Swifties Call Kerry's Rebuttal To Their Attacks, "Hurtful"

Your Daily (More Or Less) Dose of Satire

Almost two years after the contentious 2004 presidential elections, friends and supporters of Senator John Kerry are working diligently to set the record straight on Kerry's military record in Vietnam. They have been systematically proving false every contention made by the ironically-named "Swift Boat Veterans For Truth" during their $30 million anti-Kerry campaign.

And this has many of the "Swifties" crying, "Foul!"

What I've Learned So Far... Today was recently able to interview one such individual, Mr. Clyde Payedoff of Wichita, Kansas.

WILSF-T: "So Mr. Payedoff, you object to the uncovering of any information showing your group's attacks on Senator Kerry's record to be less than truthful?"

Payedoff: "Damn Skippy I do."

WILSF-T: "But so far, every claim by your group that has been investigated has turned out to be either grossly exaggerated or completely false."

Payedoff: "So what? Between the stuff we said and some patriotic Diebold voting machines in Ohio, we just barely saved this nation from maybe getting into another nightmare of peace and prosperity like what we lived through in the 'Nineties. You ought to be grateful to us!"

WILSF-T: "I'm sure quite a few Halliburton stockholders are."

Payedoff: "Besides, I really hate to be called liar. That's hurtful and unfair."

WILSF-T: "So you stand by your statements that then-lieutenant  Kerry received his second Purple Heart for sprinkling ketchup on his arm and hollering 'Ouch'?"

Payedoff: "I sure do.

WILSF-T: "And that you often saw him eating puppies for dinner?"

Payedoff: "You bet."

WILSF-T: "And that he was actually a general in the North Vietnamese Army?"

Payedoff: "Well, that part may not have been entirely true."

WILSF-T: "Oh?"

Payedoff: "Well, I just know he liked to put on an NVA general's hat and parade around in a tutu."

WILSF-T: "A tutu?"

Payedoff: "Yeah, you know, like one of them ballet chicks. And don't forget, he was eating puppies. Saw it with my own eyes."

WILSF-T: "But how could you have seen anything like that, since your service record indicates that you arrived in Vietnam more than two years after Kerry was back in the States?"

Payedoff: "A typo?"

WILSF-T: "Your record also says that while you told Sean Hannity you were a gunner on a swift boat, you were actually a clerk-typist in Saigon. It seems like there is no way you would ever have been within a hundred miles of a swift boat."

Payedoff: "Who are you going to believe, the facts or Hannity?"

WILSF-T: "Well, we sort of lean toward the facts."

Payedoff: "Lucky for us, a whole lot of people don't."

WILSF-T: "So you're sticking by your story?"

Payedoff: "Would there be any money in changing it?"

WILSF-T: "No."

Payedoff: "Then I continue to live for 'Truth.'"

WILSF-T: "Thanks for your time."


Copyright © 2006, Michael Ball