The maturity of John Kerry

This is just childish:

Ted Sampley, a former Green Beret who served two full tours in Vietnam, spotted Kerry and his Secret Service detail at about 9:00 a.m. Monday morning at the Wall. Sampley walked up to Kerry, extended his hand and said, "Senator, I am Ted Sampley, the head of Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry, and I am here to escort you away from the Wall because you do not belong here."

At that point a Secret Service officer told Sampley to back away from Kerry. Sampley moved about 6 feet away and opened his jacket to reveal a HANOI JOHN T-shirt.

Kerry then began talking to a group of schoolchildren. Sampley then showed the T-shirt to the children and said, "Kerry does not belong at the Wall because he betrayed the brave soldiers who fought in Vietnam."

Just then Kerry - in front of the school children, other visitors and Secret Service agents - brazenly 'flashed the bird' at Sampley and then yelled out to everyone, "Sampley is a felon!"

All political issues aside, one would hope that a person who aspires to lead one of the largest nuclear powers in the world would have enough self-control to handle an aggravating situation with a reasonable amount of calmness and collectedness.

(via LGF)

June 1, 2004 12:32 PM
7 Comments

I've searched and searched for a substantiating link to that story and have been unable to find one. I even checked the washington times to make sure it wasn't being filtered through media bias. I may be wrong but I'm skeptical of this ever actually happening.

Pondered by eebmore at June 1, 2004 02:37 PM

Good call. All the links to the story are to newsmax.com, which now appears to be backing off the story. We'll see if anything else supporting this shows up in the next couple of days.

Pondered by maphet at June 1, 2004 03:20 PM

Yeah, I heard this afternoon that the story was bunk. Sad to say that it isn't far from what he has done in the past.

Pondered by crabby at June 1, 2004 06:24 PM

Although if I fought in Vietnam, and somebody started calling me a traitor at the memorial to my friends, I would probably give him the finger as well. This is why I am not running for President.

Pondered by mesh at June 2, 2004 01:52 PM

Well, you probably wouldn't have testified to congress that you and your friends committed war attrocities in Vietnam.

Pondered by psychophil at June 3, 2004 07:58 AM

Only if we did.

Pondered by mesh at June 3, 2004 04:47 PM

This seems to be the same sort of action that George W. Bush would be praised for, because he's a tough-talking regular guy who doesn't take any guff from folks.

Pondered by epiph at June 3, 2004 10:53 PM