Hanoi Jane turns 70...still sucks.

this past week saw Atlanta roll out the red carpet for a huge 70th birthday gala for Jane Fonda. in attendence were lovely people like Ted Turner, Eve Ensler, and Rosie O'Donnell (who dragged along that poor woman she's partnered up with...shudder...

among the adoring remarks made on Fonda's behalf were these by a drunk (as usual) Turner:

"One of the things that attracted Jane to me...[audience laughter]...Sorry, i didn't write anything down...I've had a glass of wine. What I meant was, what attracted me to her is her incredible courage. Jane has more courage than just about anybody i've ever met. During the Vietnam War, i kept my mouth shut. I learned early on that you don't get in trouble if you keep your mouth shut. Jane never learned that."

i'm sorry...but wasn't Turner formerly known as "THE MOUTH OF THE SOUTH"??

not everyone, of course, considered her actions during the Vietnam war "courageous". one vet took issue in a guest column for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Media glow on Fonda ignores her treason"...

i like his take...he's more pissed at the media for fawning over Fonda all of these year than he his at Fonda herself. but, since he accuses the media of "looking the other way", he reminds the people of Fonda's stated embracing of the enemy through her speeches (she wasn't just an "anti-war" activist...she literally was pulling for the other side!) and the historical facts of her trip to Vietnam:

What she actually did matters far more, of course, than what she thought or said as a young woman long ago. When Fonda took a camera crew to North Vietnam late in the war, her actions easily crossed the line of "aid and comfort to the enemy."

While in Hanoi, Fonda delighted our enemy by cavorting for cameras on an anti-aircraft gun, pretending to shoot at U.S. aircraft. Under pressure in recent years, Fonda said that was bad judgment, but her other actions were far worse.

She made speeches and recorded propaganda radio broadcasts in Hanoi expressing solidarity against " . . . our common enemy - U.S. imperialism." She called our troops, our POWs and our president war criminals and begged U.S. troops to disobey orders from their officers.

Fonda returned to the U.S. and reported our POWs were well treated. When the POWs later came home to tell stories of their sustained starvation diet, maltreatment and torture - real torture, not the kindergarten variety we now debate - she called them liars.

this story would make one helluva movie.

John Kerry: Liar or simply Delusional?

here is C-Span video where Sen. John Kerry denies that there was a bloodbath following the US pullout from Vietnam.

KERRY (in answer to a question from a caller): "Let me just say to the first part of your question with respect to boat people and killing, everybody predicted a massive bloodbath in Vietnam. There was not a massive bloodbath in Vietnam. There were reeducation camps, and they weren't pretty and, you know, nobody, you know, likes that kind of outcome. But on the other hand, I've met a lot of people today who were in those education camps, who are thriving in the Vietnam of today."

i italicized the latter part of this quote because it seems that Kerry is constantly meeting with people--be they foreign leaders or ordinary citizens--who support his contentions, BUT THEY NEVER GET NAMED. he gets away with this ALL THE TIME, and nobody in the MSM calls him out on this.

but...to the substance of his contention...which is part of his rationalization for the "need" to "redeploy" (a.k.a. "withdraw") our troops from iraq, his effort to obscure the analogy to the post-vietnam situation is woefully incorrect, if not diabolically misleading. even the new york times, in this piece, would agree.

"The 1975 Communist victory in Indochina led to horrors that engulfed the region. The victorious Khmer Rouge killed one to two million of their fellow Cambodians in a genocidal, ideological rampage. In Vietnam and Laos, cruel gulags and “re-education” camps enforced repression. Millions of people fled, mostly by boat, with thousands dying in the attempt."

and, in a piece run by the washington post, author Natan Sharansky argues:

"...many who supported that withdrawal in the name of human rights did not foresee the calamity that followed, which included genocide in Cambodia, tens of thousands slaughtered in Vietnam by the North Vietnamese and the tragedy of hundreds of thousands of "boat people."

In the final analysis, U.S. leaders will pursue a course in Iraq that they believe best serves U.S. interests. My hope is that as they do, they will make the human rights dimension a central part of any decision. The consequences of not doing so might prove catastrophic to Iraqis, to regional peace and, ultimately, to U.S. security."

not to mention that Kerry should AT LEAST remember that his buddies in Hollywood documented this in the 1984 movie, "The Killing Fields".

here, Kerry, just as i blogged earlier concerning hillary!, is engaged in "politicking" over national security. and, by "politicking", i mean strengthening the Democratic party, NOT the US as a whole. if their strategy is indeed the right one, well, god bless 'em. they should present this without the media hype which they are seeking by opposing the current administration...which i repeat WILL BE USED BY THE ENEMY TO KEEP UP THE FIGHT AGAINST OUR WEAKENING RESOLVE...a.k.a. "aid and comfort to the enemy".