McCain's own Swift-Boat Nightmare About to Hit the MSM. Former GOP Congressmen and POWs ATTACK.

[berni_mccoy]

http://leboutillier.blogspot.com/2008_08_26_archive.html#126841140303413879%23126841140303413879

The NY Daily News has picked up the Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain story. (NYDN Article here: http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2008/08/25/2008-08-25_vietnam_vets_stirring_up_a_mccain_mutiny.html titled Vietnam vets stirring up a McCain Mutiny).

This could very well damage McCain's chances of winning this year:

Tuesday, August 26, 2008
FROM THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS - AUGUST 25, 2008:

Vietnam vets stirring up a McCain mutiny
Monday, August 25th 2008, 4:00 AM


Altaffer/AP

Sen. John McCain commands support at many VFW halls across the country. But a squadron of Vietnam vets and POW/MIA advocates is strafing him with decidedly unfriendly fire.

Two-tour Green Beret Ted Sampley, who helped "Swift Boat" Democrat John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race, is now gunning for the GOP White House hopeful.

The organizer of Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain claims the Purple Heart-winning former POW has "never admitted the full extent to which he cooperated with his captors." Sampley also charges that, in the 1990s, the "unstable" McCain, whom he calls "the Manchurian Candidate," ignored "credible evidence" that American POWs were still alive in Southeast Asia.

"He wanted to normalize relations with Vietnam," Sampley tells us. "He took away the only leverage we had for getting those soldiers back. Why? He was paying back the Vietnamese for keeping quiet about him."

McCain has called Sampley a profiteering "enemy of the truth" and "one of the most despicable people I have ever had the misfortune to encounter." (Sampley was jailed after beating up McCain aide Mark Salter outside McCain's Senate office in 1992.)

Though he's no fan of Barack Obama, Sampley says Fox News producers haven't invited him on to bash McCain the way he bashed Kerry. But Sampley is finding other comrades. Former POW Phillip Butler asserts that McCain "allows the media to make him out to be the hero POW, which he knows is absolutely not true."

Former GOP Congressmen Bill Hendon and John LeBoutillier, who both served on the House Task Force on POW/MIA Affairs, write on Sampley's U.S. Veteran Dispatch that McCain "abandoned American POWs."

"He's totally dishonest," says LeBoutillier, who contends that, to win over the religious right, McCain "cribbed" his recent memory of a kindly guard leaving "a cross in the dirt" from Jeremiah Denton, another POW-turned-senator who told a similar story.

More at the links.

[beachmom]

1. Seeing that neither the Republican Noise Machine nor the Democrats are going to touch this,

I see this going nowhere. Especially, since Sampley is a nasty con artist and overall scumbag.

[Redstone]

9. Thank you so much for saying that. Just because McCain is running against our guy, is no

reason for us to descend into the same kind of cesspool the "swiftboaters" inhabit.

Redstone

[ChiciB1]

2. But WILL They Reach The Masses??? Or Will MSM Squelch Them???

That's the question!!!

[beachmom]

6. The MSM? Ah, neither power structure in either party is going to touch this.

Only left wing and right wing independents who hate the two mainstream political parties would even consider this garbage.

[blm]

16. M$M would never treat McCain's detractors to the full on promotion they gave the swiftliars.

They reserved their filthy complicitness for John Kerry, the one man they knew would open the books on their fascist overlords.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Too bad that the McSame detractors are not more credible...

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

4. You lay down with Roves you get an STD. n/t

[berni_mccoy]

24. LOL.

[Redstone]

5. No. Just fucking NO. Should WE sink so low as to give this "swiftboating" crap any credence,

just because it's aimed against McCain this time?

No. Just fucking NO.

We're supposed to be better than that. There are PLENTY of opportunities to attack McCain on issues and policy, and that's what we should be doing.

Not giving this kind of sleazy, cowardly innuendo any more publicity thant it deserves. And it deserves NONE.

Redstone

[beachmom]

7. Amen. nt

[demo dutch]

19. Rising above is not going to win the Presidency, negative always works!

[berni_mccoy]

21. NOT "WE", Them. The GOP and former POWs are doing this. Not us.

[MiniMe]

26. Its not us. And it will be hard for the repukes to refute it without refuting

what they did to Kerry. I feel no sympathy.

[Bluzmann57]

8. But just how credible is Sampley?

He was involved in the swiftboating of Kerry and he was jailed for beating up Mark Salter. So he may not be the most credible guy around. What we need is someone like Gard (sp?) who has no apparent political agenda and is neutral.

