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September 1, 2004
Independence From the Press Rocks the Gatekeeper's WorldThere is a smear campaign launched against John Kerry. But that is not the only thing going on with the Swift Boat Veterans. The press may have knocked down the most serious charges. But the idea of the press as the great adjudicator has also been knocked down.Madison Square Garden, Sep 1. It’s more of an impression gathered, not something easily witnessed in the behavior of reporters and editors here at the Republican convention; but I think the political press has been stunned by the attack on John Kerry’s military record, and by the events since August 5, when the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth began running their ads. That is the word I would use: stunned. Here and there it is spoken of outright: “I spotted the headline in the Sunday Tribune’s first edition early Saturday afternoon,” wrote Michael Miner in the Chicago Reader. He is referring to William Rood’s first person account of Kerry’s courageous actions as a Swift Boat commander, published Aug. 22. Rood, a Chicago Tribune editor, was a Swift Boat skipper himself. Miner, a journalist, recalls his reaction: “That’s it,” I thought, naively, after reading the first few paragraphs. “The issue’s off the table.” And he was stunned to discover it wasn’t. The same feeling was there when Tom Oliphant of the Boston Globe, appearing Aug. 19 on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, told John O’Neill, author of Unfit for Command and one of the veterans making the charges, “You haven’t come within a country mile of meeting first-grade journalistic standards for accuracy.” That’s what “keeps this story in the tabloids,” said Oliphant, but of course he was saying this not in the tabloids, but on the very respectable Newshour . I don’t mean to say that I know exactly what happened that day. I believe that Mr. O’Neill, like anybody making a personal attack in politics, has to shoulder the burden of proof. It never leaves his shoulders until he satisfies it. And on this story, they haven’t even gotten to first base. Note: They haven’t even gotten to first base and yet the Swift Boat Veterans were the big story in the weeks before the convention. There was a revealing moment at the end of that Newshour exchange. John O’Neill urged viewers to check out the Swift Vets’ website. Host Jim Lehrer, always mindful to make a show of balance, struggled for the name of a site rebutting the charges: “Is there a website that’s comparable to that?” Yes there is, Oliphant replied. But instead of naming Media Matters he said: “it’s called the daily press, which is the most difficult thing for these guys to deal with.” But in fact it hasn’t been difficult at all, and that is what’s so stunning to Oliphant and company. “For the moment, this story has consumed the news cycle,” wrote David Folkenflik in the Baltimore Sun on Aug. 25. “In an election where voters are eager for a sense of vision from each of the candidates, the swift-boat flap has drowned out discussion of current policy issues,” said Linda Feldmann of the Christian Science Monitor. It’s the daily press that’s found the Swift Boat Veterans difficult to deal with— not the other way around. Thus Alison Mitchell, deputy national editor for The New York Times, told Editor & Publisher. “I’m not sure that in an era of no-cable television we would even have looked into it.” She sounded stunned in addition to being disdainful. “Against their will,” wrote Jonathan Last of the Weekly Standard, “the best-funded and most prestigious journalists in America have been forced to cover a story they want no part of—or at the very least, they’ve been compelled to explain why they aren’t covering it.” Eric Bohlert writes in Salon today: “By the time the Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times did deploy reporters to knock down the Swift Boat Vets’ rickety charges, they’d taken on a life of their own in the anti-Kerry netherworld of talk radio, right-wing bloggers and Fox News.” “Knock down” suggests a world where political actors let charges fly, and journalists rule on them— in or out of order. The general conclusion in the press (and Bohlert’s view as well) is that the knock down ocurred in three news stories that appeared within days of each other:
Each of these stories is based on extensive reporting; and each throws serious doubt on some of the charges and motivations of Kerry’s attackers. But the very idea of the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times as adjudicators has itself been knocked down. “There are too many places for people to get information,” James O’Shea told Editor & Publisher. He’s the managing editor of the Chicago Tribune, which joined in the knock down by publishing Rood’s story of what he saw in Vietnam. (See PressThink about that one). “I don’t think newspapers can be the gatekeepers anymore— to say this is wrong and we will ignore it. Now we have to say this is wrong, and here is why.” Jonathan Last put it this way: “The combination of talk radio, a publishing house, blogs, and Fox News has given conservatives a voice independent of the old media.” Independence from the press is not an easy thing for the press to appreciate, but this is exactly what the Swift Boat Veterans have, I think, demonstrated. While they do benefit from news coverage of their campaign—and from lazy, he said/she said journalism—the Swift Vets are capable of telling their own story on their website, publishing their own book and selling it to lots of people without benefit of good reviews, finding their own allies in the blog world (some of whom have large audiences), raising their own money, and of course running their own ads aimed at voters. Yesterday, they even began negotiating with John Kerry: admit your crimes and we’ll pull our ads, said the group in a letter to the candidate. There is nothing this group needs Tom Oliphant for, except perhaps as foil in TV interviews. John Podhoretz, columnist for the New York Post, made that point this week. “The democratization of news,” to him a good thing, “isn’t a good thing if you’re a proud part of an Establishment whose authority is being eroded and whose control of the marketplace is being successfully challenged.” I think he’s mostly right about that. (See Jeff Jarvis on it.) Podhoretz describes how it worked in the period from August 5 to 23. “Because there was new information coming out every day, there was more and more to discuss on talk radio and cable news channels. And the story just wouldn’t go away, because millions of people were interested in it.” In fact, Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, nerve center for the Swift Boat story online, reported record traffic during this stretch. Much of what Reynolds did was link to other anti-Kerry weblogs and information they dug up, connections they made, or inconsistencies they pointed out. It was therefore a group effort. And many of the bloggers involved—Power Line, Captain’s Quarters, Hugh Hewitt, Roger L. Simon being a few—are credentialed by the Party to cover the RNC. But the excitement, as these players saw it, was not the sensational charges in the first ad— that Kerry didn’t deserve his medals and lied to get them. Rather, they were trying to show how often and how openly Kerry had lied or misstated the facts when at various times he talked about being in Cambodia on Christmas eve, 1968. (See this and this, for example.) They also pointed out how Kerry had changed his story. They reacted with gleeful derision when the campaign began to issue “clarifications” about Kerry in Cambodia. In a posting from Aug. 21, John Hinderaker of Power Line observed that “what powers the blogosphere” is a core audience “that is engaged, passionate, and above all, well-informed.” But equally significant is the way participants in this world talk to each other and build on one another’s efforts. In a word— the links among them. Here’s how Hinderaker, a lawyer, put it: A bunch of amateurs, no matter how smart and enthusiastic, could never outperform professional neurosurgeons… But what qualifications, exactly, does it take to be a journalist? What can they do that we can’t? Nothing. Generally speaking, they don’t know any more about primary data and raw sources of information than we do—often less… And we bloggers are not dependent on our own resources or those of a few amateurs. We can get information from tens of thousands of individuals, many of whom have exactly the knowledge that journalists could (but usually don’t) expend great effort to track down—to take just one recent example, the passability of the Mekong River