Captain%27s Quarters

The Score:

Developments since Sunday include:

The Daily Show's Stewart asked Kerry directly what no media reporter to date has had the guts to ask: "Were you or were you not in Cambodia?" Kerry didn't answer. Meanwhile, the Washington Post says he never was, relying on his journals to fill out the last gap in the narrative. Hewitt, looking deeper into MACV-SOG, agrees.

Kerry's campaign has also come under fire because of his journals on the issue of the first Purple Heart. The journals note, AFTER the first PH was awarded, that he had not yet been under enemy fire. The campaign has responded by conceeding a Swiftie claim: that the wound was self-inflicted, although they still dispute the cirumstances, saying that it was a flare and not a M-79. They have admitted, however, that the "engagement" we've read about in several stories, all based on Kerry's testimony, was a fabrication.

The Purple Heart is not awarded for self-inflicted wounds, not even accidental ones:

The PURPLE HEART is awarded to members of the armed forces of the U.S. who are wounded by an instrument of war in the hands of the enemy and posthumously to the next of kin in the name of those who are killed in action or die of wounds received in action. It is specifically a combat decoration.

We remember that Kerry used the three-hearts rule to abandon the men under his command. This has been BlackFive's major complaint about the man all along. Now we find that he did so on the basis of at least one award he did not deserve.

And where did we hear about it first? The Swift Boat Vets, that's where. We heard about it from the doctor who supervised the nurse treating the wound, or says he did, and says the records would show it if Kerry would release them as he had promised to do and never has done. At first we could wonder; but it looks increasingly as if it's true.