Kerry's new pitch to voters -- "Vote for me, I'm an America-hating
liar"

Let the buyer's remorse begin, lefties...

snicker



Discarded Decorations
Videotape Contradicts John Kerry's Own Statements Over Vietnam Medals
By Brian Ross and Chris Vlasto
ABCNEWS.com

April 25— Contradicting his statements as a candidate for president,
Sen. John Kerry claimed in a 1971 television interview that he threw
away as many as nine of his combat medals to protest the war in
Vietnam.

"I gave back, I can't remember, 6, 7, 8, 9 medals," Kerry said in an
interview on a Washington, D.C. news program on WRC-TV's called
Viewpoints on November 6, 1971, according to a tape obtained by
ABCNEWS.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Kerry has denied that he threw
away any of his 11 medals during an anti-war protest in April, 1971.

His campaign Web site calls it a "right wing fiction" and a smear. And
in an interview with ABCNEWS' Peter Jennings last December, he said it
was a "myth."

But Kerry told a much different story on Viewpoints. Asked about the
anti-war veterans who threw their medals away, Kerry said "they
decided to give them back to their country."

Kerry was asked if he gave back the Bronze Star, Silver Star and three
Purple Hearts he was awarded for combat duty as a Navy lieutenant in
Vietnam. "Well, and above that, [i] gave back the others," he said.

The statement directly contradicts Kerry's most recent claims on the
disputed subject to the Los Angeles Times last Friday. "I never ever
implied that I did it, " Kerry told the newspaper, responding to the
question of whether he threw away his medals in protest.

"I'm proud of my medals. I always was proud of them," he told Jennings
in December, adding that he had only thrown away his "ribbons" and the
medals of two other veterans who could not attend the protest.

Flip Flop?

The disputed incident happened 33 years ago this past weekend, on
April 23, 1971, when Kerry led the group Vietnam Veterans Against the
War in a protest against the war they fought.

Many veterans were seen throwing their medals and ribbons over the
fence in front of the U.S. Capitol. At the time, The Boston Globe and
other newspapers reported that Kerry was among these veterans.

"In a real sense, this administration forced us to return our medals
because beyond the perversion of the war, these leaders themselves
denied us the integrity those symbols supposedly gave our lives,"
Kerry said the following day.

But in 1984, when he first ran for the U.S. Senate, Kerry revealed he
still had his medals. According to a Boston Globe report on April 15,
1984, union officials had expressed uneasiness with Kerry's candidacy
because he had thrown his medals away. Kerry acknowledged the medals
he threw away were, in fact, another soldier's medals. He reportedly
invited a union official home to personally inspect his Silver Star,
Bronze Star and three purple hearts, awarded for his combat duty as a
Navy lieutenant.

In the 1971 Viewpoints interview, he made no mention of the ribbons or
the medals belonging to another veteran.

And in 1988, Kerry again clarified his statement by saying he threw
out ribbons he had been awarded for three combat wounds, but not his
medals. "I was proud of my personal service and remain so," he told
the National Journal.

Eight years later in 1996, Kerry said while he did throw out his
ribbons, he didn't throw out his own medals because he "didn't have
time to go home [to New York] and get them," he told The Boston Globe.

Kerry's campaign Web site says he "is proud of the work he did to end
the war. The Nixon Administration made John Kerry one of its targets
and Republicans have been smearing him ever since. John Kerry threw
his ribbons and the medals of two veterans who could not attend the
event, and said, 'I am not doing this for any violent reasons, but for
peace and justice, and to try to make this country wake up once and
for all.'"

A spokesperson for Kerry's campaign said he didn't make a distinction
between medals and ribbons, but Kerry plans to respond on Good Morning
America.