T. Boone Chickens

You might have been following the (possibly drunken) mouthings of T. Boone Pickens from the American Spectator dinner the other night:

Sen. John Kerry, whose 2004 presidential campaign was torpedoed by critics of his Vietnam War record, said Friday he has personally accepted a Texas oilman's offer to pay $1 million to anyone who can disprove even a single charge of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

In a letter to T. Boone Pickens, the Massachusetts Democrat wrote: "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. I am prepared to prove the lie beyond any reasonable doubt."

Pickens' original boast (again, I'm not discounting the possibility the man was shit-faced and egged on), for incontrovertible proof of one lie, just one, that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth told during the 2004 Presidential campaign.

Hell, I don't have access to any of the factual material and I'd take that challenge on in a heartbeat!

Kerry took Pickens' challenge head on, and good for him, because as with bullies of all stripes...Pickens' chickens out!:

Dear Senator Kerry:
So glad to hear from you regarding the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth political ad campaign, and an offer I made public at an American Spectator dinner in Washington, D.C. last week. I am intrigued by your letter, and am certainly open to your challenge.

My concern at the Spectator Dinner was, and continues to be, that you and other political figures were and are maligning the Swift Boat Veterans, and I want to prevent this important part of American history from being unfairly portrayed.

In order to disprove the accuracy of the Swift Boat ads, I will ultimately need you to provide the following:

1) The journal you maintained during your service in Vietnam.
2) Your military record, specifically your service records for the years
1971-1978, and copies of all movies and tapes made during your
service.

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. I now challenge you to make this commitment: If you cannot prove anything in the Swift Boat ads to be untrue, that you will make a $1 million gift to the charity I am choosing -- the Medal of Honor Foundation.

Gee...T. Boone...you never put conditions in your original challenge as the nature of the proof or anything beyond disproving one claim.

Did you wake up the next morning, take a couple of Excedrin, and as you were reviewing your performance the night before while shaving, nick yourself when you came to the sudden realization that, yes, indeedy, the one man who could factually, definitively and factually refute not just one, but any number of claims, would drop that bomb on you?

"Maligning the Swift Boat Veterans" is undoubtedly the funniest turn of phrase I've heard since Bruce Cutler said this in defense of John Gotti: "He has threatened to kill hundreds of people, and all the people that have been threatened on tape by John are alive and well, or, if not, they died of natural causes."

So who is T. Boone Pickens? Well, you could describe him in several ways: failed venture capitalist, failed political king maker, failed philanthropist, failed father...are ya seeing a pattern here?

Oh...and he's an executive director of the Rudy Giuliani campaign.

Nuff said.

Oh...except that he's a chicken.