at the Vietnam/Cambodian border during the late 1960s. I can hear the chucking this sort of thing causes in professional newsrooms and J-schools. But the basic point Hinderaker makes is the same one Dan Gillmor, a journalist, develops at length in his new and essential book, We the Media. “My readers know more than I do,” Gillmor is famous for saying. That’s readers, in the plural. Bloggers are putting that insight to work because they aren’t as threatened by it. The press can laugh at all these claims, and some will do that. But the political press should not be laughing. Reporters at the Republican Convention this week confront a changed race— altered in their own minds by the Swift Boat Vets and the charges they have broadcast. Two weeks before the convention, the common perception was: very close, edge is to Kerry. As Andrew Sullivan wrote on Aug. 28, “I crunched the numbers and found that, from the polling so far, this race was John Kerry’s to lose unless the dynamic of the election suddenly changed.” Other journalists who knew the numbers held the same view. But that shifted in the final week of August, and on the day the convention opened political journalists had a gut feeling that the landscape was different— even though “the story,” as they call it, had been knocked down in the press and the people telling it stood “exposed for multiple lies and distortions,” as William Greider wrote in The Nation. “They hate the Swift-boat story,” Podhoretz wrote. “Hate it with a passion. Some of it’s based in genuine conviction. Some of it’s patently ideological. And some of it’s based in fear.” To me, it’s quite proper for journalists to hate the campaign launched by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. About the merits of the charges, I hold the same view Sullivan holds: the original ad is a classic smear job— ugly, brutal, demagogic, paranoid, cynical, dishonest in the extreme. And—a point that has not been stressed enough—it dishonors and degrades everyone who comes into contact with it. Take this episode, for example. “It’s a smear because it mentions no facts,” Sullivan writes. “It cannot therefore be rebutted.” But it’s more than that. The ad is also an example of what author Douglas Rushkoff calls a “media virus.” The host is the news media, which in its weakness reacts to sensational charges and thereby aids in their spread. Kerry didn’t deserve his medals because he lied to get them and other veterans know it. He’s no hero. Nor is he an ordinary liar. He’s a monster of deceit, and a master of concealment. It says a lot that George W. Bush will not criticize that ad, that people associated with Bush have helped the Swift Vets circulate it, and that tactics like this have been tried before against Bush’s opponents. It says a lot, I think, when intelligent people write things like “the medals are a distraction,” as Reynolds did. There he’s trying to avoid the degradation, but it is not that simple. For those in the press who want to understand what’s going on, I recommend the Aug. 24th blog post by Matt Wretchard at Belmont Club: The undercard in the Kerry vs Swiftvets bout is Mainstream Media vs. Kid Internet, two distinctly different fights, but both over information. The first is really the struggle over the way Vietnam will be remembered by posterity; whether its amanuensis will be John Kerry for the antiwar movement or those who felt betrayed by them. The victor in that struggle will get to inscribe the authoritative account of that mythical conflict in Southeast Asia: not in its events, but in its meaning. The fight will be as bitter as men for whom only memory remains can be bitter. But the undercard holds a fascination of its own. The reigning champion, the Mainstream Media, has been forced against all odds to accept the challenge of an upstart over the coverage of the Swiftvets controversy. To say, “I don’t think newspapers can be the gatekeepers anymore,” as James O’Shea did, is to recognize an historic shift in the politics of information. It’s the sort of thing that can leave you stunned, angry, confused and depressed, if you have always thought of yourself as keeper of the gate. On the other hand, “My readers know more than I do” is a more hopeful statement. Maybe journalists who realize they are ex-gatekeepers will find their own way to Gillmor’s wisdom. For purposes of contemplation, I leave you with this exchange, overheard on CNN, Aug. 20: JILL DOUGHERTY And they’re also, apparently, according to the campaign — will be trying to depict John Kerry as out of the mainstream. Kyra… After Matter: Notes, reactions and links… Also see, on all these themes, Godzilla vs. the ‘Blogosphere’ by Glenn Reynolds, Wall Street Journal, Sep. 1. Alessandra Stanley in the New York Times, Aug. 24: There is the fog of war and then there is the fog of cable.
Posted by Jay Rosen at September 1, 2004 10:45 PM
Comments
Jay: At billingsgazette.com there is an interesting story today that farther "defames" the swift boat ads. Posted by: Chuck Rightmire at September 1, 2004 10:52 PM | Permalink Are plowing through all the blather, it comes down to this: Do you believe the thirteen Swift Boat Vets on Senator Kerry's side; or the 254 opposed to him? If you're the loony left-wing media, you believe the thirteen, the blogosphere believes the 254. Bye, Bye, Mainstream Media, you brought this state of affairs on yourself. Oliphant nailed him to the wall, but the seductiveness of lies when many deranged vets think a candidate for president, one of their own, is a traitor, just won't let the truth matter. Rove did the same thing to Mark Shields today. Shields nailed him to the wall, but these people are so dimwitted they believe their lines. It's hard to put that on. The question is this: are the American people as dim as Karl Rove? I would add that he has no college degree. Posted by: Jeremiah Jewett at September 1, 2004 11:34 PM | Permalink So the ones on the boat, the eye witnesses, are the loons? How do you expect this scenario would work out in a court of law? Patch Adams? This is a joke right? Posted by: Jeremiah Jewett at September 1, 2004 11:37 PM | Permalink Jeremiah appears to reflect the general impression held by those who have followed the story in the press, but not on the blogs: that the only real "eyewitnesses" were the ones on the Kerry's boat. Not so. One of the members of the Swift Boat Vets group served on Kerry's boat -- contrary to a false assertion made in the Los Angeles Times. (The false assertion was in an article co-written by one of the authors of the L.A. Times piece cited by Jay in the post. The Times ultimately had to correct its statement, after being called on it by a blogger -- who was, as it happens, me.) Moreover, these were boats that traveled in close proximity, and there are many eyewitnesses from adjoining boats to various of the incidents. Those who have followed the story on the blogs know that Jay's allegation that all the charges have been decisively smacked down by the press is a questionable assertion. Just to take one example, entries in Kerry's own journal support allegations made by the Swift Vets regarding the validity of certain of Kerry's citations. If you have been reading the Captain's Quarters blog, you know what I mean. If you haven't, then you probably don't. Meanwhile, when a newspaper editor (William Rood) publishes an account of the incident, and declares he will be subject to no further interviews on the subject, his account is treated as gospel by the mainstream media (and was praised by Jay). I have no problem with the account itself, which was well-written and convincing, but there is no way that any Swift Boat Vet could issue a single written pronouncement on the incident, declare himself immune from further interviews, and emerge with his credibility intact among the press (or even the public). I guess a newspaper editor is a member of the club and gets special treatment. Incidentally, Rood didn't serve on Kerry's boat either -- but his status as an eyewitness, and as a man who "served with" Kerry, has never been questioned by the same folks who mock the Swift Vets for not being on Kerry's boat. Furthermore, the reporting on the so-called "web of connections" between the Swift Vets and the Bush campaign is a joke. The New York Times drew up a Mafia-style chart that mainly made the point that a successful Houston lawyer knew some people who knew Bush. Meanwhile, that same man voted for Gore (and therefore against Bush) in 2000, has called Bush an "empty suit," and has made documented contributions to Democrats -- again contrary to implications in the mainstream media. Yet folks like Dan Gillmor call the Swift Vets "surrogates" of the