[Redstone]

10. And, given all that, why is the OP furthering his agenda by posting it on DU?

Just another question to ask, after asking the excellent questions you raised.

Redstone

[berni_mccoy]

22. MY Agenda is to get Obama Elected. What's yours? Oh, wait

That's right, to whine about every strategy the Dems have and wring your hands about how they will fail. No thanks.

I'm here to get Obama elected and if Repubs and former POWs want to attack him, I say GO FOR IT.

All you'd have to do before killing the messenger is read my journal. You'd know what my "agenda is".

[MarjorieG]

13. Sampley resented McC and Kerry from stopping his lucrative business giving families false hope.

From when the two of them closed the books to help normalize relations with Vietnam. They did a thorough search, and some say even too thorough.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

20. He ain't.

Sampley is the rankest of con-men. Running a con like this is how he makes his money from dupes.

[berni_mccoy]

25. Others in Vietnam Vets Against McCain are though. And as long as it's Repub-on-Repub

we should just spread the word and get out of the way.

[MiniMe]

27. As credible as he was when he swiftboated Kerry

But at least this time he is asking the right questions IMHO, about how much McCain cooperated.

[eshfemme]

11. It's NOT a Swiftboat if they're using FACTS that are proven with evidence. That's the key difference

The Swiftboaters were using evidence that was either debunked or just logically fallible. For example, one of them was awarded a fucking Bronze Medal in the same incident that he was claiming was made up by Kerry to receive his medal. So yeah, fucking crazy of both them and the media for giving them the fucking time of day.

At least, these people seem to have much more credibility than the Swiftboaters as they seem to have assembled organically by themselves instead of, at the behest of some billionaire investor or recruitment effort by a political party. From all accounts, it sounds like they've been trying to get their story out for years but been repressed for various reasons.

[beachmom]

14. Did you read the article? Sampley called McCain the "Manchurian Candidate"

That is not a fact, it is a smear.

The organizer of Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain claims the Purple Heart-winning former POW has "never admitted the full extent to which he cooperated with his captors." Sampley also charges that, in the 1990s, the "unstable" McCain, whom he calls "the Manchurian Candidate," ignored "credible evidence" that American POWs were still alive in Southeast Asia.

"He wanted to normalize relations with Vietnam," Sampley tells us. "He took away the only leverage we had for getting those soldiers back. Why? He was paying back the Vietnamese for keeping quiet about him."

Let's be clear here: if you go along with this smear on McCain, then it smears the entire POW/MIA committee including its chair, John Kerry, as well as President Clinton.

This is one issue where I agree with McCain:

McCain has called Sampley a profiteering "enemy of the truth" and "one of the most despicable people I have ever had the misfortune to encounter." (Sampley was jailed after beating up McCain aide Mark Salter outside McCain's Senate office in 1992.)

http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2008/08/25/2008-08-25_vietnam_vets_stirring_up_a_mccain_mutiny.html

[Jackpine Radical]

12. Every response to this thread so far is dead-on.

Thank you for saving me the bother of saying everything I meant to say when I clicked on it.

I second what everyone else has said.

Edited to add--Through about Post 10, I mean. I type slow.

[Patiod]

15. Ha! I've heard Repugs spout this themselves

I said something once that "even McCain says torture doesn't work" (back when he had a spine). And this guy responded with the same stuff, saying it DID work and it got McCain to sell out our country. I had never heard this, so i had not response. But it told me that this has been circulating in Republican circles.

Let them all wallow in their own filth, and maybe it will keep the party faithful home that day.

I agree that we're better than that.

[Disturbed]

17. There is no need to talk about McLame's POW status.

McLame & his team have made a mockery of it themselves.

[demo dutch]

18. Will this story have any "legs"!

[berni_mccoy]

31. Well, they're growing. Short legs now, but growing...

[FrenchieCat]

23. kick cause I can!

[berni_mccoy]

30. Frenchie!

:loveya: :loveya: :loveya: :loveya:

[ContinentalOp]

28. Hmm, interesting.

So is their strategy to get a known liar and scumbag to push this out there so that we can't bring up legitimate questions later. :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat: :tinfoilhat:

[berni_mccoy]

29. No. As many have responded in this thread, the Dems should never touch this with a 10' pole

Let the concerned GOP and former POWs raise their issues.

No matter how this is broken, it can not be good to have people from your own party, let alone former POWs, questioning your integrity about your use of and experience as a POW.

[berni_mccoy]

32. .

Morning kick.