Speaking on a South Dakota Public Broadcasting radio show (from Associated Press via myway news):
“I never would have done the story,” said Hewitt, who retired in June as the show’s executive producer after 36 years.
“I would have been very wary injecting myself into a campaign. You’ve got to be very careful that you’re not perceived as doing the job that one of the two candidates should be doing himself.”
During the radio show, Hewitt said he’s sorry that “60 Minutes” and Rather were perceived as doing Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s job for him “by bringing up an old issue, and they weren’t careful enough to not make mistakes. And the minute you make one mistake, you’re dead.”
Hewitt added that it was “stupid” for Kerry to have injected his Vietnam service into the presidential race, which opened the door for anti-Kerry groups such as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
Not only have previous presidential candidate war veterans avoided such talk, but Kerry had followed up his Vietnam service by becoming an outspoken opponent of the war, he said.
“You can’t play war hero if it’s about a war where you threw your medals away,” Hewitt said.
Actually, as I understand it, he didn’t actually throw his own medals away, he through someone else’s medals away. He kept his own.
According to an ABC News story from back in April…
Many veterans were seen throwing their medals and ribbons over the fence in front of the U.S. Capitol. The Boston Globe and other newspapers reported that Kerry was among these veterans.
But in 1984, when he first ran for the U.S. Senate, Kerry revealed he still had his medals. According to a Boston Globe report on April 15, 1984, union officials had expressed uneasiness with Kerry’s candidacy because he had thrown his medals away. Kerry acknowledged the medals he threw away were, in fact, another soldier’s medals. He reportedly invited a union official home to personally inspect his Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts, awarded for his combat duty as a Navy lieutenant.
And that’s the kind of man Kerry is.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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