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Proof=Actual Documentation

Rich Texas bastard T. Boone Pickens boasted that he would give $1 million to anyone who can disprove “even a single charge” leveled by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who he funded to the tune of $3 milion. Kerry offered to meet with Pickens and do so, with the million dollars going to veterans’ charities.But now Pickens is reneging [1]:

Pickens, who provided $3 million to bankroll the group during Kerry’s race against President Bush, responded by saying he won’t consider giving Kerry the reward unless he surrenders his combat films, additional military records and wartime journal.

In other words, Pickens was full of bravado when he made the offer in a keynote address in front of a bunch of friendly right wingers at an American Spectator dinner, but when Kerry took him up on it, he was a bit too cowardly to back it up:

“While I am prepared to show they lied on allegation after allegation, you have generously offered to pay one million dollars for just one thing that can be proven false,” Kerry wrote to Pickens. “I am prepared to prove the lie beyond any reasonable doubt.”

“Just one thing” has turned into more records than George Bush has willingly surrendered under government subpoena:

In his response, Pickens wrote: “I am certainly open to your challenge,” but he said he would not pay Kerry unless the senator first provided him with copies of his wartime journals, as well as movies he shot while on patrol and his complete military records for 1971 to 1978.

Pickens said such documentation, which the group has previously sought, would be needed to disprove its ads.

“When you have done so, if you can then prove anything in the ads was materially untrue, I will gladly award $1 million. As you know, I have been a long and proud supporter of the American military and veterans’ causes,” Pickens wrote.

“A proud supporter of the American military” — not to the point of actually, you know, enlisting or anything. More of the “yellow elephant” variety one would expect from a big Rudy Giuliani fundraiser.

He then goes for a Rovian jujitsu move: saying that if Kerry “cannot prove anything in the Swift Boat ads to be untrue,” Kerry should agree to give a million dollars to the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation.

That’s Jane Hamsher . [2]

Well, Jane, ya see there only one small problem with your pro-Kerry scneario. Asking for actual documentation isn’t moving the goalposts. Kerry hasn’t provided such.

Moreover, Kerry’s record on things isn’t exactly stellar. As Jules Crittenden [3] says:

There’s the disparagement of American soldiers in front of the cameras, the throwing of someone else’s medals. The decades of unremarkable backbenchwarming. But I found out everything I needed to know about John Kerry’s leadership qualifications when I learned that, four months into his combat command, having received three minor wounds, none of which required hospitalization, he took a technical out. Some people like to whack Bush for going into the Air National Guard, Cheney, Romney, Giuliani and Clinton for their various stratagems of Vietnam War avoidance. You can say what you like about those situations, but none of them can be accused of, having sworn to serve and accepted command, walking away from men who had been placed in their charge in combat.

Are you really expecting us to take such a ‘man”.. John Kerry… at his word? (It’s seared in my memory, I tell you… seared…)

More, Memeorandum

Addendum:  (David L)

If I were a betting man, I’d bet on Patterico’s [4] take:

It sounds like Kerry thinks he has a sure winner on one charge. If so, he’ll likely use that as a hammer to claim all the charges were false. Pickens isn’t the type to back down from a challenge so this should be fun. Whatever the terms of the bet, I hope the process is public and adversarial

Yeah Kerry have found something to refute one allegation, or to fudge it.   He then wants to use the one item to discredit the entire set of allegatiuons.   The entirety of Kerry’s claims can not be true.  Kerry claimed to be in Cambodia when Richard Nixon was President.   Thic can  not be true.   Kerry’s tour of duty ended before Nixon took office.   Pickens is standing by his guns.