Bush campaign, evidently because they shared a lawyer with the Bush campaign -- even as more than one lawyer has worked with the Kerry campaign and/or the DNC, on one hand, and a pro-Democrat 527 group, on the other. Yet that receives virtually no coverage in the mainstream media as well. I could go on, but I won't. Suffice it to say that those who are following the story only in the mainstream media are seeing a very different picture from those who are also reading blogs. And the blog commentary I have read has been, in many instances, better documented with references to actual evidence (rather than implications and bald assertions). It's not quite as simple as many of you seem to think. Posted by: Patterico at September 2, 2004 12:45 AM | Permalink Also, if you can handle the shock of my praising a piece in the mainstream media -- in the L.A. Times, no less -- dig up Scott Gold's portrait of John O'Neill. No puff piece, it is a fair look at a man who has truly been "smeared" by the "web of connections" nonsense in polemical pieces like the hit job that appeared in the New York Times. Posted by: Patterico at September 2, 2004 12:55 AM | Permalink I'm one of the bloggers who've been writing about the SwiftVets vs. Kerry controversy in considerable detail. I may undertake a more thorough response to this post on my own blog, but just off the top of my head: Anyone who'd like a dissenting views from within the mainstream media would be well advised to read the August 17 op-ed by Houston Chronicle special projects editor Lee Cearnal. It's no longer on the Chronicle's website, but for the moment, at least, a cached view is available here. Unlike Mr. Rosen (if I'm correct in presuming he's the author of this original post), Mr. Cearnal has actually bothered to figure out what the factual issues are that are in dispute before rendering any judgments about how well the press has "knocked them down." Of the three sources you linked as the "knock down" articles from the mainstream media, the only one that contains any significant independent reporting — something other than regurgitating the Kerry Campaign's talking points — is the Michael Dobbs piece from WaPo. It sorta helps to read past the headline of that piece. If you do, for instance, you'll find this interesting bit: Some of the mystery surrounding exactly what happened on the Bay Hap River in March 1969 could be resolved by the full release of all relevant records and personal diaries. Much information is available from the Web sites of the Kerry campaign and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and the Navy archives. But both the Kerry and anti-Kerry camps continue to deny or ignore requests for other relevant documents, including Kerry's personal reminiscences (shared only with biographer Brinkley), the boat log of PCF-94 compiled by Medeiros (shared only with Brinkley) and the Chenoweth diary. Hello! Earth to mainstream media! Aren't you guys supposed to get excited when a presidential candidate is engaged in a systematic cover-up? When someone's stonewalling you, hiding documents that could resolve a debate one way or the other, or at least shed considerable light on it, and he could release those records with the stroke of a pen, but he won't — isn't that supposed to set off your alarm bells? Also from the WaPo, last weekend: The Kerry campaign has refused to release Kerry's personal Vietnam archive, including his journals and letters, saying that the senator is contractually bound to grant Brinkley exclusive access to the material. But Brinkley said this week the papers are the property of the senator and in his full control. His own hagiographer admits that Kerry's telling tall tales, and that Kerry's stonewalling a huge mound of source documents with a bogus argument that it's Brinkley's fault. You guys can't smell the smoke yet? If the mainstream media had been as energetic in pursuing the Watergate break-in as they have been in actually looking into the merits of the SwiftVets' claims, Richard Nixon would have finished his second term. I also should have mentioned that I've previously blogged about each of the three "knock down" articles you linked (LAT, NYT, and WaPo). WaPo's Howard Kurtz has also noted, about one of the Kerry camp's counter-ads: There is no evidence that the Bush campaign "supports a front group" that produced the attack ad. There are numerous ties between Bush aides and the veterans' backers, but there are similar ties between Kerry and some liberal groups running anti-Bush ads. Bush and his top strategists, however, have passed up numerous opportunities to condemn the Swift boat ad, calling instead for a moratorium on all advertising by outside groups. That one paragraph is more accurate than all the blather in the NYT and LAT stories you linked. The problem with the blogosphere taking over from the MSM is that there are no standards for blogging as news. Many can and do offer opinion over facts. Just because someone thinks something is so and they say it (blog it) over and over again, does not make it Truth. It concerns me that people think they are getting some sort of inside scoop on the Press from the Internet which is a wildly unreliable place. Posted by: CER at September 2, 2004 8:24 AM | Permalink Oh and here's a link to the article Chuck mentioned above. Posted by: CER at September 2, 2004 8:56 AM | Permalink CER, I think you make your judgments about whom to trust, but more importantly, you look at their evidence and make a judgment based on that. Newspapers are run by people too, and make mistakes of all sorts (and distort facts of all sorts) all the time. And if you don't think that the mainstream media offers opinion as fact on a daily basis, then you and I see things so differently that there is nothing I can say to change your mind. It concerns me that people think that, because the press supposedly has "standards" for reporting news, that everything you read there is good as gold. Their "standards" often get tossed out the window when there's a story they really like. I could give you literally dozens of examples, but I don't want to completely hijack the thread. Read Beldar's posts -- take the time to really read them -- and tell me that he uses no actual evidence to back up his assertions. This is a guy who has gotten inside the Swift Vets story in a way virtually no mainstream media journalists have. Question: of the reporters who have reported on the Swift Vets, how many of them do you think have actually read the Vets' book, cover to cover? Posted by: Patterico at September 2, 2004 9:08 AM | Permalink My answer: I bet Michael Dobbs has. I doubt many others have. There are plenty who definitely haven't -- including the bloviators writing editorials for the L.A. Times. CER, to take one very recent example, what "standards" do you think allowed the L.A. Times editorial writers to overlook the existence of the 12th Amendment, when they expounded yesterday about their belief that the U.S. Constitution "doesn't seem to" prevent Arnold Schwarzenegger from becoming Vice-President? The press makes mistakes, folks. Big mistakes, at times. They are people like you and me, and their "standards" don't always save them. Posted by: Patterico at September 2, 2004 9:13 AM | Permalink Last comment for now: Michael Dobbs, who (as Beldar notes) has done the best reporting on the Swift Vets among the reporters mentioned, appears to be the only one of them who seems at all troubled by John Kerry's refusal to sign a standard Form 180 and allow unfettered access to his complete military records. Everyone else in the mainstream media couldn't care less. Does it set off any alarms that the guy who knows the most about the facts is the one who is most troubled by this? Posted by: Patterico at September 2, 2004 9:18 AM | Permalink It appears that the news cycle has moved past the veracity of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth allegations to the damage done to the Kerry campaign. I'm left asking why the press has not pushed for Kerry to release more of his military record? I understand that Kerry's campaign has selectively posted documents on his campaign web site, but he has not allowed the press to independently request the records and a significant portions seem to be missing from the web site. Although Kerry campaign officials insist that they have published Kerry's full military records on their Web site (with the exception of medical records shown briefly to reporters earlier this year), they have not permitted independent access to his original Navy records. A Freedom of Information Act request by The Post for Kerry's records produced six pages of information. A spokesman for