Let me preface this by saying that I don't give a damn about John Kerry's Viet Nam record. In my mind, it has no bearing on his ability to lead either way. I would much prefer if we could all stop living 30 years in the past and start living in the now. Why does it matter who did or did not defend his country in the past? I care only about who will defend his country in the future.

Therefore the Swift Boat Vets' allegations have no relevance. For the most part I'm trying to ignore the firestorm. But the lies that are being reveled are relevant and are becoming impossible to ignore. They are beginning to stack up all around Mr. Kerry, leading me to believe that he may be near-pathological when it comes to exaggerating the events of his past.

It would appear that John Kerry has been lying about service in Viet Nam since he returned State-side. First we had the whole "Christmas in Cambodia" controversy. It didn't take long to see through the holes in John Kerry's March 27, 1986 Senate speech, in which he attempted to convince Ronald Reagan that his Central American policies were leading to another Viet Nam-style quagmire (good call on that one, John):

"Mr. President, I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the President of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which is seared--seared--in me, that says to me, before we send another generation into harm's way we have a responsibility in the U.S. Senate to go the last step, to make the best effort possible in order to avoid that kind of conflict."

He also wrote a October 14, 1979 article in the Boston Herald, in which he discussed his "Christmas in Cambodia":

I remember spending Christmas Eve of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real.

The factual inaccuracies in these two quotes are almost too numerous to list. Let's start with the most obvious- Richard Nixon was not yet president in December of 1968. He wouldn't be president for another month. Secondly, there seems to be no evidence (other than Kerry's word) that American troops entered Cambodia at any time before 1970. There is also the fact that none of the men Kerry served with can corroborate his story. Perhaps most damning is Kerry's own diary, in which he himself writes that he spent the day in the village of Sa Dec- over 50 miles from the Cambodian border.

And that's just scratching the surface of Kerry's Cambodia lies. Go check out this post for more.

Now comes this doozy of a fib via Hugh Hewitt:

The hat was a little mildewy. The green camouflage was fading, the seams fraying.

"My good luck hat," Kerry said, happy to see it. "Given to me by a CIA guy as we went in for a special mission in Cambodia."

Kerry put on the hat, pulling the brim over his forehead. His blue button-down shirt and tie clashed with the camouflage. He pointed his finger and raised his thumb, creating an imaginary gun. He looked silly, yet suddenly his campaign message was clear: Citizen-soldier. Linking patriotism to public service. It wasn't complex after all; it was Kerry.

If we've already established that John Kerry never crossed the Cambodian border, then we can easily label this one as a boldface lie. And this isn't just the normal embellishment you would expect from a veteran trying to impress the grandkids. This is an entire elaborate scenario, completely invented in the mind of John Kerry.

Now, as I said, I don't care about what my president did or didn't do 30 years ago. But I do care deeply about my president being truthful. John Kerry has now been caught in a series of lies for political gain (I would assume that is the justification- either that, or he's just a pathological liar). Even that alone wouldn't necessarily sour me on a candidate, but considering that a) Kerry has based much of his campaign on his Viet Nam service, which has now been brought into question, and b) the amount of criticism he's thrown towards Bush for supposedly 'misleading' the country into Iraq, he's not making much of a case.

So now it looks as if the left has become the thing it hates. They hate Bush for lying about pre-war intelligence (well, not even lying really- "inferring" that there may have been a connection between Saddam and Al Quida, and "exaggerating" evidence of WMD) in order to advance his policies. Meanwhile, they have found themselves in the position of supporting a candidate who is clearly truth challenged and has shown a willingness to sex-up his past for political gain. Am I to belive that the left is willing to trade an accused liar for a proven one?

Does anyone else see a problem here?

UPDATE: If you think this is the kind of thing the Kerry campaign can just duck, think again. Even if the major media chooses to ignore this story right now, the blogosphere will keep this one alive (a-la the Trent Lott/Strom Thurman story a couple years ago). There's no way they can ignore this story forever.

UPDATE: Here's another lie for political points (via Large Regular). This guy is willing to say anything to be president, and what's more, no one in the Democratic Party seems to have a problem with that.