now.

Shame on you, Mr. Day.

they simply do not teach critical thinking skills any more.

To use Jesse Taylor’s own examples correctly (he did not, or could not, I’m not sure which), if we were reading an article about Rustin or Damon, we would expect the author to get the key details of THEIR lives correct. We would not expect the author to delve into the details of King’s life in an article where Bayard Rustin is the subject because—and see if you can follow along—Bayard Rustin is the subject. He (Rustin), is the focal point of the article. Likewise, an article that has Matt Damon as the subject should focus on the key details about Damon, not a character he has played, nor the history of a menu item at a restaurant.

One True Vegan, is it possible for you to respond to of what I said, instead of creating your own addle-brained strawman to argue with? The point was not whether or not a reader of an article might find being being gay or communist (or straight or conservative, or anything else) offensive, but whether or not mis-characterizing a man’s lifetime of accomplishments by focusing only on a minor association with someone (or a group of someone’s) that are controversial in some way is remotely fair or objective.

If you had a lifetime of notable accomplishments, including among them the most distinguished acknowledgments in your field, and someone who did not like your values and who sought to discredit you dredged up a minor event of your life and chose that to be the focus point of an article about you, would that be good reporting, or a hit piece?

That is all we’re looking at here. CNN Associate Political Editor Rebecca Sinderbrand wrote a hit piece attempting to undermine Days’ credibility as by associating him to the SBVFT, ignoring the key facts of his life that make he a good choice for McCain’s so-called Truth Squad, namely that he he is a famous American hero, knew McCain under the most character-trying circumstances, and that he is a huge supporter of military veteran’s rights. Sinderbrand wanted to associate him with the disputed claims of Kerry’s service, not what Day actually addressed.

Now, Pandagon bloggers and readers may be perfectly fine with the fact that Sinderbrand attempted to undercut Day’s credibility and misrepresent his record, and you may even want to create an argument justifying her duplicitous behavior. I would ask, however, that if you are to defend her behavior, you do it by addressing it honestly, not building strawmen (Vegan) or creating utterly false comparisons (Jesse).

CMOH

If we’re striving for accuracy above all else, I have to ask you what this is. I know of no military decoration which can be correctly abbreviated “CMOH.”

to Auguste: Common usage: try this site.

http://www.cmohs.org/

“John McCain won 28 medals (I believe) for his service.  Are the media (and the McCain campaign) incompetent for not listing each one every time his military service is referred to?”

No but then among his 28 he does not have a Medal of Honor. If he did have one then they should reference it.

“Of course, you think that the Swifties were a good thing, so your standards for fair and accurate reporting are off from a normal person’s to begin with.’

Darn right I think the Swifties were a good thing. Doing my small part to expose John Kerry and help defeat him—and there is no doubt whatsoever that the SWBFT played a huge role in 2004—was a high point for me. A lot of us have wanted a piece of his hide since the early 1970s.

You can grouse all you want about whether it was fair or not but I think we (the anti-Kerry vets) achieved our objective and won that one going away.

“Expose” what about John Kerry? Lying about him. No doubt you thought you were doing the right thing for the greater good, but at the end of the day, you resorted to dishonesty in service of your (already immoral) cause.

Plus, that stunt with the band-aids—wow, not cool. Did your mother know you did stuff like that?

Darn right I think the Swifties were a good thing

Dishonesty is not a good thing. Your mother should have taught you that. But then, you signed up with the same crowd that spread rumors that McCain had a black baby out of wedlock.

Funny, that website only calls it the Congressional Medal of Honor once that I can find, for clarification. Everywhere else it calls it the MOH.

You can grouse all you want about whether it was fair or not but I think we (the anti-Kerry vets) achieved our objective and won that one going away.

And now the economy is tanking, Americans are still dying in Iraq every day, and gas is almost $5 a gallon.  I guess scoring political points against an old enemy from 30 years ago was more important to you than the health of the United States.

I guess scoring political points against an old enemy from 30 years ago was more important to you than the health of the United States.

You thought that Republican voters were motivated by anything else?

They’re pissed off and resentful at someone, somewhere, and they’re going to make sure that the target of their resentment pays for whatever they did to cause Mr. Republican to resent them so much! It’s called cutting off your nose to spite your face. And they’re willing to lie to do it.

