Swift Boat Vets for Making Statements Based On Secondhand Information

[heidi]

I guess that's their new name?

I just posted on show_w_the_door re one of the "swift boat vets" in the ad, who's currently a DA in Oregon. It seems he's signed a sworn statement based on secondhand information. Oops!

Edited to add: From today's LA Times, an editorial which pretty well explains the issues within the media about things like false charges. It says:

There is an important difference, though, between the side campaign being run for Kerry and the one for Bush. The pro-Kerry campaign is nasty and personal. The pro-Bush campaign is nasty, personal and false.

No informed person can seriously believe that Kerry fabricated evidence to win his military medals in Vietnam. His main accuser has been exposed as having said the opposite at the time, 35 years ago. Kerry is backed by almost all those who witnessed the events in question, as well as by documentation. His accusers have no evidence except their own dubious word.

Not limited by the conventions of our colleagues in the newsroom, we can say it outright: These charges against John Kerry are false. Or at least, there is no good evidence that they are true. George Bush, if he were a man of principle, would say the same thing.

Ben Wasserman also has an interesting, very detailed and very point by point analysis of the conservative media coverage of the allegations against Kerry:

Last Thursday, the Washington Post reported that the military records of Larry Thurlow, one of John Kerry's major accusers among the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, contradicted Thurlow's version of events and confirmed Kerry's. At the very least, this cast severe doubt on the charge that Kerry fabricated the events that earned him one of his Vietnam War medals.

The conservative media had been pushing the fabrication story energetically. How did it deal with this new evidence undermining it? As it turns out, at almost every turn it soft-pedaled the new evidence or outright ignored it, showing its bias throughout.

More politics stuff - today, I have my first training session for Primary Day Legal Training so I can be a poll-based attorney on Primary Election Day. In order to be available that day, I am doing early voting (I'll be using an absentee ballot for the general election, but I want to try the electronic system myself before I go and try and help defend the rights of people who risk disenfranchisement (if any, and I truly hope there aren't).

Comments

[hedwig-snowy.livejournal.com]

I wonder how John McCain can stand on the same stage as Bush and not puke...or at least throw away his medals. He's already tossed away all his self-respect. The Swift Boat Veterans (all of them) have lost all honor by being involved in revenge for something that didn't even happen on the battlefield, didn't lose 1 soldier their life, and actually probably helped (a little) make the people in power see the failure of the Vietnam War. Are these people stupid or just hateful? The war was obviously lost by the time John Kerry returned from Vietnam and spoke before Congress. They maybe alive today because of him. They should be thankful. Morons.

[virginia-bell.livejournal.com]

I agree with hedwig_snowy on John McCain. I like McCain, but he just...he asked Bush to condemn the ads, but he's up there campaigning with Bush and it all smacks of something weird. I also pose this question to the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush - er, I mean, Truth: If John Kerry didn't deserve the medals, then why did you nominate him for them originally? The hypocrisy continues.

Signing off, V.M. Bell

[sternel.livejournal.com]

The last paragraph of this headliner article () on CNN.com mentions that Oregon DA.

I feel like I'm watching a reality show: "When Politicians Are Given Enough Rope! Tonight on Fox!"

However, that would assume that there's enough firing brain cells in the Bush campaign to figure out a hangman's knot.

-Sternel, who can't wait for Election Day to be over and done with

[jlh.livejournal.com]

It's so great, Heidi, that you've been able to turn your outrage into action, and that you have the skills to do so.

I also hope there isn't the disenfranchisement that there was in 2000. It was a disgrace.

Go you!