the Navy Personnel Command, Mike McClellan, said he was not authorized to release the full file, which consists of at least a hundred pages. Where are the after-action reports from December 1968 (including Dec 2, 1968 - Kerry's first Purple Heart "hostile" fire incident - and his Christmas in Cambodia mission), January 1969, and after March 13, 1969 (including his March 18-19, 1969, operation burning structures and destroying bunkers)? In addition to his official Navy records, there is also his journal. Beldar, Capt Ed. and Tom Maguire have been great on this story. Next up, Kerry's anti-war activities as a Naval Reserve LT in France and with the VVAW (Fliers and New Soldier). Posted by: Tim at September 2, 2004 9:35 AM | Permalink The Color Purple At some point, however, perhaps during the cable talk show commercials, perhaps in the interstices between blog posts, the debate over Kerry's war record transformed into a debate over whether President Bush should denounce the debate over Kerry's war record. And this was when, it seemed, the various factual claims the anti-Kerry Swifties made against the Massachusetts senator fell to the wayside, where, dismissed and forlorn, news outlets pronounced that they were wholly "unsubstantiated." Posted by: Tim at September 2, 2004 10:25 AM | Permalink Patterico, Of course I agree that mistakes can be made in the MSM and that biases do affect stories. However, there still are standards and there still is accountability. Do you see that in the blogosphere? What happens when a blogger posts something that isn't true? Or just half the truth? Not much, if anything. Further, how do you know whether the "evidence" posted by a right wing blogger is any better than the "evidence" posted by a left wing blogger? Is the driving force behind bloggers Truth or is it a desire to bring people to their side, to agree with their opinion? Question: What is the criteria for credibility in a blogger? Posted by: CER at September 2, 2004 10:39 AM | Permalink Paterico: I think it's pretty safe to say that not many people logging onto this site (or blogging at all, for that matter) believe the MSM is infallible or anywhere near perfect. The MSM has a lot to answer for -- laziness, unwillingness to "rock the boat," poor reporting in general -- but it does have one very important thing going for it that bloggers don't: Resources. How many blogs have the financial ability to send a reporter to Afghanistan or Iraq? The fact is that, at least for now, bloggers are heavily dependent on the MSM that they so eagerly blast. Posted by: Alejo at September 2, 2004 10:41 AM | Permalink I think people are missing the real "root cause" motivation of the Swifties in debates like this. Vietnam Vets feel slandered and libeled by Kerry and his ilk in the VVAW. Frankly, anyone that served honorably in Vietnam has an absolute right to be upset with Kerry. He branded them as war criminals as a group, in toto, top to bottom end to end. They've been made to feel shame for decades over their honorable service in a nasty war. All the talk of specifics of this or that medal, or where Kerry was and when he was there is smoke. Absent some release of records - which Kerry clearly is not going to allow - they will never be proven to anyone's satisfaction. We do know this though at least SOME of what Kerry has said has been untrue as evidenced by his campaign's retraction and revision of his epiphany in Cambodia in Christmas of '68. That is indisputable. So in light of all that how anyone can come out and call it a "smear campaign" is beyond me. These guys are furious with Kerry and they aren't going to go away. And as honorably discharged veterans former POW's etc they have an absolute right to have their say and clear their names. Posted by: Calliope at September 2, 2004 11:15 AM | Permalink But using the names of those who did not agree to have their names used casts a great deal of doubt on the facts of the case. That's the way it works in a court of law. Posted by: Chuck Rightmire at September 2, 2004 11:26 AM | Permalink A pox on both houses! It is prejudicial to declare the Swift Boats Vet's campaign a smear. It is prejudicial to declare the campaign (as NYT is wont to do) unsubstantiated. It is prejudicial to declare the campaign discredited. It is prejudicial in that there has been insufficient examination and subsequent discovery. In some ways, the bloggers have pursued this vigorously and demonstrated investigative capabilities impressive in reach and in the ability to discard chaff. They have demonstrated a willingness and ability to look at printed, reported, testified, and eye-witness accounts; reconcile and pursue further lines of questions reaching across country, across years, and across political and military spectrums. However, the bloggers expose their glee in the twists and turns of the investigation, often expressing opinions before the facts have been reconciled to a reasonable degree. The "Kerry is toast!" declaratives (and their ilk) should await the completion of the investigation. The same is true of the “deranged vets” comments. The traditional media have demonstrated latency on this account that sets an interesting counterpoint to the accounts of Bush AWOL and Kerry 527 activities. When finally engaged, good reporters provided well-written pieces - using less research than the reasoning and the facts had already taken the bloggers. Further the media provided conclusions that, at the least, are difficult to draw from the facts provided. Both the bloggers and the traditional media have so far failed to reconcile a mass of conflicting reports, facts, and have so far failed to get access to known data. Both are declaring victories where none exist. Yes, there have been a number of Kerry assertions which are now discredited. Yes, there are numerous inconsistencies in the accounting of 200+ people and their accounts and records. Yes, this is a damaging thing to examine for the current candidate. Not examining it in its fullness will leave it as an exploitable question mark, and as something that will dog the candidate. Examining it fully may exonerate, or destroy the candidate. I for one do not know where this might lead. But, I do observe role of the bloggers, and that of the traditional media. The new kid on the block has shown impressive capabilities. The grey advisors of truth are showing something else. Posted by: John Lynch at September 2, 2004 11:38 AM | Permalink I disagree with this concept of independence from the Press. It is the political press, or more accurately, the political press' piss poor performance, that motivates much of the best political blogging. The SBVT were effectively shut out from May to August - in fact for about as long as Kerry served in Vietnam with the Swift Boats. The SBVT crossed a media threshold in August by combining a demagogic commercial (mimicing the guerrilla tactics used by VVAW) and publishing a well documented and non-hyperbolic book. The gatekeepers could no longer deny the story which had previously consisted of a single press conference. Ads were being played in swing state markets and having an impact. Commentators were reading and commenting on the book. Tour of Duty was being compared to Unfit for Command. The "independent" media began examining why the political press ignored the story. They went past the initial dismissal by the press based on guilt by association and ad hominem to examine the veterans actual service: who served on Kerry's boat, when and for how long; who served "with" Kerry as a peer, supervisor and subordinate; how many boats patrolled together and how close; ... All facts that the press ignored. Each fact uncovered adding momentum to both the story NOT being told by the political press, feeding the frenzy of proving - once again - the piss poor performance of press "pros", and energizing the information consumers via email, WWW, phone and backyard conversations to challenge the gatekeepers to open the gate. But that's where it ends back up. Challenging the MSM. It's a cycle. I do wonder if Jay has read the books, or whether he finds the VVAW guerrilla tactics as dishonorable today as he finds the SBVT when similar tactics are used to GAIN MEDIA ATTENTION? The media had the Jacksonian narrative of the campaign when Democrats began comparing their "chest full of medals" "war hero" to the "AWOL" "deserter" Bush. They knew Kerry's war stories and his leadership of a guerrilla anti-war group. These stories made it past the gatekeepers because the gatekeepers were shamed into covering it. Posted by: Tim at September 2, 2004 11:39 AM | Permalink I agree with virtually everything John Lynch said. CER, What happens when a *credible* blogger prints something that is not true, in whole or in part, is that they correct it. Quickly, transparently, without a lot of delay and equivocation. I've had to do it, Glenn Reynolds has had to do it, and so has anyone else who has blogged for any significant period of time. Like I said, we're all people, and we all make mistakes. When the mainstream media makes a major mistake, even if it's on a Page One story, and even if it undercuts the thesis of the story, they correct it -- if at all -- in a little box on Page A2 that nobody reads, save fanatics like myself. They tend to do a good job with online corrections, placing them smack-dab in the middle of the story, but I'd like to see more prominence for the critical corrections on the front-page stories. Placing such corrections on Page A1 would get more respect from me, and many others as well. Posted by: Patterico at September 2, 2004 12:06 PM | Permalink CER wrote, Many [bloggers] can and do offer opinion over facts. Just because someone thinks something is so and they say it (blog it) over and over again, does not make it Truth. It concerns me that people think they are getting some sort of inside scoop on the Press from the Internet which is a wildly unreliable place. I agree with this in large part. Certainly there are bloggers — from both sides of the political aisle — who mostly just repeat their snarky observations and opinions. There may be legitimate value to that — it's punditry, some of it thought-provoking and some of it not. But yes, there are raving lunatics and crackpots on the internet. (And in newsrooms.) But good bloggers build, maintain, and protect their credibility with their readers by trying to distinguish carefully between punditry and fact. Particularly if they have their comments sections open, they get feedback — pro and con — and further tips. And whether he's engaging in punditry or fact reporting, a blogger who doesn't cite his sources — with working hyperlinks — doesn't gain credibility with his readers. If I post something on my blog that just asserts, in general terms, that Sen. Kerry's telling inconsistent tales about his Vietnam service, without anything more, then I may have some ditto-heads nodding along with me, but I'd agree that by itself, that's just opinion mongering — and not very persuasive opinion mongering at that. But let me offer you a counter-example that's just now, finally, breaking into the mainstream media — the "Belodeau Eulogy." If, by contrast, acting on a emailed tip from a reader, I discover and write that on January 28, 1998, Sen. Kerry entered into the Congressional Record a version of how Jim Rassmann fell off Kerry's Swift Boat that is completely and mutually inconsistent with what Sen. Kerry and all his supporters, including Jim Rassmann, have said everywhere else about that topic — including, most recently, during the "no man left behind" saga on the final night of the DNC — and I provide hyperlinks to a .pdf file of the relevant pages from the Congressional Record to document my factual assertion, that does add something useful to the debate. When I find and write that Kerry biographer Doug Brinkley has quoted from another part of that same document in his book Tour of Duty, yet ignored the inconsistent version told by Sen. Kerry in it about how Rassmann went overboard, and that Brinkley has mysteriously omitted to list that document in his "Notes" section at the end of ToD, that too is factual. I have indeed offered some opinions to explain Brinkley's peculiar omission of this embarrassing but unimpeachable source — viz, he's either a very sloppy historian or completely in the bag for Kerry and part of his cover-up — but they're inferences rather than facts, and I've been careful to label them as such. The Belodeau Eulogy wasn't mentioned in O'Neill's Unfit for Command or any of the SwiftVets' materials until August 31, but I first posted about it on August 17. Hopefully, at a press conference (if Kerry will ever submit himself to press questioning on Swift Boat matters), some mainstream media reporter like Brit Hume — who I'm told has mentioned the Belodeau Eulogy a couple of times on Fox News, but no I don't have a link for that yet — or WaPo's Michael Dodd will ask Sen. Kerry, "How do you explain that at the DNC, you told the world that Jim Rassmann needed rescuing because he went overboard from your boat when a mine exploded nearby, whereas at Tommy Belodeau's funeral, in your eulogy to him that you had inserted into the Congressional Record, you said that Rassmann went overboard when your boat made a sharp turn? Was it a mine or was it a sharp turn, and why have you personally told those two different versions, Sen. Kerry?" I'm pretty sure it won't be a reporter from the NYT or the LAT who asks that question. Shame on them. Something in the Congressional Record ought not become beneath their notice just because it first came to widespread attention from my humble blog. CER, what kind of "accountability" do you think the mainstream media has? No one will - or can - sue the L.A. Times for falsely claiming that the Constitution "seems" to allow Arnold Schwarzenegger to be Vice President. They may issue a correction, or they may not. CNN made a very similar gaffe back in June, or perhaps earlier, claiming on their web site that Bill Clinton is eligible to be Vice-President. Despite massive ridicule, not just from me but from Drudge, CNN's false "news" remains on their site, uncorrected, to this day - despite the page itself having been updated when Edwards was selected. And the Times's overall track record on this front is no better. In mid-July, in an editorial arguing for the renewal of the "assault" weapon ban, the Times falsely claimed that if it was not renewed, there would be "no bar" to Californians circumventing the state ban by purchasing their weapons in neighboring states. I didn't just mock them on my blog; I also contacted the so-called "Readers Representative" four times to request a correction, each time citing the specific federal statute that makes it a felony, for both the buyer and the seller, if a resident of State A purchases a long gun in State B that he cannot lawfully possess in State A (interstate handgun sales are prohibited outright). The first three telephone and email inquiries went unanswered. The fourth got a smarmy, hair-splitting definition of what the meaning of the word "bar" is. No correction was ever issued. So what is "accountability" thing you are talking about, again? Real credentials and facts that add up using standards. As Oliphant said, "you haven't even scratched the surface of journalistic credibility." And this group of right-wing bloggers, (and one RW groupie) are the only ones who don't see it. Posted by: Reuben at September 2, 2004 12:41 PM | Permalink "Was it a mine or was it a sharp turn, and why have you personally told those two different versions, Sen. Kerry?" This is the sort of divining hidden meaning that renders such pseudo-faux journalists worthless. Posted by: Reuben at September 2, 2004 12:45 PM | Permalink Reuben, Here's a challenge to you: rather than "smear" the right-wing bloggers with generalities, how about responding to some of Beldar's hard facts. I issue this challenge because I have every confidence that you will not be able to meet it, and therefore won't even try. When you ignore my challenge, or issue some smarmy explanation of why you shouldn't be required to stoop to debating the actual facts, that will tell us quite a bit about who is debating facts and who is engaging in smears. Let the excuses fly! Posted by: Patterico at September 2, 2004 12:59 PM | Permalink Patterico refers to "Jay's allegation that all the charges have been decisively smacked down by the press." I made no such point. Here's what I did write: "The press may have knocked down the most serious charges," which Patterico, the accuracy hound, translates into "all the charges have been decisively smacked down by the press." Does it make a difference? Well, in this thread and at this weblog no. But things like that--a little trimming here, rounding off there, a re-arranging of words just so, ignoring this while playing up that--do, in the wider arena of political debate, end up having a big difference. Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 2, 2004 1:19 PM | Permalink The Swift Boat story seems to be a very important one to both sides, and it seems by some accounts that the Bush supporters have found the Achilles heel they were looking for. Kerry may indeed have lied, in which case he's a complete idiot for having made it the cornerstone of his campaign. So be it. My question is, is Truth the issue of both campaigns? If so, neither side has much ammo. We went to war with Iraq because Bush "thought" there were WMD's. Sure, we can't prove whether Bush thought or didn't think it was true, but we can certainly catch Bush in one lie: He said he wouldn't use the 9/11 tragedy as part of his re-election campaign. Posted by: Alejo at September 2, 2004 1:22 PM | Permalink Beldar and Patterico... before you drag me further into your endless war against the enemies of truth and accuracy in the Swift Vets case, please try to realize that I was primarily writing about the perception journalists have that "all" the charges have been knocked down; and I was primarily arguing that this attitude simply doesn't cut it; and I was primarily observing how clueless and wrong-headed the press was being in dismissing the matter so easily. If you persist in incorporating me into your Struggle For Truth by paraphrasing my argument as "Rosen says all charges shot down by three articles in the press," or by implying such, then you are simply adding further to the pile of distortions. Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 2, 2004 1:37 PM | Permalink Let's not split too many hairs here. Yes, there is a difference between falsely claiming that the mainstream press has knocked down "all" of the SwiftVets' charges, on the one hand, and "only" falsely claiming that they have knocked down the most serious ones, on the other. The similarities between the two false claims outweigh the differences by a long shot. Beldar, Patterico, Captain Ed and countless other bloggers have, for the most part, focused on the more serious charges, the ones you claimed (or at least strongly implied) had been thoroughly discredited. Jay, ... I was primarily writing about the perception journalists have that "all" the charges have been knocked down; It appears that there are two journalistic camps: 1) enough discovery has taken place concerning enough of the allegations to adjudicate in favor of Kerry or against the SBVT, 2) except for one or two allegations (Xmas '68, Peck not Kerry, ...) most cannot be "proven" 35 years later and would have no bearing (perhaps should have no bearing) on the campaign if Kerry and the Democrats had not decided to use military service as a way to counter Bush's war-time President status. ... and I was primarily arguing that this attitude simply doesn't cut it; I agree, but I'm not sure we're in agreement. Gillmore's acknowledgement that his readers are a valuable resource for navigating and adjudicating across the broad spectrum of issues that make, or are in the news, is an important quality missing in "the press" that has chosen detachment - above (as in the fray or in judgement) from "indivisible from". ... and I was primarily observing how clueless and wrong-headed the press was being in dismissing the matter so easily. By doing so, they are guaranteeing its resurrection. Posted by: Tim at September 2, 2004 2:25 PM | Permalink Patterico and Beldar, I think we’re basically agreeing here. There are responsible bloggers out there who provide facts and back up to their posted opinions. These are the people who hold the MSM accountable for their reporting. They are the vocal readers who pay attention, the watchdogs, if you will, who have found a medium to be heard. However, what I’m trying to emphasize is that there are definitely those out there that aren’t responsible. There simply are no standards. I hope we can all agree that ethics are an essential part of j-school and that journalists are held accountable by losing their jobs for major mistakes in judgment. And yet, a blogger can be anyone, my next door neighbor who has discourse with her pug could be a blogger. Why not? She has Internet access. And with Internet access available at your local library, there truly is no cost of entry into blogging. And so, all I’m saying is that I distrust notion that the blogosphere can and should take over the Press as our source for information. As Alejo said, "The fact is that, at least for now, bloggers are heavily dependent on the MSM that they so eagerly blast." And thus back to the original post, are the ex-gatekeepers really ex? Or have they just been forced to move back the gates? In regards to the SBVT – which I’ve tried to divorce my above argument from – I totally agree with John Lynch, especially when he says, "Both the bloggers and the traditional media have so far failed to reconcile a mass of conflicting reports, facts, and have so far failed to get access to known data. Both are declaring victories where none exist." Posted by: CER at September 2, 2004 2:49 PM | Permalink The mainstream press did it's usual job of coming to the party late and unprepared. The Swift Boat guys announced in advance what they were going to do and say; no one covered it when they announced it and everyone did a rotten job of covering it once the ads hit. It's the sort of story that would have made a good investigative piece for a reporter willing to spend the weeks necessary to look at the claims, the claimants and the available records. It would have been relatively easy to track down the likes of Alfred French in Oregon, the prosecutor whose affadavit for the group is under fire. It would have been relatively easy to find the connections between the Bush campaign - and they're not casual; people were actually working for the campaign, not just associated with people who worked for it - but it took Digby, a blogger, to point out that one participant in the attacks on Kerry, Ken Cordier, was on the steering committee of Veterans for Bush, an official campaign adjunct, and it took the press two months to notice that Ben Ginsberg was doing double duty as an attorney for the Swift Boat group and the Bush-Cheney campaign. I believe Jay that people he spoke with were stunned, but they're always stunned. They were stunned at the terrible job they did covering the 2000 campaign. They were stunned at the terrible job they did covering the runup to the Iraq invasion. In fact, at the end of every single goddamned year, the press goes through a massive orgy of self-criticism followed by a cigarette and a promise to respect their customers in the morning. So I'm not buying this "gatekeeper" crap. The only time the mainstream press aren't the gatekeepers is when they leave the gate open. It's not an external phenomenon. When they do their jobs well, which is increasingly less often - and TV and cable news have pretty much given up the battle altogether - the press can get ahead of anyone else because they have the resources to do so. Even in the rare instances when someone else breaks a story, the press have the resources to jump on it and catch up in a hurry. What's happened to us is that the press have succumbed to a particularly odious brand of relativism, and it's undermining our democracy. How could an election so significant as this one get turned into a personality contest? Bloggers aren't driving this. It's the press and their abject failure to do good work and stand behind it. So, Jay, next time a member of the press seems stunned, you might want to suggest that it's because he or she has been taking stupid pills for too many years. Posted by: weldon berger at September 2, 2004 2:54 PM | Permalink Excellent post, Mr. Berger. Bullseye. Can you expand on this statement? Posted by: Alejo at September 2, 2004 3:01 PM | Permalink Thomas Lipscomb is in the camp that doesn't think "all" the charges have been knocked down, or at least is pursuing his own: At the time, Mr. Kerry told the Boston Globe that Boorda’s conduct was “sufficient to question [Boorda’s] leadership position.