Narcissus redux

It's convention week, all right. A Drudge splash:

CONTROVERSY SURROUNDS KERRY CONVENTION FILM: WAR SCENES REENACTED

World Exclusive

A bombshell new book written by the man who took over John Kerry's Swift Boat charges: Kerry reenacted combat scenes for film while in Vietnam!

The footage is at the center of a growing controversy in Boston.

A world exclusive? Geez. I was on this in March—well, okay, so I got the heads-up from an NRO article, which picked it up from a 1996 interview, which…anyways:

“Kerry carried a home movie camera to record his exploits for later viewing,” charges a naval officer in the upcoming book UNFIT FOR COMMAND.

“Kerry would revisit ambush locations for reenacting combat scenes where he would portray the hero, catching it all on film. Kerry would take movies of himself walking around in combat gear, sometimes dressed as an infantryman walking resolutely through the terrain. He even filmed mock interviews of himself narrating his exploits. A joke circulated among Swiftees was that Kerry left Vietnam early not because he received three Purple Hearts, but because he had recorded enough film of himself to take home for his planned political campaigns.” […]

NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Lt. Col. Robert “Buzz” Patterson in his new book RECKLESS DISREGARD, details one of the claimed Kerry reenactments for film:

“On February 28, 1969, now in charge of PCF 94, Kerry came under fire from an enemy location on the shore. The crew's gunner returned fire, hitting and wounding the lone gunman. Kerry directed the boat to charge the enemy position. Beaching his boat, Kerry jumped off, chased the wounded insurgent behind a thatched hutch, and killed him. Kerry and his crew returned within days, armed with a Super 8 video camera he had purchased at the post exchange at Cam Ranh Bay, and reenacted the skirmish on film.”

If there's any justice in the world, this will bite Kerry so hard that he won't be able to sit down until November. But the mainline press will, of course, bury it.

UPDATE: Swift Boat Veterans For Truth. Rather damning stuff.