This sums it up best- from Chicago Sun Times
This sums it up best- from Chicago Sun Times
Truth bound to come out on Kerry's military duty
August 10, 2004
BY JOHN O'SULLIVAN
When Sen. John Kerry saluted and announced that he was "reporting for duty" at last month's Democratic Convention, he made his military record a legitimate subject of political attack and journalistic investigation. That moment was the culmination of the powerful "Vietnam theme" that has distinguished the Kerry presidential campaign from almost all recent Democratic campaigns.
He had turned around a failing primary season in Iowa with the filmed testimony of the sailor whose life he saved when he pulled him back into the swift boat in which they served. He had taken former swift boat veterans along with him on the campaign trail. And in Boston he filled the podium with these veterans and retired senior military officers to hammer home the message that the Democrats under John Kerry are safe on security. Kerry has done everything possible to reassure the voters -- and thereby to neutralize a long-standing Republican advantage -- on national security.
It was always, however, a risky strategy. After all, Kerry had first come to public prominence as a passionate anti-war protester who in congressional hearings and on television programs had accused the U.S. armed forces in Vietnam of regularly and habitually committing war crimes. There was a serious clash of narratives here: How could he both maintain the truth of his charges and take pride in his war service -- even citing it as a reason to vote for him? And if he did both, was he not asking the American people to elect a war criminal as their chief executive?
Earlier this year Kerry tried to finesse the issue by apologizing for possible exaggerations but not quite withdrawing the accusation either. But that made matters worse -- for a reason that in retrospect seems obvious but that none of the seasoned campaign professionals around Kerry apparently foresaw.
For some years many Vietnam veterans had quietly seethed at Kerry for profiting politically from his attacks on their service. Now that Kerry was in the running to become president -- while maintaining his accusations, however half-heartedly -- they were provoked into responding. The results are the book Unfit for Service, co-authored by John O'Neill, who succeeded Kerry as the swift boat captain in Vietnam, and a television ad from "Swift Boat Veterans For Truth" (www.swiftvets,com) in which former veterans who served with Kerry in Vietnam attack his record. More than 250 such veterans are claimed in support of these attacks.
These allegations against Kerry in Unfit to Serve and in supporting statements by the veterans are as numerous, specific, detailed and shameful (well, almost as shameful) as the allegations he leveled against the U.S. armed forces in the early 1970s. They include that Kerry repeatedly claimed to have fought in Cambodia on Christmas Day 1968 when all his commanding officers deny the claim; that he received a medal for a wound that was accidentally self-inflicted, and that he first left the fight before returning to save the vet whose rescue earned Kerry another medal.
These allegations are both more serious and better supported by evidence than, for instance, the claim that George W. Bush shirked his duty in the National Guard. They are exactly the kind of charges that would set off a firestorm of controversy in normal circumstances. Yet a strange nervous silence, broken only by a handful of stories and commentaries, has settled over the story.
The Kerry campaign, for very obvious reasons, is seeking to suppress the story, sending out lawyer's letters to television stations warning them against running the ad. The Bush campaign, nervous that the story will backfire, is quietly dissociating itself. Sen. John McCain is running interference for Kerry, partly out of habit, and partly because one of the financial backers of the ad also supported a dubious campaign against him in the 2004 South Carolina primary. The public understandably does not like to be told that heroes have feet of clay. And the media . . . ah, the media.
As the recent Pew poll demonstrated, there really is liberal media bias. Only 7 percent of the national press describe themselves as conservative. Establishment journalists would almost certainly prefer the swift boat allegations simply go away. But the matter is not that simple. To begin with, the press has an obligation to follow its own rules. A major story needs two sources to justify publication. These stories have more than 250 sources; they are retired senior officers; and they are not skulking in the shadows but putting their names and reputations behind the allegations.
Even if the major media decided to bury this story, they would probably not succeed -- and they know as much. The "blogosphere" -- that voluntary society of unpaid free-lance journalists -- is following the story avidly, correcting errors, producing original documents, sifting through different accounts. Some bloggers are for Kerry, some against, but all are together advancing the story by winnowing truth from falsehood. Unless the bloggers conclusively acquit Kerry before the story migrates outwards, the mainstream media will eventually be forced to devote serious resources to it.
What will they find? Until some further digging is done, no one can be sure. Kerry may indeed be fully acquitted. For what it's worth, my own view is that Kerry went out to Vietnam hoping to get a warrior's medals and credentials as the basis for a political career. He behaved bravely in some circumstances and exaggerated his bravery in others. He even took a film camera along to re-enact his heroic exploits for later campaign commercials.
He returned home, however, to find that the war had become deeply unpopular. Nothing daunted, he re-invented himself as an anti-war veteran, and prospered on that basis. In 2004, however, he was running for president in a political climate that had changed yet again -- one in which his Vietnam heroics might be usefully exploited to win patriotic marks. Where were those old medals he hadn't thrown away.
