PRESTOPUNDIT -- "It's a team sport, baby!"

ACCORDING TO Michael Kranish of the Boston Globe, Kerry's experience in Cambodia the Christmas of 1968 is the key to understanding his turn against the American government and it's war in Vietnam:

"I think what's fair to look at is how he was affected by Vietnam. He himself would say that you really have to look at a lot of his thought process as what was happening during Vietnam. And in one short anecdote I'll tell you, that in Christmas of 1968, he was on a small boat with his men, basically in Cambodia at a time when Richard Nixon was telling the American public that we're not in Cambodia. And he basically became skeptical. Well, the government is saying this, but he knew himself that wasn't true. And it's also why he says he came back to protest the war that he had served in."

Only problem? There is no evidence anywhere that Kerry was ever in Cambodia -- the Kerry campaign itself now admits that Kerry was not in Cambodia the Christmas of 1968.

So, if we follow Kranish, our biographical understanding of John Kerry's character -- really his very indentity -- begins to fall apart at the place of the central turning point in his life.

So this story (or this fantasy, if it's that) is a major one -- it is central to the very question of understanding who Kerry is. Which makes it a story we need to know and understand if we are to know and understand this man.

Footnote: Notice how this Boston Globe reporter doesn't seem to have a clue that Nixon wasn't in charge of the country in the Christmas of 1968?

More on the character issue. Lanny Davis was asked this question:

Now, if John Kerry lied about being in Cambodia, if he lied about being on a secret mission like Martin Sheen, if he lied about not being in Kansas City when he was there when they all chatted about that crazy assassination idea, if he lied about Americans committing rampant war crimes all over Vietnam which he witnessed and which were authorized by his superior, if he lied about all those things, is it not possible he lied about his medals?

-- last night on MSNBC's Scarborough Country. Captain Ed takes a look at Lanny Davis's answer. Posted by Greg Ransom | TrackBack