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Home » The speedy and brilliant fact-checkers at the WaPo have come up with a correction

The speedy and brilliant fact-checkers at the WaPo have come up with a correction

The New Neo Posted on by

I just found this correction in which the WaPo admits that Nathan Phillips is not a Vietnam veteran.

Fancy that. It’s something the right half of the blogosphere suspected almost immediately. I had made a comment or two about it, but was waiting for confirmation. Now we have it, straight from the WaPo horse’s mouth:

Correction: Earlier versions of this story incorrectly said that Native American activist Nathan Phillips fought in the Vietnam War. Phillips served in the U.S. Marines from 1972 to 1976 but was never deployed to Vietnam,” according to a note at the end.

I still don’t know whether Phillips himself ever claimed to be a Vietnam vet, or whether the MSM had added that little bit of icing to the cake and then broadcast it around the world without fact-checking. The most I could find as a direct quote from him was that he was a “Vietnam times vet,” which is technically correct.

Comments

The speedy and brilliant fact-checkers at the <i>WaPo</i> have come up with a correction — 23 Comments

  1. I’ve seen him listed at 64 so that would be on the young age range for Vietnam anyway. And were the marines still there in 72?

    The other thing is many like our friend Frankovich referring to him as a ‘frail old man’. Now I know you can be frail at 64 but even that is knee jerk narrative shaping.

  2. He may have mis-spoken, but Legal Insurrection quotes a CNN interview with Phillips.

    And I’m a Vietnam veteran

    https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/01/wapo-corrects-covington-smear-story-native-american-activist-didnt-fight-in-the-vietnam-war/

    Of course, according to the time line I saw, the last combat Marines in ‘Nam were withdrawn some time in 1971, which is well before Phillips joined the Corps. Only way he would have been posted to ‘Nam would have been as an embassy guard in Saigon.

    I’m thinking that’s a plum job, not readily available to new boots.

    But, live TV can be stressful and maybe he meant to say his carefully crafted “Vietnam Era” veteran phrasing.

  3. I read earlier today that in 2000 Phillips claimed to be a Marine Recon-Ranger who was the point man when he was asking for some kind of support for his cause. Other places he was referred to both as a Vietnam era vet and a Vietnam Vet by reporters. The reporting on Saturday, I am sorry to say, was just another piece of anti Trump reversal of the facts.

    The next two years will only get worse and the story about an annoying old Indian interacting with a conservative school kid only became a story with MAGA on the hat when in fact it was a nothing really to see hear, keep on moving brief encounter between groups of people in D.C.

  4. I could post this on nearly all of these threads…but once will have to do:

    Liars lie. Weasels weasel.
    Is anyone surprised that this BS flows from the lips of the left like water downhill?

    So…for every lie…for every leftist media dog-pile that we know is fake…for every fake apology…for every D screaming “Impeach”…for every stupid distraction talking point that our little trolls throw down here because the Boss is nice enough to let them look foolish in public. You know what to do.
    You be Andrew Breitbart.

  5. ‘Vietnam era vet’ is kind of a weasely way of getting attention. I have two brothers that would fit this descriptor. But one was actually stationed in West Germany and never came near Vietnam. But he is a ‘Vietnam era vet’.

  7. Has anyone discovered if Phillips is actually an enrolled member of an Indian tribe, and if so, does his tribe recognize him as an “elder?”

  10. Trevor Noah Jokes That He Wanted To Punch The MAGA-Hat Kid
    [ha ha ha sooo funny]

    Alyssa Milano: ‘The red MAGA hat is the new white hood’

    “Without white boys being able to empathize with other people, humanity will continue to destroy itself. #FirstThoughtsWhenIWakeUp,” – Alyssa Milano

    The man that boy is harassing in the video is Nathan and he’s a veteran. pic.twitter.com/dellmT0Isb
    — Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) January 19, 2019

    Currently, no one has gotten a bj for hitting the kid, but further analysis of the same “ladies” prior advice shows a high probability that her home remedy was used lots of times for various reasons…

  11. Kate:

    He does appear to be a member in good standing of the Omaha tribe, according to this article.

    On the other hand, nearly every other thing reported in that article is a lie, so I’m not sure why we should believe the tribal affiliation.

    Nevertheless, I do think it’s most likely true.

  12. If I were young master Sandmann I would create a video of all his male friends lining up and gently smacking him in the face, then post it to the SNL writer’s twitter feed.

  13. Neo, thanks. Your “this article” link isn’t live. I did an online search and didn’t find anything, myself.

  15. The Omaha “tribe” seems to be late to the game. This old Indian is a nut who has been in DC for six years, according to a version that might now be deleted. He and his “partner” have been living in a shack, then a basement. It sounds like he was almost homeless with the usual psych pathology. He has a history that should become more clear as the right does what the media should have done.

    Nobody has yet proven that he actually was in the Marine Corps. He was 16 when the last Marines left VN.

  16. Thanks, Neo. Tribe members in Omaha rallied to his defense, based on the apparently false information which was circulating on Saturday and early Sunday. I wonder how they will react when some of them learn they’ve been had.

  18. During the Vietnam ear the MSM and left had no respect for Vietnam vets. But since John Kerry (Did you know he served in Vietnam?) reported for duty as the Democrat candidate for President, certain Vietnam vets became more acceptable. Now they champion a native American hustler as a Vietnam vet as respectable, maybe even a “hero.” My guess is that if you had on a MAGA hat and a Vietnam vet T-shirt, you would once again be dubbed a “baby killer” or worse. Because….Trump.

  21. The U.S. Military defines a Vietnam vet by when they served not where. Anyone who served even one day from August 5, 1964 – May 7, 1975 is a considered a Vietnam vet.

  22. Glen:

    No one—and I mean no one—considers that meaningful. And even the US Military does not commonly use the term that way. See this:

    The term [“Vietnam veteran”] has been used to describe veterans who were in the armed forces of South Vietnam, the United States armed forces, and countries allied to them, whether or not they were stationed in Vietnam during their service. However, the more common usage distinguishes between those who served “in country” and those who did not serve in Vietnam by referring to the “in country” veterans as “Vietnam veterans” and the others as “Vietnam-era veterans”. The U.S. government officially refers to all as “Vietnam-era veterans”.

    In addition, Phillips never left stateside and was only “discharged” rather than “honorably discharged.” He went AWOL three times and left with the rank of private. Lots more here on his service record.

  23. I served my two years in the Army, 1970-1972, sitting behind a desk in Munich. I would never dream of calling myself a Vietnam vet, or even a Vietnam-era vet. (Of course, you didn’t see any of them Russkies coming across the Fulda Gap when I was there, but that’s another story.)

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