It looks as though Jesse Ventura is not going to take the allegations of former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle that he punched out Ventura – no pun intended - lying down. Not only has Ventura categorically denied ever having been punched by Kyle, Ventura has also demanded an apology and retraction from Fox News which, as I reported over the weekend, broadcast and cheered on Kyle without doing any apparent fact checking of his claim. (H/T Aria)

Ventura discussed the matter at length on The Alex Jones Show (the entire interview is below) and vehemently denied Kyle’s story that he decked Ventura at a bar in response to Ventura's unpatriotic behavior. Frankly, while I’m no fan of Jones, I'm definitely not a 9/11 Truther and I was turned off by the conspiracy theories Jones and Ventura put forth about Kyle, Ventura’s denial is very, very plausible and casts a lot of doubt on Kyle’s version of events. Our own Aria made most of the same points in her comments to my earlier post.

Ventura said, “I want people to understand clearly, (Kyle’s) confessing then to the crime of assault, and it’s an assault on a former governor… I want to clear his name because he’s confessing to assaulting me and it didn’t happen. I can unequivocally tell you that I’ve never been punched in Coronado, California since I’ve been out of (active duty in the Navy) in 1973."

Ventura also said that if Fox had really wanted the truth, it would have checked with the owner of the bar where the assault allegedly happened. If the story were true, there would have been witnesses and it would have come out earlier. Ventura said, “If a former governor within the SEAL community had been knocked down and hit and assaulted, it would have traveled through the SEAL community like wildfire and for this to now say it happened five and a half or six years after it happened – that’s absurd.”

Ventura also acknowledged that while he was always against the war in Iraq, he never held it against any soldiers and would never say, as Kyle claimed – and Fox Nation credulously transcribed – that “You (SEALs) deserve to lose a few guys.”

Alex Jones called it defamation. Ventura didn’t want to specify what remedies he’d seek. He said, “Certainly, I would like a retraction and I’m gonna defend myself, Alex. I’m not going to say over the show what I’m doing right now but you know I’m not taking this lying down. This is extremely serious. It’s heartbreaking… I’m going to do what I need to do to clear this matter up. I won’t rest on just simply talking to you. I will pursue other avenues.” Later he said, “Let me just say this: I won’t threaten.”