I can corroborate Michelle Malkin’s alibi for the recent assault on Chris Matthews, as I jus caught her segment on Bill O’Reilly’s show. Money quote:

O’REILLY: You basically have a party, the Republican Party tonight, that’s going to put Laura Bush, who everybody likes, and is a compassionate woman, a very nice woman, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who’s done a lot of good work for children, and he’s going to emphasize that, and his immigrant status, but how can a party that has embraced the Swift Boats, which was very … you know, whether you agree with that or not …. brutal, brutal … uh … how can they say they’re compassionate?

MALKIN: Well, I think they are showing compassion for veterans who have felt wronged for the last 30 years and falsely accused of atrocities that John Kerry has pinned on them

O’REILLY: Oh, that is such a good answer, Michelle. Ha, ha! I thought I was going to stump you with that question.

MALKIN: [laughs]

O’REILLY: Very, very… I’m very impressed… that was really… so they [unintelligble] showing compassion to the 250 guys who think they got hosed by Kerry. Very good.

MALKIN: Not just the 250…

O’REILLY: I’ve got no comeback. I’ve got no comeback. I want everybody to be nicer, though, and I think you do too, don’t you?

To all who have bashed O’Reilly for being too nasty while defending Chris Matthews for being “tough,” your apologies are graciously accepted, in advance.

On a related note, below is the letter which, according to the SwiftVets’ web site, was delivered to Kerry’s campaign yesterday.

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth
P.O. Box 26184
Alexandria, Virginia 22313

August 31, 2004

Senator John Kerry
901 15th Street NW
Washington, DC 20005

Dear Senator Kerry:

As you prepare for your address before the American Legion in Nashville, Tennessee, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth encourages you to use this opportunity to clarify your actions in Vietnam and your statements about your fellow Veterans and shipmates when you returned home. Since you have made your four-month tour in Vietnam the centerpiece of your campaign, we respectfully insist that you be truthful. The public is owed a full and honest accounting of your actions. Veterans are owed an apology from you and an acknowledgement that there was no basis in fact for the accusations you made against them.

We urge you to:

1. Apologize for your conduct once you returned from Vietnam. Your exaggerated testimony before the US Senate; the blanket indictment of your fellow veterans; throwing away medals and ribbons; all of these actions dishonored America and the armed forces. Your rhetoric and actions were not only wrong, they aided the enemy and brought great pain to POW’s, veterans and their families.
2. Clarify the conflicting accounts involving the Bay Hap River incident of March 13, 1969 (Bronze Star and 3rd Purple Heart). You have now described three different versions of this incident. In the first version of this incident presented during the Democrat National Convention, you stated: “No man left behind,” suggesting to the American people that you alone stayed on the river to rescue Mr. Rassmann. Later, when forced to acknowledge conflicting eyewitness testimony from fellow swift boat veterans, you said that your boat left the scene to return moments later to retrieve Jim Rassmann from the water. Yet, in another version of the same incident discovered in the Congressional Record, you reported that your boat struck a mine and Rassmann fell off the boat. Mr. Kerry, please explain to your fellow veterans and the American people which version is the truth.
3. Affirm that the injuries for which you received your purple hearts never required any medical treatment beyond perhaps a bandage and that, in all instances, these injuries were self-inflicted and came from your own weapon. Further, that if any of these purple hearts were falsely awarded, that you would not have been eligible to leave Vietnam after serving only four months.
4. Acknowledge what your own biographer is now saying, that the Christmas in Cambodia claim is “obviously wrong,” that you were never in Cambodia over Christmas or any other time during your brief, four-month tour in Vietnam and that your statements before the United States Senate in 1986 were false.

If you undertake these steps we will be satisfied that the American public has been sufficiently apprised as to these aspects of your career, and we will discontinue the media advertisements you have sought so fervently to silence.

Please know that Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are eager to close our own personal chapters on Vietnam and instead focus on the war we’re currently fighting — the ongoing war on terrorism. In the absence of full public disclosure and a public apology, we will continue efforts to carry our message to an ever-expanding base of grassroots supporters.

Senator Kerry, we want to get Vietnam behind us. But, we can only do so if the truth is told.

We respectfully await your reply.

Sincerely,

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth

Care to place any bets as to what reply they get, if any?