Harry Smith on CBS this morning "Early Show" slammed John O'Neill

[Blue_Roses]

and said, "you had an axe to grind for a long time," and basically just cut him off and said "this topic will go on I'm sure, but this interview is over." (paraphrasing here) This is one of many "talking heads" who have slammed O'Neill on the validity of this crap against Kerry. O'Neill looks so stupid--like a deer in the headlights--when he talks about this now. He's not the sassy young guy he was in '71. I saw the complete interview with him and Kerry on the Dick Cavett show and what a change. Now he just looks worn out from keeping up with the lies.

The American people are getting so WEARY and BURNED-OUT on this mess, just like they did with the Clinton witch-hunt. The more the swift boaties pursue this, the more their credibility (if you could call them having any) as veterans will be tarnished. Enough is enough. Like Dick Cavett said last night on Hardball, "time to move on." It's been 30+ years. Hell, I'm not the same person I was 5 years ago, especially after becoming a parent. O'Neill acts like he just stepped right out of Vietnam. People change. Ideas change. Technology changes. CIRCUMSTANCES CHANGE. Maybe the repubs want to call it "flip-flopping" but I call it wisdom. Wisdom--to know that mistakes and decisions are part of the MATURING PROCESS, something that Bush has yet to learn.

[spanone]

1. ...and O'niell won't accept the fact that Vietnam was a fuckup!!!

[JI7]

3. he doesn't care, he doesn't care about the millions vietnamese dead

it's only about him(o'neill).

in the process of going after kerry has has lied and hurt many others who have served with kerry. and he doesn't care, because it's all about him only.

[Kierkegaard]

8. Nor will he accept that it was over

more than 30 freakin years ago. Get over it and do something worthwhile with the time you have left! What a legacy he will leave behind. Bitter personal vendettas that make him out to be a lying fool not only once, but twice!

Would you want to have this talk with your offspring? "You see son, I am a classic loser. I've wasted my life, lurking in the shadows of a man I despise, in hopes to one day even the score. I don't even seem to regret all the years I have wasted for naught. That is the saddest part of all."

[Tansy_Gold]

14. A bitter and disillusioned man who has nursed his

hate for over 30 years.

I suspect O'Neill is not unlike a lot of Vietnam vets who came home from a war they didn't understand to a country they didn't recognize. They couldn't reconcile their youthful and maybe naive image of their country -- the great victor and liberator of 1945 -- with the country that led them into Vietnam. Rather than face their real enemy -- their own political innocence -- they turned on the ones who opened their eyes to the truth. That way they could keep their eyes closed and not feel the pain.

John Kerry symbolizes the loss of their innocence. He also symbolizes the strength to learn and grow and mature and change that they didn't have. They are no different from *: like them, he was never made to face the truth about himself.

Kerry's timeless statement of "How do ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" is the very heart of the SwiftLiar's hate. They not only cannot admit they themselves may have made mistakes, but they also can't admit that the great and powerful U S of A, under the leadership of very fallible human beings, also made mistakes.

They see too many Gods and too few clay feet.

[Blue_Roses]

15. they know that war was a mistake

and by shutting their eyes to the truth of it keeps them in a box. Must be a sad and lonely place to be.

[dryan]

10. What is his agenda.....

the only one who looks good in all this is Dick Cavett. I thought the guy was dead.

[Blue_Roses]

12. Agenda?

Clear and simple--SMEAR Kerry.

Vietnam was a political war, just like Iraq.

[dryan]

16. I mean.....

it takes a really sick person to spend over 30 years of your life on a campaign to destroy someone. O'Neill said that he supported Perot in the last two elections and he is "a businessman". Who is backing him?

[Blue_Roses]

17. hmmm....that's strange

'cause if he supported Ross Perot in the last two elections that would be '92 and '96. Then Mr. O'Neill needs to tell us why he donated to Bush Sr.'s campaign in '92 if he was such a strong supporter of Ross Perot. http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=TX&last=O%27Neill&first=John

hmmm...another thing that is strange about this is O'Neill said he voted for Gore in 2000. Now maybe he did and since he and God were the only ones in that booth voting, they would be the only ones that know, but why isn't there ONE single donation to Gore? I mean, if you support someone and VOTE for them, wouldn't you want to CONTRIBUTE to them, especially since you have such a strong record of contributing to others--such as republicans:eyes:

O'Neill is such an f******* liar.

[dryan]

18. When he appeared on "Hardball"....

either last week or the week before (probably before because Hurricane Charley hadn't hit yet), Matthews asked him who he voted for in the last two elections and he said "Perot". I may have misudnerstood him, but he definitely mentioned Perot.

[Blue_Roses]

20. not to mince words,

but he said on Hardball that he voted for Gore. I was trying to find the transcript, but I can't find it now. There were some threads on it here...I'll try to find them. Advanced search is down now...

[dryan]

21. You may be right......

I know that he definitely said Perot, but I might have gotten the year wrong. Mea culpa!

[Bertha Venation]

2. wisdom, not "flip-flop:" HEAR, HEAR!

I can't expound on your post but I can say, you have it nailed. It is maturity, change, personal growth -- all things our current prez wouldn't know if it bit him in the ass.

[Lancer]

4. thanks for this report

I never watch CBS in the am, Smith is the latest interviewer who is fed up with O'Neill, Thurlow, et. al.

Mom used to let me stay up to watch the Cavett show all the time when I was a teenager back in the early 70s. Cavett is right; in those days no matter what the topic or who the guests were, things always turned to Vietnam and often got nasty. I'm pretty sure Norman Mailer got up and stormed off the set one night.

People who bash Kerry now forget how opposition to the war nearly tore us apart. Who better than someone who had been there to come home and say, "look, folks. . ."

JMO

[SpiralHawk]

5. Slime burn out

I feel the American public is on the verge of Presidential slime burnout. The Repubs/BushCo have been slinging so much mud, that the public may be disgusted with it all.

This morning USA Today independently riased anew the serious questions about Bush having been AWOL/Deserting http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x772569

But will the public -- already tired of the sludge -- just ignore this?

"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when men (and women) are afraid of the light." - Plato

[oasis]

6. The embara$$ment that O'Neill feel$ won't $top him from $oldiering on.

[DeepModem Mom]

7. FEEDBACK: [e-mail]

[gratuitous]

9. Yup, it's a mess, all right

And we have to be sure that the mess gets traced back to its authors. It seems that many in the media are just now waking up, and realizing that the Swifties are not that swift. Their credibility is shot, but they had two or three weeks of a free run. Now it's our turn. We have to bring up their lying ways at every turn, and make sure that folks make the connection between the Swifties and their Republican masters.

Keep making the connection, and it will finally penetrate the public consciousness. I think the Bush campaign is in BIG trouble. I'm pretty sure they wanted to keep the Swifties back and unleash them in late September or early October for the maximum damage. But now they're going to be hanging out there for the next 10 weeks looking foolish and getting more and more tattered. And they'll be hanging squarely around the neck of George W. Bush.

Delicious.

[Cocoa]

11. I have a different take on the Harry Smith piece

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=109x12319

[Blue_Roses]

13. The last segment said it all.

BORED AND TIRED OF THIS SHIT!

[DemMother]

19. Comparing the Kerry persecution to the Clinton witch-hunt ...

is right on the mark. You're absolutely right. There is only so much that the public can take of this crap. It may be titillating at first, but it wears thin after awhile--especially when the media start acting like reporters instead of shills for Bush.