…If you wind up being less than what you’re pretending to be, there is a major confrontation with value and self-esteem and your sense of how others view you.” Posted by: Tim at September 2, 2004 3:08 PM | Permalink What are these "facts" as you call them? That your new witness wasn't on the boat, but could see anyway? I question your ability to detect a pertinent fact from the smear soup of your own creation. What were the other points? Where did he say the swiftboat commanded by Kerry dropped anchor Christmas day? How did he know where he was? Answer that challenge Mr. Tracy. Read the damn citation. Posted by: Reuben at September 2, 2004 3:25 PM | Permalink Alejo, I'm referring to what I think is the practice of refusing to make judgements even when facts favor one side or the other of a debate. Reporters, to an extent, and editors to a greater extent treat opposing stands on issues as if they were equivalent opinions, and all too rarely delve into the actual facts. Every argument is treated as equally valid. It's the journalistic equivalent of that "Tastes great!" "Less filling!" Miller beer ad. And they treat their failures as equivalent too. I will guarantee that when self-criticism time rolls around at the end of this year or the beginning of next, Howie Kurtz and the boys will be criticizing themselves equally for giving too much coverage to Scott Peterson, covering the campaign as "he said-she said" and blowing the coverage of the administration's handling of Iraq and other vital issues. They won't take responsibility for misleading or poorly informing the public, but rather for a failure of process that isn't any more significant in the case of too little responsible Iraq coverage than it is in the case of too much Peterson coverage. Washington Post editor Len Downie has come up with a couple of mind-bending statements lately. He told Jim Lehrer in relation to the case for invading Iraq and the post-invasion ebullience that "we took our eye off that particular ball at the particular moment, but I think we've been pretty tough since then." (I don't know if that's word-for-word, but it's very close). It's as if he thinks the good reporting during the past several months balances out the bad reporting and bad editorial decisions that helped get us into the mess. I don't have the quote in front of me, but Downie also echoed New York Times ace propagandist Judith Miller's sentiment that newspapers are in the business of stenography, not investigation or judgement. It's an Orwellian press, or a press that has placed themselves at the mercy of Orwellian archetypes. You can probably tell I'm a bit ticked off about it, but I hope that clarifies what I said. Posted by: weldon berger at September 2, 2004 3:26 PM | Permalink What are these "facts" as you call them? That your new witness wasn't on the boat, but could see anyway? I question your ability to detect a pertinent fact from the smear soup of your own creation. What were the other points? Where did he say the swiftboat commanded by Kerry dropped anchor Christmas day? How did he know where he was? Answer that challenge Mr. Tracy. Read the damn citation. Posted by: Reuben at September 2, 2004 3:30 PM | Permalink Well Miller was a duped propagandist for the administration if that's your case. I don't think that's what you mean though. Chalabi snowed everyone. Posted by: Reuben at September 2, 2004 3:33 PM | Permalink Thanks for the insight, Mr. Berger. I heartily agree with your sentiment and thank you for bringing the focus back to the discussion. Posted by: Alejo at September 2, 2004 3:47 PM | Permalink Reuben, Chalabi didn't snow everyone; he snowed people who wanted to be snowed. Most of what he and his sources said, and virtually all of what the administration said, had been discredited or at least cast into serious doubt before the invasion. As for Miller, she explicitly said that her job wasn't to analyze what the administration told her, but simply to report it. That's not being duped, that's willingly placing one's self at the service of people whose statements are meant to be the object of scrutiny, not repetition. Posted by: weldon berger at September 2, 2004 3:48 PM | Permalink Jay, I do not put quotation marks around my statement that you have alleged that all the charges have been decisively smacked down by the press. My statement is obviously my characterization of what I feel you are saying in the post. When I read your entire post, in full context, it seems to me that my characterization is a fair one. Perhaps you mean to be making it clear that you are describing only what journalists' perceptions are. But both Beldar and I received the strong impression -- from your tone, from your seemingly approving quotations of the journalists, from the way you word your characterizations of the "knock down," and from the whole tenor of your post -- that you agree with the journalists. If you really mean to say only that this is what journalists believe -- not what Jay Rosen believes -- all I can say is that it was not clear to me, and I was not the only one. In any event, readers need only scroll up to your actual post to decide for themselves what it says, and whether my characterization is accurate. I wonder if you would answer a question: which Swift Boat ads are not, in your opinion, a smear? And if you don't think the press has "knocked down" the Swiftvets' allegations in their entirety, I'd like to know that, too -- and I'd be especially interested in which ones you still consider viable. Perhaps you don't wish to take a position on such matters, given your purpose at the weblog. If that's your position, I'll respect it and won't mock it. But I take your comments directed at me as a suggestion that I am distorting what you are saying. I don't think I am -- and I assure you that I am not doing so consciously. Can we all be more careful with language? Sure. Can Jay Rosen be guilty of selective quotation? I think you can. For example, when I claimed on my weblog that you had "branded the Swift Boat Vets' ads as a 'smear'" you responded: Not quite accurate, Pat. I said the first ad was a smear job: "the original ad is a classic smear job-- ugly, brutal, demagogic, paranoid, cynical, dishonest in the extreme. And--a point that has not been stressed enough--it dishonors and degrades everyone who comes into contact with it."You chose not to quote the first sentence of your post above, in which you said: There is a smear campaign launched against John Kerry.Nor was your use of this phrase an accident. At my weblog, Tim has collected numerous quotes of yours labeling the Swift Vets' campaign as a "smear campaign." In light of this language, I don't think it was fair to me to characterize as "[n]ot quite accurate" my statement that you had"branded the Swift Boat Vets' ads as a 'smear.'" My point here is not to pick a fight with you. I'm feeling a little defensive, I suppose -- my impression being that you think I am out there mischaracterizing what you are saying. I hope you don't take it as an attack if I suggest that some of the fault in the communication could be yours in the expression, as well as with mine in the interpretation. My last example was offered merely to illustrate that point with a specific example. My suggestion would be that we all cut each other a little slack, try to point out inaccuracies when we see them, try to make sure that our various responses take into account everything we have said, and not allege a plan by others to systematically distort facts without evidence -- clearly set forth -- of a pattern showing an intent to distort. I don't think you'll find such a pattern in my writings. Preemptive comment: I know that your response to the last would be that this is exactly what I do with the mainstream media: allege a pattern of intentional distortion where none exists. I'll bet that if you tried, you could find all sorts of examples from my writing to support your argument. Two points: 1) I think I have documented a clear pattern over time; and 2) even in light of point #1, your presumptive point is noted and may have some merit. Hope I have caused no offense with any of this. Posted by: Patterico at September 2, 2004 3:56 PM | Permalink That's stenography not reporting. I condemn it and Miller's work on those pieces. Are you suggesting that this administration accepts he was playing them on the weapons then and now? The adminstration wanted to be snowed, were snowed and still are neck-deep in drifts of crap of their own making as we speak. Posted by: Reuben at September 2, 2004 4:01 PM | Permalink "My statement is obviously my characterization of what I feel you are saying in the post." From reading your slanted blog I'd say this applies to everything you see and write. Feeling is not reasoning. Writers and real Journalists know the difference. Posted by: Reuben at September 2, 2004 4:06 PM | Permalink Jay, Let me say much the same thing, much shorter. You say you were "primarily observing how clueless and wrong-headed the press was being in dismissing the matter so easily." I say you are doing the same thing by repeatedly calling the Vets' campaign a "smear campaign" based on what you know to date. And I wonder how you could reach such a conclusion if you have an in-depth knowledge of the research done by William Dyer (Beldar), Tom Maguire, Ed Morrisey (Captain Ed), and the like. Posted by: Patterico at September 2, 2004 4:09 PM | Permalink Reuben, I don't want to get too far off track here, but yes, I think much of the administration know Chalabi was lying, and I think a good many of them knew it at the time. They may have believed his happy crap about the welcome we'd get, but his primary purpose, and it was mutual to the administration, was to lobby Congress and