For Your Christmas Consideration

"When somebody's attacking your military record, you reach a boiling point"

If you are at an impasse for holiday gift ideas, let me make a suggestion - I have been loving "To Set The Record Straight" (website), a book by Scott Swett and Tim Ziegler with a foreword by John O'Neill recounting the Swift Boat battles of 2004.  I daresay I followed the Swifties quite closely (and this blog gets a mention!) but I have found all sorts of interesting new details about Kerry's activities in Vietnam and after.  There is also plenty of background about the formation of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and an excellent recounting of the failure of the main stream media to quash their story.

This book ought to be a must read for journalism professors and students, and should delight anyone likely to enjoy a story of media bias or even a good Kerry-basher.  Blog coverage of the Swifties was an important part of the 2004 story and bloggers are cited extensively - Captain Ed, Hugh Hewitt and Beldar spring to mind but many others are referenced or quoted as well.  And of course Dan Rather gets a special chapter.

However, what I think is my own unique contribution to the pile-on does not seem to have been noted; the topic is Kerry's first Purple Heart, awarded based on a "skimmer op" in December 1968.  Kerry crewman Zaladonis was interviewed by Douglas Brinkley (repeatedly) and the Globe's Michael Kranish in 2003 for their research efforts, but never mentioned his role in Kerry's skimmer op.  Then, when Kerry took criticism for that medal in the spring of 2004, Zaladonis was suddenly a part of the mission and vouching for Kerry, and telling people it was the scariest night of his life.  So scary he forgot to regale reporters when they asked for any Kerry stories in 2003?  C'mon - it was his first joint task with Kerry, the first time they met, the first combat for both of them, and the scariest night of his life but he forgot to mention it in 2003?  A troubling lapse of interview technique, repeatedly, and by two researchers.

Oh, enough about me and back to the book.  Here are some links - an interview with Scott Swett; NewsMax review; Bruce Kesler's thoughts.  And the mystery quote from the top is not from John O'Neill, a fellow Swiftie, or anyone else from the army of Ghengis Khan.  It is a comedy classic from Kerry flack Stephanie Cutter.

MORE:  I picked up a relevant tidbit about the recent T Boone Pickens challenge to John Kerry.  Pickens challenged anyone to prove that the Swifties had lied about anything; he eventually limited his challenge to claims made in the Swift ads.

From the book I have learned that, in order to provide legal cover to stations running the ads, the SBVT had prepared extensive documentation backing the ads; for example, the final support package for the first ad was 65 pages of documentation and affidavits.  And back in 2004 the DNC lawyers wrote to the stations airing the ads claiming that they were lies but eventually backed down.  So Pickens probably feels like he is on comfortable ground.

ERRATA:  I knew about Kerry and Kansas City, where Scot Camil proposed a plot to assassinate US Senators - Kerry had denied all of this, then claimed he forgot.  But now I know (p. 60-1 of book) that Scot Camil claimed in an interview to have discussed a similar assassination plan well before Kansas City (probably in February of that year, before the VAW's April Dewey Canyon III protest), and, per Camil, "people like Kerry totally flipped out".  Looks like Kerry forgot more than we knew.

Comments

[vinman_from_wikistan.com]

Good morning, TM, and thanks for starting my day off just right!

[kim]

I'll bet Kerry has stills and video from those days. What did he film and when did he film it?
=====================================

[clarice]

I repeat what I said earlier, there's a good documentary on the Kerry campaign in which a key staffer admits that Kerry did not respond to the ads more forecefully because they were essentially correct.

[kim]

Yes, C; the response was to try to suppress the message, not to refute it.
===============================

[Tom Maguire]

Well, this is from the Times, following the Cutter link:

''It's not something that can be easily or successfully discredited,'' said one party strategist, who requested anonymity because he did not want to be seen as undermining Mr. Kerry's campaign. ''It's guys talking about how they felt and you can't discredit someone's description of his own feelings.''

That is not the same as saying they are "correct", but yes, the ads were difficult for Kerry. And as the book fondly recounts, John Edwards had said at the convention, roughly, "Just ask the men who served with him". How did that work out?

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Oh, the radio interview is a classic:

Hartmann: We're talking with Scott Swett, the author of a new book, "To Set The Record Straight: How Swift Boat Veterans, POWs and the New Media Defeated John Kerry." Scott, let's talk about strategy for a second here. Much of the book is historical and detailing, you know, all the terrible things about John Kerry. But the subtitle, how the Swift Boat veterans and the new media defeated John Kerry is something that intrigues me. George W. Bush arguably was a deserter, something who under law could have been executed. If you're AWOL for more than thirty days, you’re a deserter, and he went AWOL for well over thirty days...

