John O’Neill: Courage Under Fire
Swift Boat Vet John O’Neill has had to endure some of the most vicious attacks of the most biased of alleged “professional journalists” in the past year. Finally, an article in the Chicago Sun-Times gives the man the credit and fair handling he’s been due.
| :::::::: | Of all the targets of vitriol and attempted ambushes during the presidential campaign, I most admired John O’Neill of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth for his calm determination to stand his ground on his charges against John Kerry’s Vietnam service in Unfit for Command, the book he co-authored.
O’Neill was called a ”liar” to his face on a number of TV appearances, and, on an Oct. 14 ”Nightline,” ABC-TV’s Ted Koppel actually sent a crew to Vietnam to film alleged eyewitnesses in order to disprove one of the accounts — how Kerry won his Silver Star — in Unfit for Command. Casually, ABC news director Andrew Morse mentioned that ”the Vietnamese require an official minder to accompany journalists on reporting trips.” The minder-censor from the Communist totalitarian state was there to ensure that the ”eyewitnesses” stuck to the government script. On camera, O’Neill told Koppel: ”You went to a country where all the elections are 100 percent elections, and you relied on people that were enemies of the United States” for this “testimony.” O’Neill repeatedly showed Koppel how the supposed eyewitnesses contradicted Kerry’s own accounts in the past. |
:::::::: |
O’Neill is owed an apology – in prime time with advance advertising – by almost every news organization that reported on him during the election. The actions taken against him are beyond justifying and some nearly defy belief. When the rest of the media can be honest about things, they should begin healing their wrecked credibility by apologizing to this man who calmly stood his ground.
