O'Neill transcript from last night

[geek tragedy]

http://mediamatters.org/items/200408250004

COLMES: You claimed at one point you weren't , and then you claimed you were. This is very confusing to people.

O'NEILL: Well, it shouldn't be confused. I was never in Cambodia, and Kerry lied when he said he was in Cambodia.

COLMES: You said to Richard Nixon you were in Cambodia.

O'NEILL: And it was the turning point of his life.

COLMES: You said to Richard Nixon, "I was in Cambodia, sir."

HANNITY: On the border.

COLMES: There's a tape of you saying that to Richard Nixon.

O'NEILL: What's the next sentence? I was along the Cambodian border. That's exactly right. What I told Nixon and was trying to tell him in this meeting was I was along the Cambodian border. As Sean clearly read ...

COLMES: "I was in Cambodia" -- those are your words.

O'NEILL: Yes, but you missed the next sentence. You're not reading the next sentence, Alan.

COLMES: Yes, along the border. But you're in Cambodia or you're not in Cambodia.

O'NEILL: Well, I'm sorry, Alan. I wasn't -- I was talking in a conversation. And the first thing, by the way, I told him in the conversation, as you know, was that I was a Democrat and I voted for Hubert Humphrey.

[trumad]

1. Nice try scumbag ONeill...

I was in Cambodia means you were in Cambodia.

It's like saying I was in Chuckie Cheese and then saying I was outside too.

[onenote]

3. He's one piss poor liar

In means in. Obviously you can be "in" Cambodia and still along the border. If he had been along the border,but not actually in Cambodia, he would've said "I was near Cambodia". As a fellow attorney, I'm embarassed at what a bad liar this guy is :)

onenote

[mememe]

4. OK, I admit I'm stupid. Please explain it to me.

Perhaps I'm too dense to understand it but I fail to see how this benefits Sen. Kerry in any way.

It sounds like the thrust of this is "See, O'Neill lied about being in Cambodia, too." Implicit in this sort of an argument is an admission that Mr. Kerry was lying when he made multiple references about being in Cambodia. Doesn't that sort of give the game away?

[tishaLA]

6. Kerry has admitted he was in Cambodia

...but now we know poor John O'Neill did too--but to his commander in chief! O'Neill says he was never there, if you can believe it, but he admitted it to his dear good freind Richard Nixon. Maybe H.R. Haldeman was there, too! And Johnny O'Neill says anyone who would have gone to Cambodia would be court martialed! Well, John O'Neill, let the games begin.

[geek tragedy]

7. No.

1. He flat out denied ever being in Cambodia, then says he was in Cambodia. If they're going to try to hold Kerry to that level of detail, they have to as well.

2. Kerry has never said that he wasn't in Cambodia. The only possible discrepancy is a date.

3. O'Neill said that Kerry couldn't have been in Cambodia because that was a war crime and the US command would never, ever let someone do that. Ha ha.

[blm]

8. Kerry wasn't lying about Cambodia. Yes he stayed mostly along the border

but he was also ferrying CIA operatives into Cambodia. That's why it's a difficult thing to talk about.

Christie Whitman once said on the Daily Show that her husband spent time on a boat with Kerry in Cambodia. Was she lying, too?

[mememe]

9. OK, now I'm really confused

I had thought that Sen. Kerry had been very emphatic that he had been in Cambodia during Christmas of 1968 and that the campaign had later said that this was not actually true.

What exactly did Kerry say and what is the official campaign message on this now? Has the message changed? I've heard he was in Cambodia then he was near Cambodia, then he was in Cambodia but not on Christmas, then he was not in Cambodia. What I'd like to do is understand what the campaign is saying, as opposed to all the 8000 commentators on TV, radio and the internet. Has the campaign had a consistent message? If so, what is it?

[blm]

10. It's been consistent. His time near and around Cambodia

was Christmastime and through January and Feb. Read Tour of Duty.

I think the only people who are confused are the ones who WANT to be confused or who truly have difficulty comprehending written material. What part of CIA operations do folks find confusing?

Kerry keeps as a good luck charm, a hat from one of the CIA ops he took on one of those missions into Cambodia.

Has anyone questioned Christie Whitman's truthfulness about her husband spending time in Cambodia with Kerry? Do Republicans smear her as a liar?

[tishaLA]

2. Poor John O'Neill

the former Nixon crony can't decide whether he lied to his patron, the disgraced former president, or whether he is lying now! Oh how the worm turns on poor John O'Neill. Tell us again what it was that Louis XI said, poor John O'Neill....was it Apres moi, le deluge?

[vetwife]

5. On Fox...felt his lie was safe...Probably was !

[skip fox]

11. O'Neill's "border dispute" . . . from SBVT-Gate: The File

John O'Neill himself, having claimed recently never to have been in Cambodia,
but in 1971 claimed otherwise. In an 24 Aug. 04 report on Aaron Brown by
Joe Johns:

<snip>

JOHNS: . . . John O'Neill said Kerry made up a story about being in Cambodia
beyond the legal borders of the Vietnam War in 1968. O'Neill said no one could
cross the border by river and he claimed in an audio tape that his publicist played
to CNN that he, himself, had never been to Cambodia either. But in 1971, O'Neill
said precisely the opposite to then President Richard Nixon.

(starts tape)
O'NEILL: I was in Cambodia, sir. I worked along the border on the water.
NIXON: In a swift boat?
O'NEILL: Yes, sir.
(end tape)

JOHNS: Now, O'Neill may have an explanation for this but he has not returned
CNN's calls. What does seem clear is that a top member of the swift boat group
is now being held to the same standard of literal accuracy they've tried to impose
on John Kerry –
. . .

BROWN: And just quickly on the O'Neill thing, just for my edification here,
Mr. O'Neill's publicist played for you a tape where Mr. O'Neill says what again?

JOHNS: Well, he says in the tape essentially that he did not go to Cambodia,
plain and simple. He says that a couple times in fact in this little short interview
that was played for me on the phone. Now, of course, as you listen to that
conversation with Richard Nixon, he says something completely different or,
at least, that's what it sounds like --

<snip>

By the 25th of Aug. on the Hannity and Colmes show, O'Neill had figured how
to seem to answer this:

<snip>

COLMES: You claimed at one point you weren't , and then you claimed
you were. This is very confusing to people.

O'NEILL: Well, it shouldn't be confused. I was never in Cambodia, and Kerry
lied when he said he was in Cambodia.

COLMES: You said to Richard Nixon you were in Cambodia.

. . .

HANNITY: On the border.

COLMES: There's a tape of you saying that to Richard Nixon.

O'NEILL: What's the next sentence? I was along the Cambodian border.
That's exactly right. What I told Nixon and was trying to tell him in this
meeting was I was along the Cambodian border.

<snip>

http://mediamatters.org/items/200408250004


But the problem with that is he'd earlier claimed that not only no one
went into Cambodia, that no one came within 30 miles of the border:

<snip>

O'Neill: . . .everyone familiar with the entire operation series knows that the
PCF, the Swift Boat areas, stopped just north of Sa-Dec, some 50 miles from
the border. The areas further north were PBRs--smaller boats--and that the
border was heavily guarded to ensure that nobody could go across it.

(Interviewer): There were navy gunboats anchored in the Mekong River
Channel, through which a Swift Boat would have to pass.

O' NEILL: Yes. It would have been apprehended 30 miles before. But were
placed there because in 1967 some drunken Army guys actually went up
that river and were interned in Cambodia. And so to avoid future incidents,
those gunboats were placed there. And we checked with the commander of
those gunboats, whose name is Tom Anderson. He's also in the book.

<snip>

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=4835

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x775416#775520