Sunday, May 28, 2006
[posted by jaed at 7:33 PM]Quote of the day
Hmmm. It seems that the NYT and Senator Kerry are resurrecting the "Christmas in Cambodia" story. God only knows why; it doesn't reflect well on Kerry. However, I was reminded of another remark Kerry made a year and a half ago, on Meet the Press. Roll tape:
MR. RUSSERT: [...] In a letter to the Boston Herald, you remember spending Christmas Eve '68 five miles across the Cambodian border. You told The Washington Post you have a lucky hat given to you by a CIA guy 'as we went in for a special mission to Cambodia.' Were you in Cambodia Christmas Eve, 1968?Recall that this is a relatively recent comment, at a time when Kerry had had the opportunity to refresh his memory about the incident. Here he's saying that he was ambushed on Christmas Eve 1968, but not actually in Cambodia (although a contemporaneous diary entry says nothing of any combat that night). But more interestingly, he says he was running guns to the Khmer Rouge. Of all people!
SEN. KERRY: We were right on the border, Tim. What I explained to people and I told this any number of times, did I go into Cambodia on a mission? Yes, I did go into Cambodia on a mission. Was it on that night? No, it was not on that night. But we were right on the Cambodian border that night. We were ambushed there, as a matter of fact. And that is a matter of record, and we went into the rec-- you know, it's part of the Navy records. It's been documented by the other guys who were on my boat. And Steve Gardner, frankly, doesn't know where we were. It wasn't his job, and, you know, he wasn't involved in that. But we did go five miles into Cambodia. It was on another day. I jumbled the two together, but we were five miles into Cambodia. We went up on a mission with CIA agents--I believe they were CIA agents--CIA Special Ops guys. I even have some photographs of it, and I can document it. And it has been documented.
MR. RUSSERT: You'll release those photographs?
SEN. KERRY: I think they were shown. I gave them to the campaign, but...
MR. RUSSERT: And you have a hat that the CIA agent gave you?
SEN. KERRY: I still have the hat that he gave me, and I hope the guy would come out of the woodwork and say, 'I'm the guy who went up with John Kerry. We delivered weapons to the Khmer Rouge on the coastline of Cambodia.'
Has anyone ever asked Kerry about this? I figured the whole story was stale news, but if he's bringing it up again in hallowed pages of NYT...