Swett: You’re suggesting that George Bush should have been executed?

Hartmann: I'm suggesting that George Bush committed a crime that at various times in the history of this country has resulted in execution.

Swett: That seems like a rather stretched perspective on his service...

[kim]

There's a ring to that 'rather stretched perspective'.
==============================

[kim]

Is 'rather stretched' anything like 'procrustes bedded'?
===================================

[clarice]

TM, that is not the quote I'm thinking of. In the video I saw the staffer clearly said the charges in the ads were "substantially true".

[clarice]

This wiki entry details the efforts to scotch the Stolen Honor production.
http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:ApNBU85n1rIJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Honor+transcript+video+on+Kerry+campaign&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=48&gl=us>Solen Honor

It's interesting to recall that the champion of free speech, the NYT, was all for limiting here.

[Other Tom]

I will order the book the instant I finish posting this message. As JOM regulars know, my hatred of this man is boundless and permanent.

[Bingo]

TM, that is not the quote I'm thinking of. In the video I saw the staffer clearly said the charges in the ads were "substantially true".

Actually it wasn't a staffer. It was a reporter (whose name escapes me) embedded with the Kerry campaign and can be seen in the trailer for "Inside The Bubble" at frame 2:22.

The quote text is...

"I...(Unintelligible)...mean the problem was that swiftboat was largely true."

[clarice]

That's the documentary I was thinking of. Are you sure that was an embedded reporter , not a staffer?

[kim]

With the media in the tank for Kerry, there is not much effective difference between an embedded reporter and a staffer. A distinction without a difference. See Mary Mapes, a rather egregious example.
==================================

[clarice]

In fact, that statement was made by Jim Loftus, Kerry's communications director.
http://www.insidethebubble.magnify.net/item/G3YK99995L2DRT07

[Other Tom]

I note that on the Barnes & Noble site to which TM linked, the "average customer review" is one star (out of five), based upon one review. May I suggest that those who read the book weigh in with reviews of their own?

[Bill's Cigar]

OT,
Why wait to read the book before writing a favourable review?

[Peter England]

BTW Has there been a sighting of Kerry's dossiers,or is the weather too cold

[Other Tom]

Dear Mr. Cigar, you must have been reading my mind. After prayerful agonizing, I decided to wait until after reading in order to lend a little more verisimilitude to the fulsome praise that I already know I will be lavishing on it.

[Cecil Turner]

In fact, that statement was made by Jim Loftus, Kerry's communications director.

The "largely true" bit in the clip appears to be Michael Wolff.

[clarice]

Thnx, Cecil--I re-played the tape and you are right.

[Sara]

Tancredo drops out of presidential race. Endorses Mitt Romney!

[hit and run]

Sara - are you happy to have Tancredo on Romney's "team"?

Romney took umbrage at Huckabee saying Bush had an arrogant bunker mentality. Called for him to apologize.

Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Mike Huckabee, one of his chief rivals for the party's nomination, should apologize for calling the Bush administration's foreign policy ``arrogant.''

``That's an insult to the president, and Mike Huckabee should apologize to the president,'' Romney, 60, the former Massachusetts governor, said on NBC's ``Meet the Press.''

But what of Tancredo?

NASHUA (Sep 25) – Republican presidential candidate Rep. Tom Tancredo, of Colorado, said President Bush's failure to enforce existing immigration laws is "despicable" and leading to a domestic crisis.
...
"Don't keep ignoring our laws, which this president has been doing, which is despicable," Tancredo said.

To Tancredo, Bush's failure to crack down more on employers who employ undocumented workers and to maintain border security amounts to a high crime.

"If he could be impeached for dereliction of duty, a bill could be brought. Unfortunately, that is not grounds," Tancredo said.

[hit and run]

TM:
If you are at an impasse for holiday gift ideas, let me make a suggestion - I have been loving "To Set The Record Straight" (website), a book by Scott Swett and Tim Ziegler with a foreword by John O'Neill recounting the Swift Boat battles of 2004.

Um, which holiday????

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Not Easter (March 23, 2008).

I guess that leaves April Fools Day.

Funny man, that TM.

[cathyf]

Not Easter (March 23, 2008).

March 28, 2008 is within the Octave of Easter...