Swift Boat Sociopath Finally Tells the Truth

Here's the real story on Swift Boat Liars leader John O'Neill. See how many media outlets outside the New York Times pick up on this, and then tell me how "liberal" the media is.

O'Neill, for those of you who don't know, is the leader of the Swift Boat Sociopaths, the ringleader who coerced a number of people who are now busy backpedaling their statements into saying nasty things about John Kerry. Most of the Swift Boat Sociopaths begin lying immediately in their ads: only two of the 10 veterans featured in the ads ever even met Kerry in Vietnam, and one of those two can't produce proof of it. When they say they "served with John Kerry," they mean they were in Vietnam at roughly the same time he was (O'Neill himself never actually crossed paths with Kerry in Vietnam -- he took over Kerry's swift boat months after Kerry had left).

O'Neill, as was obvious to people who follow Republican machinations, is a right-leaning hit man attorney with a special vendetta against Kerry going back to Kerry's Senate testimony in 1971 in which Kerry told shocked congresscritters (and the nation) of atrocities and other barbaric behaviour by his fellow servicemen.

Having read Kerry's testimony (but not seen it), it seems to me that Kerry takes pains to say that his broad and damning brush should not be inferred to mean that all Vietnam soldiers were like that, but many (including O'Neill) took deep and long-lasting offense at being lumped into that category. Perhaps something in Kerry's manner made them feel that he did mean all servicemen, as I say I haven't seen Kerry's testimony.

So this guy has been on Kerry's ass about his actions post-Vietnam for thirty years now. A little whacko, I think, but admittedly I wasn't in Vietnam and perhaps I can't understand the intense shame and humiliation O'Neill feels that drives him to hound Kerry so much. To me, O'Neill comes off like a guy who buys a Hummer to make up for his tiny penis (and really, isn't that the only reason to buy a Hummer?).

Anyway, he hounded Kerry back in the 70s and, having said his piece (and having decidedly lost a televised debate with Kerry in 1971) largely went away, but when O'Neill found out Kerry was running for president, he decided he had to stop Kerry at all costs, and that includes telling bald-faced lies about both his own service as well as Kerry's. O'Neill has been caught red-handed telling a lie about his own trips into Cambodia and about the border of Cambodia, but he refuses to relent (just like Bush -- getting caught lying doesn't even slow down the lies).

He's written a book called Unfit For Command with nutcase raging bigot (anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, misogynist -- the man is an equal opportunity hater, I'll give him that) Jerome Corsi, he's led the Swift Boat Sociopaths into a moral morass from which they'll be lucky to emerge with any semblance of career or health intact, and all because he's pissed that Kerry beat him in a debate (both literally and figuratively) over Vietnam 30 years ago.

The New York Times actually talked to the guy, and what emerges is absolutely fascinating. Not only did I have this guy pegged as a psycho right from the start, but he's even more mentally unbalanced than even I believed:

hile enemies portray him as a one-dimensional partisan, Mr. O'Neill is man of intriguing contradictions. He has extensive ties to prominent Texas Republicans, but he has told friends he considers Mr. Bush an "empty suit" who is unfit to lead the country, and says he voted for Al Gore in 2000, and for Ross Perot in 1996 and 1992.

So let me get this straight: O'Neill doesn't think Kerry should be president because he feels that Kerry disgraced his fellow Vietnam brothers, but thinks Bush is an idiot and incompetent.

The article goes on to say that O'Neill is "known in the Houston legal community for a near-photographic memory and an ability to master complex facts and that have helped him win big trial judgments. Yet the book he co-authored against Mr. Kerry, "Unfit for Command," is riddled with inconsistencies and differences with the official record."

His colleagues, both friends and enemies, agree on one thing, according to the Times: "O'Neill's grudge against Kerry is personal."

Gosh, I wonder why that isn't splashed across every paper and TV news show in America? Along with the revelations of backtracking and outright lies in both the TV ads and the book, and the clear fact that O'Neill just has a personal grudge, you'd think the media would stop giving him so much credibility, wouldn't you? Gosh darn that liberal media!!

The article goes to quote friends and supporters describing O'Neill as a man unable to ever change his mind once he decides on a position, a person who continues to argue that position even if the facts (reality, majority opinion, etc) contradict him, a man who sees the world in very simple-minded black-and-white terms and won't brook any shades of gray. His colleagues even coined the phrase "Johnovision" to describe his obsessive single-mindedness and refusual to let go to open his mind once it had closed on a topic.

To me, the Times article (which goes to great lengths to highlight his accomplishments and make his psychopathic closed-mindedness sound like a positive trait) paints a pretty fair portrait of a nutcase, a stalker, a compulsive-obsessive-vindictive bastard. The sort of person who would kill his ex-wife and kids rather than let another man touch them, you know?