The problem with the SBVT is that they contradict not just the official records, but their own past statements. There are so many holes in their stories that it would take a book to list them all. They have little credibility, and their motives are not pure.

As a Christian, before you defend them, perhaps you should remember that "Thou shalt not bear false witness" passage. Because the SBVT are not just lying, they are lying about an honorable man, about his defense of his nation and they are lying specifically in hopes of doing him harm.

As a Christian I do take lies as very serious. I've just completed "Unfit for Command" and it's more than just "he said, he said". Sure there are various views on what happened in combat but what Kerry did after the war seems to me the driving force behind the Swiftees and cannot be ignored.

What Kerry did after the war is indeed what's driving them, and it's a valid area for debate. It doesn't justify their lying about what he did during the war.

And they are lying. Some are contradicting what they themselves have said in the past. Others did not see the events but are just going by what they were told. And still others have just suddenly "remembered" things from 35 years ago.

The book itself is not even logically argued. There's a chapter that says Kerry was a "baby killer." But when they actually tell the story, it turns out he stopped another man from firing on civilians. The SBVT call him a "baby killer" because he then chose not to report it. Wha???

I wanted to amend what I said above. I understand that many of the people involved in the Swift Boat group have strong feelings about Kerry's actions after he left Vietnam. If they wanted to take the position that Kerry was wrong to speak out against the war, I think that would be a legitimate difference of opinion that we all could debate.

My problem is they started -- both in the sequence of TV ads and in the structure of the book -- by trying to tear down his record in combat, accusing him of lying. And they really don't have much evidence for those accusations. They will take an incident that is well documented in the official records and supported by the men actually on Kerry's boat, and one of the SBVT will say "Well I was there and that's not how it happened."

That's not evidence, that's an assertion. And almost all of their accusations are in a similar vein. In a number of cases, the person saying today "that's now how it happened" said at the time that that was how it happened. Adrian Lonsdale and George Elliott came out in 1996 to defend Kerry against the same kind of accusaton they're now making themselves. And John O'Neill, of course, was not even in Vietnam until some time after Kerry left.

So my question to you is, is it necessary to believe unsupported accusations against him in order to move on to criticizing his later anti-war activities?