the press in favor of an invasion that was on the table for what became this administration long before they took power. Posted by: weldon berger at September 2, 2004 4:21 PM | Permalink Patterico and others: Christmas in Cambodia seems to me a very dubious story. I don't know if Kerry made the entire thing up, mis-remembered something that happened, or exaggerated fatally from a real life incident. It matters a great deal that no one on his boat can recall ever being in Cambodia. There may be an explanation, but Kerry hasn't given it. Therefore if this is one of the charges, the press has not "knocked it down." Another example: When the Kerry campaign says it cannot release records because it has an exclusive deal with historian Douglas Brinkley, and Brinkley says, "huh? I don't mind if they release that information," that says to me: the Kerry campaign does not want to release the records and the operatives just made up a reason. This does not reflect well on them. The charge that matters the most, in my view; the charge that "made" the Swift Boat Veterans as an attack machine; the charge that lends "pop" to their attack; the charge that is doing whatever damage their campaign has done... is that Kerry didn't deserve his medals, lied to get them, and showed no courage in Vietnam. In my view, this charge is an ugly smear, and I think it's essentially false, which does not mean that every statement Kerry made about the matter is true. Kerry is a politician and I think he was probably an aspiring politician in college. Did he have an "eye" on his future in the 1960s and 70s? I would say he did, yes. I further believe that the Swift Boat Vets wanted to "expose" Kerry for his anti-war activities and statements before Congress. They felt slandered by what he said then, and still do. They wanted a debate about that and they wanted him to answer for the accusations they feel he made about all Vietnam vets. They could have made their campaign about that issue and those days, it would have been possible, but--and this is the part of the story where I would like to see some reporting--they decided they needed more "pop," something more sensational, a real grabber, an allegation with a wow factor in it, something with a kick: The war hero is a fraud. He didn't deserve his medals. He's actually a coward, morally unfit. The medals became this attention-grabbing device; they provided the wow factor, the means for showing that Kerry is not an ordinary truth-shader and self-promoter (i.e., a politician) but a moral monster, unfit for command. Once the decision was made to challenge his medals, an evidentiary (and moral) Rubicon was crossed. The smear began right there. The ad about the medals is shameless, cynical, demagogic; and it trades in paranoia, but there is a "thrill" factor to it. People who have experienced such a thrill have to ward off their feelings of guilt. They do this by seeing themselves as totally innocent and the person they've tried to blow away as totally guilty, and thus wholly deserving of his fate. I believe that psychology is driving events in the Swift Vets case. They have to suppress a lot of knowledge they have as veterans, such as the fact that almost no one's medals could fully withstand the kind of scrutiny Kerry's have received. Total innocence (on our side) and total guilt (on his, on theirs) become the means to do that. Under these circumstances, doubt becomes one's psychic enemy. Anyone who is not 100% on board is a threat to survival. Anyone who raises questions is a potential enemy. The charge that Kerry doesn't deserve his medals and lied to get them; that he is not a hero but a coward and a moral monster-- this actually has nothing to do with his anti-war stance and the statements about American soldiers that he made before Congress. The Swift Vets didn't have to challenge his medals and his standing as war hero in order to condemn Kerry for what he did and said after returning from Vietnam. But for some reason (and this to me is the unexplained factor in these events) they decided to go for it. Once they crossed that line, which required falsehoods to be aired, it became a psychological war, not just a political fight. This war, which is very complicated, is partly internal to the Swift Vets and their supporters. I don't agree with the view--expressed by some journalists and accepted by almost all pro-Kerry Democrats--that the Swift Vets are just a front group for the Bush campaign. At some point, however, they became influenced by pro-Bush operatives, and I feel they have been used by forces loyal to the President. John O'Neill's anger at Bush for saying things like "Kerry served honorably" seems to me very real-- genuine rage. This is one part of the story that remains untold. If Karl Rove is as smart as people say, then I think he's rather worried about the Swift Vets-- precisely because they are not just a front group. Finally, I repeat what I said in my original post. The Swift Vets smear (Kerry didn't deserve his medals and lied to get them) dishonors and degrades everyone who signs on with it. It is a toxic charge. I think lots of people supporting the Swift Vets intuitively know this. That's why they say things like, "the medals are a distraction" (Glenn Reynolds at his weblog) or "Gee, I don't know why they focused on the medals" (John Moore at mine.) I observe with great interest the way supporters of the Swift Vets step carefully around this part of the case, or speak as if it didn't exist. Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 2, 2004 6:25 PM | Permalink Tom Oliphant is quoted approvingly: "I don't mean to say that I know exactly what happened that day. I believe that Mr. O'Neill, like anybody making a personal attack in politics, has to shoulder the burden of proof. It never leaves his shoulders until he satisfies it. And on this story, they haven't even gotten to first base." This is completely wrong. Mr. Kerry has asked us to vote for him based largely on his record in Vietnam. Now the Swifties have introduced substantial testimony and pointed out inconsistencies in Kerry's own materials (website, campaign book by Brinkley) that draw Kerry's assertions and the validity of his awards into question. Kerry refuses to release records. He has conceded on Christmas in Cambodia and on his previous assertions that all boats fled on March 13, when he alone initially fled, and other stayed to succor the No. 3 boat. There is also the fact he carried a movie camera to "reenact" combat scenes for later political use, which strongly implies he was out to inflate his record. The burden of proof is on Kerry to convince us to entrust him with the presidency. It is not on the Swifties to prove that Kerry has lied beyond a reasonable doubt. This not a criminal case. Posted by: thucydides at September 2, 2004 6:42 PM | Permalink Tom Oliphant is not quoted approvingly. You are simply wrong about that. Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 2, 2004 6:44 PM | Permalink Jay, The Swift Vets didn't have to challenge his medals and his standing as war hero in order to condemn Kerry for what he did and said after returning from Vietnam. But for some reason (and this to me is the unexplained factor in these events) they decided to go for it. Yes, they did. And it had to be phase one. This debate has been played over 30 years and Kerry's defense to criticisms about what he said when he returned is that he had EARNED the right to speak out against the war (and smear those still fighting it) BECAUSE he was a bemedaled war hero. He EARNED those medals (or ribbons) that he tossed away as symbols for what he went through. His medals and hero status was the teflon coating that needed to be pierced before transitioning to phase two (post-war activities). Back on the topic of the "independent" media, I would describe blogs as dependent on the press but outside pressthink's pack mentality that too often is compliant with perceived conventional wisdom. There is an independence to explore, ask and mature a story in public among ideological friends and foes without risking profit or professional credibility. Some blogs are an individual's (or like minded group's) echo chamber where "the truth" very much favors their political ideology; and political opponents can be smeared, unchallenged, as evil, uniquely corrupt, sinister and undemocratic. Headlines aren't as much summaries as statements, like Ashcroft: the drama queen of the War on Terra®. Some blogs shame the gatekeepers into doing a better job, other blogs are held out by the gatekeepers as their raison d'être. Posted by: Tim at September 2, 2004 6:57 PM | |
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