T. Boone Pickens Calls Kerry's Bluff

The T. Boone Pickens/John F. Kerry scrum has not gotten much attention outside of the blogosphere but bears watching.

Here's some background: T. Boone Pickens was a supporter of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, they chastised Kerry during the 2004 campaign for, among other things, Kerry's lies and distortions during the 1971 "Winter Soldier" hearing in front of Congress in which Kerry uttered the following:

I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command....

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

Kerry used this as a springboard to elected aoffice that led to the Senate and a run at the Oval Office. Many veterans were appalled by what Kerry accused them of and many of his compadres in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War group were proven to not be veterans at all.

Pickens said last week at a dinner that he would give $1-million to anyone who could disprove what the Swift Boat group alleged, Kerry took the challenge but didn't elaborate much on how he would disprove the allegations.

Pickens has now responded and challenged Kerry to produce:

1) The journal you maintained during your service in Vietnam.
2) Your military record, specifically your service records for the years 1971-1978, and copies of all movies and tapes made during your service.

In other words, he's calling on Kerry to produce documents Kerry has promised to release numerous times over the years and never has.

A few thoughts, Pickens played Kerry like a drum here and Kerry alowed himself to be sucked in again. In Kerry's mind, the only reason he lost to Bush in 2004 is because of the Swifties while the real truth is that America didn't take to the arrogant New Englander. He turned against his military brothers for nothing more than blind ambition and if there's anything Americans can't abide, it's someone who is a backstabber. Kerry was exactly that and he paid for it.

Release the records without any redactions and we'll see who was right and who's been a liar, my guess is that Kerry will be the latter. He should have let this die but couldn't control his emotions and will have to produce or look like a fool.