In the case of Senator Mitty

If you heard the first hour of the broadcast by Hugh Hewitt last night, you know that the liberal apologists’ first apologia for John Kerry’s purported secret Christmas mission to Cambodia with the CIA man was that Kerry may have been mistaken about his location. One of Hugh’s callers hilariously invoked the seafaring Gilligan of situation comedy fame, alluded to in the photoshopped “Swimming to Cambodia” item we posted last night. Addressing this spin more seriously, reader Steve Weston writes:

Here’s a map that shows where Kerry spent XMas, 1968, Sa Dec.
SaDec.jpg
As can be seen, Sa Dec is about midway between the open sea and the Cambodian border. No one, least of all a boat commander could be so mistaken as to thinking he was anywhere near the Cambodian border. And the Navy has much better maps than this one.
Note also that there is a sizable community, Hong Ngu, on the river at the border. I’m sure it was garrisoned in 1968 and it’s damn doubtful that any boat mistakenly went past Hong Ngu upriver.
Run this to anyone who will take it up as a post about Sen. Walter Mitty.

As Dionne Warwick sang in the David/Bacharach composition “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?”:

Fame and fortune is a magnet.
It can pull you far away from home.
With a dream in your heart you’re never alone.

With a dream in your heart, and the secret agent man by your side.
UPDATE: At NRO Byron York adds the testimony of Kerry boatmate Steve Gardner and compiles a set of Kerry quotations in “Kerry’s ‘Christmas in Cambodia.'” Gardner says:

“It was physically, totally, categorically, across-the-board impossible to get into the canal that went to Cambodia with a swift boat. There were concrete pilings that were put in the water…plus, the Navy kept patrol boats there to make sure nobody went in. When I was on the 44 boat, it was a physical impossibility to take a swift boat into Cambodian waters.”

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