Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, perhaps preparing to get back into the presidential ring one day, claims he's now armed with materials that will make war record critics from his 2004 presidential campaign go running tail between legs.
The 63-year-old Democratic senator told The Patriot-Ledger on Tuesday that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group of Navy servicemen who served with Kerry and criticized his record in Vietnam, will be revealed as liars.
"We have put together a documented portfolio that frankly puts their lies in such a total light of absurdity and indecency, that should they ever rear their ugly heads again, we have every single 't’ crossed and 'i’ dotted, and I welcome that in a sense,'' Kerry said after addressing Boston's South Shore Chamber of Commerce. "It’s a shame we weren’t able to produce all that at the time.''
Click here to read the Patriot-Ledger article.
Kerry, who is up for re-election next year for a fifth term in the U.S. Senate, added that he regrets that he was slow to counter accusations against him during the 2004 presidential campaign, and thinks that Republicans have descended into pure deception to win votes.
"I have no doubt at all that some of the people involved on the other side don’t care about the truth, think nothing about distorting it, will not hesitate to say and do whatever they think is necessary to win,'' Kerry told the newspaper. "But I think we are now much more prepared and savvy about those kind of things, and certainly in my own involvement, I will make certain that people don’t get away with that.''
He also said that it's unfortunate that "swift boating" has become a verb in the political vernacular.
"I hate to see the term become a negative term in American politics, it is what is is,'' he said. "Would those same tactics be used against people? Sure, absolutely.''
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