Just one day after launching a twisted ad campaign, one of the Swiftboat Hacks for Bush’s key allies has jumped ship.
[Y]esterday, a key figure in the anti-Kerry campaign, Kerry’s former commanding officer, backed off one of the key contentions. Lieutenant Commander George Elliott said in an interview that he had made a ”terrible mistake” in signing an affidavit that suggests Kerry did not deserve the Silver Star — one of the main allegations in the book. The affidavit was given to The Boston Globe by the anti-Kerry group to justify assertions in their ad and book.
Elliott is quoted as saying that Kerry ”lied about what occurred in Vietnam . . . for example, in connection with his Silver Star, I was never informed that he had simply shot a wounded, fleeing Viet Cong in the back.”
The statement refers to an episode in which Kerry killed a Viet Cong soldier who had been carrying a rocket launcher, part of a chain of events that formed the basis of his Silver Star. Over time, some Kerry critics have questioned whether the soldier posed a danger to Kerry’s crew. Crew members have said Kerry’s actions saved their lives.
Yesterday, reached at his home, Elliott said he regretted signing the affidavit and said he still thinks Kerry deserved the Silver Star.
”I still don’t think he shot the guy in the back,” Elliott said. ”It was a terrible mistake probably for me to sign the affidavit with those words. I’m the one in trouble here.”
But wait; there’s more.
As if that weren’t bad enough, the physician featured in the group’s attack ad, who claims to have first-hand knowledge about Kerry lying about one of his injuries, wasn’t the doctor who treated Kerry at the time.
The “doctor” who appears in the ad, Louis Letson, was not a crewmate of Senator Kerry’s and was not the doctor who actually signed Senator Kerry’s sick call sheet. In fact, another physician actually signed Senator Kerry’s sick call sheet. Letson is not listed on any document as having treated Senator Kerry after the December 2, 1968 firefight. Moreover, according to news accounts, Letson did not record his “memories” of that incident until after Senator Kerry became a candidate for President in 2003.
These Swiftboat hacks are playing people for fools. They have no shame.