This sums it up best- from Chicago Sun Times
Truth bound to come out on Kerry's military duty
August 10, 2004
BY JOHN O'SULLIVAN
When Sen. John Kerry saluted and announced that he was "reporting for duty" at last month's Democratic Convention, he made his military record a legitimate subject of political attack and journalistic investigation. That moment was the culmination of the powerful "Vietnam theme" that has distinguished the Kerry presidential campaign from almost all recent Democratic campaigns.
He had turned around a failing primary season in Iowa with the filmed testimony of the sailor whose life he saved when he pulled him back into the swift boat in which they served. He had taken former swift boat veterans along with him on the campaign trail. And in Boston he filled the podium with these veterans and retired senior military officers to hammer home the message that the Democrats under John Kerry are safe on security. Kerry has done everything possible to reassure the voters -- and thereby to neutralize a long-standing Republican advantage -- on national security.
It was always, however, a risky strategy. After all, Kerry had first come to public prominence as a passionate anti-war protester who in congressional hearings and on television programs had accused the U.S. armed forces in Vietnam of regularly and habitually committing war crimes. There was a serious clash of narratives here: How could he both maintain the truth of his charges and take pride in his war service -- even citing it as a reason to vote for him? And if he did both, was he not asking the American people to elect a war criminal as their chief executive?
Earlier this year Kerry tried to finesse the issue by apologizing for possible exaggerations but not quite withdrawing the accusation either. But that made matters worse -- for a reason that in retrospect seems obvious but that none of the seasoned campaign professionals around Kerry apparently foresaw.
For some years many Vietnam veterans had quietly seethed at Kerry for profiting politically from his attacks on their service. Now that Kerry was in the running to become president -- while maintaining his accusations, however half-heartedly -- they were provoked into responding. The results are the book Unfit for Service, co-authored by John O'Neill, who succeeded Kerry as the swift boat captain in Vietnam, and a television ad from "Swift Boat Veterans For Truth" (www.swiftvets,com) in which former veterans who served with Kerry in Vietnam attack his record. More than 250 such veterans are claimed in support of these attacks.
These allegations against Kerry in Unfit to Serve and in supporting statements by the veterans are as numerous, specific, detailed and shameful (well, almost as shameful) as the allegations he leveled against the U.S. armed forces in the early 1970s. They include that Kerry repeatedly claimed to have fought in Cambodia on Christmas Day 1968 when all his commanding officers deny the claim; that he received a medal for a wound that was accidentally self-inflicted, and that he first left the fight before returning to save the vet whose rescue earned Kerry another medal.
These allegations are both more serious and better supported by evidence than, for instance, the claim that George W. Bush shirked his duty in the National Guard. They are exactly the kind of charges that would set off a firestorm of controversy in normal circumstances. Yet a strange nervous silence, broken only by a handful of stories and commentaries, has settled over the story.
The Kerry campaign, for very obvious reasons, is seeking to suppress the story, sending out lawyer's letters to television stations warning them against running the ad. The Bush campaign, nervous that the story will backfire, is quietly dissociating itself. Sen. John McCain is running interference for Kerry, partly out of habit, and partly because one of the financial backers of the ad also supported a dubious campaign against him in the 2004 South Carolina primary. The public understandably does not like to be told that heroes have feet of clay. And the media . . . ah, the media.
As the recent Pew poll demonstrated, there really is liberal media bias. Only 7 percent of the national press describe themselves as conservative. Establishment journalists would almost certainly prefer the swift boat allegations simply go away. But the matter is not that simple. To begin with, the press has an obligation to follow its own rules. A major story needs two sources to justify publication. These stories have more than 250 sources; they are retired senior officers; and they are not skulking in the shadows but putting their names and reputations behind the allegations.
Even if the major media decided to bury this story, they would probably not succeed -- and they know as much. The "blogosphere" -- that voluntary society of unpaid free-lance journalists -- is following the story avidly, correcting errors, producing original documents, sifting through different accounts. Some bloggers are for Kerry, some against, but all are together advancing the story by winnowing truth from falsehood. Unless the bloggers conclusively acquit Kerry before the story migrates outwards, the mainstream media will eventually be forced to devote serious resources to it.
What will they find? Until some further digging is done, no one can be sure. Kerry may indeed be fully acquitted. For what it's worth, my own view is that Kerry went out to Vietnam hoping to get a warrior's medals and credentials as the basis for a political career. He behaved bravely in some circumstances and exaggerated his bravery in others. He even took a film camera along to re-enact his heroic exploits for later campaign commercials.
He returned home, however, to find that the war had become deeply unpopular. Nothing daunted, he re-invented himself as an anti-war veteran, and prospered on that basis. In 2004, however, he was running for president in a political climate that had changed yet again -- one in which his Vietnam heroics might be usefully exploited to win patriotic marks. Where were those old medals he hadn't thrown away.
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