I guess from now on we have to refer to him as American Campaign Medal winner Commander Richard Nixon whenever we bring up Watergate.  After all, one’s military service always supersedes anything you do in civilian life, right?

And don’t forget Silver Star winner John Stebbins, who’s currently doing 30 years in Levenworth for raping his 6-year-old stepdaughter.  But he has a medal, and that’s much more important than anything else he’s done in his life.

Funny, that website only calls it the Congressional Medal of Honor once that I can find, for clarification. Everywhere else it calls it the MOH.
Auguste on 07/07 at 02:29 PM

Follow some of the links and you will find that MOH and CMOH are both used. But the site is the official site of the Confressional Medal of Honor Society which was established by law in 1958.

“On August 5, 1958 President Dwight Eisenhower signed legislation sent to him by Congress chartering the CONGRESSIONAL MEDAL OF HONOR SOCIETY.  The purposes of the organization were clearly spelled out in its charter (which can be found in Title 36 U.S.C., Chapter 33).”

The quote comes from the History tab on the site.
http://www.cmohs.org/society/history.htm

When I went through Parris Island in 1966 my DI was rather insistent that we use the proper title CMOH rather than MOH, which is the more common usage.

others have already eviscerated your absurd arguments, Capt. Owens. I just find it particularly intriguing that you can’t make a statement about something ENTIRELY UNRELATED without throwing in your homophobic anti-commie two cents.

late replying, but i didn’t want to give the impression that i was, in any way, moved by your “scathing” retort….

A quick note here to those attacking CNN about Bud Day.

To begin with, there is no doubt that Bud Day is one of the great military heroes of the Vietnam War.

There is also no doubt that Bud Day’s memories of the war are colored through a hard-right perspective. He certainly earned that perspective, but his take-no-prisoners perspective allowed him to put his name behind two falsehoods during the 2004 campaign against John Kerry.

To begin with, Bud Day and the Swift Boaters with which he aligned himself in 2004 charged that the communists used John Kerry’s anti-war statements while torturing American POWs in Hanoi. Kerry made his statements in 1971. The torture of American POWs in Hanoi actually stopped after Ho Chi Minh’s death in 1969.

Numerous POWs went on the record in 2004 to note that they never heard boo about John Kerry while still being held in Hanoi. Conversely, there were so many anti-war critics with military creds in 1971 (General Shoup, Rep McCloskey, etc.) that Hanoi didn’t even need John Kerry’s words.

More importantly, Bud Day signed a statement claiming that “Kerry cast a long dark shadow over all Vietnam Veterans with his outright perjury before the Senate [in 1971] concerning atrocities in Vietnam. His stories to the Senate committee were absolute lies..fabrications..perjury..fantasies, with NO substance….”

Bud Day is speaking here of the so-called Winter Soldiers who gave testimony in Detroit in 1971 about their service in Vietnam. As soon as the Winter Soldiers opened their mouths, the Nixon Administration accused them of being phony veterans telling lies about a war in which they had never served.

However, despite decades of diggging by various right-wing organizations, not a single Winter Soldier who gave testimony was ever shown to be a fake veteran. Indeed, many have proven their bonafides over the years with discharge papers, letters, diary notes, award citations, photos of themselves in Vietnam, etc.

More to the point, though a few of the Winter Soldiers were probably exaggerating their atrocity stories, many have been born out over the years. In fact, recently declassified CID reports show that Jamie Henry (B/1-35th Infantry, 4th Div, RVN, 1967-68) was telling the absolute truth when he described at the Winter Soldier Investigation the numerous rapes and murders committed by his comrades during the hard days of the 1968 Tet Offensive.

I could name numerous other Winter Soldiers whose testimony has been validated by CID and NIS reports, contemporary news accounts, official histories, etc.

Bud Day is an American Hero, but he is also a highly-politicized figure who has no problem demeaning the service of left-wing veterans with whom he disagrees.

That he threw his wholehearted support behind hucksters like the SBVFT still makes me cringe.

Best,
Keith Nolan (author of RIPCORD, OPERATION BUFFALO, HOUSE TO HOUSE, etc.)