With all of their claims about Kerry’s heroism having been dispatched quickly and easily, the Swiftboat hacks’ attacks against Kerry have narrowed in on whether he was in Cambodia in 1968. It’s not a particularly important point, but the GOP hacks seem to believe it’s critical to some vague point that no one can identity.
Slate’s Fred Kaplan debunks this persistent myth in a terrific item yesterday, which explains that on Christmas Eve 1968, Kerry and his crew were at least in the vicinity of the Cambodian border.
Did Kerry cross the border or just go up to it? We may never know for sure. Not much paperwork exists for covert operations (officially, U.S. forces weren’t in Cambodia). Nor is it likely that a canny Swift-boat skipper (and Kerry was nothing if not canny) would jot down thoughts about such covert operations in a diary on a boat that might be captured by the enemy.
The circumstances at least suggest that Kerry was indeed involved in a “black” mission, even if he had never explicitly made that claim. And why would he make such claims if he hadn’t been? It was neither a glamorous nor a particularly admirable mission — certainly nothing to boast of.
But one thing is for sure: Lieut. Kerry did not spend that Christmas Eve just lying around, dreaming of sugarplums and roasted chestnuts. He had plenty of time to cover the 40 miles from the Cambodian border to the safety of Sa Dec (he did command a swift boat, after all). More to the point, the evidence indicates he did cover those 40 miles: He was near (or in?) Cambodia in the morning, in Sa Dec that night.
This should put this silliness to rest once and for all. For what it’s worth, the Boston Globe also helped explain why the attacks on Kerry regarding Cambodia are nonsensical.