Thursday, May 28, 2009

Jesse Ventura NOT a Navy Seal

I am glad the former Minnesota governor is unequivocal in his assessment that water boarding is torture. I am not glad that he still allows himself to be called a navy seal.

KING: You were a Navy SEAL.
VENTURA: That’s right.

This evening he did just that on the Keith Olbermann show on MSNBC. Ventura did say that he was a member of the Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) which is true, but he didn't correct Olbermann when he introduced him as a seal. This story is old, ten years old in fact, and shouldn't be an issue any longer.

". . . the Governor's office confirmed that Ventura had been a member of an Underwater Demolition Team (UDT), and not an elite Navy SEAL. But, they argued that because the two entities merged under the SEAL banner in 1983, UDT's can now refer to themselves as SEALs, even though in Ventura's case, his active military service ended ten years before the merger occurred-- . . .

In print articles and broadcast appearances, Ventura lets interviewers refer to him as a Navy SEAL, or an ex-Navy SEAL--which they routinely do--without correcting them."

No wonder Americans are so uninformed. The corporate media doesn't know how to fact check. Google makes it easier than ever you know.