What a coincidence! Yesterday John Kerry finally responded to the Swift Boat Vets’ accusations, not by dealing with them substantively, but by denouncing the Vets as tools of the Bush campaign. The very next morning, the Times broke its silence with its long-awaited coverage of the issue, which, rather than investigating the merits of the Vets’ claims, attacked the Vets as tools of the Bush campaign!
Instead of addressing the point at issue–whether Presidential candidate John Kerry is a serial liar–the Times devoted its vast investigative resources to digging up dirt on the Swift Boat Vets, and came to this blockbuster conclusion: some of the people supporting the Vets are Republicans! Tomorrow, we’ll expect to see a similar investigation of Americans Coming Together and MoveOn.org. What do you want to bet some of their contributors are Democrats? I’ll bet some of them have even met people who have served in Democratic administrations. What an expose!
If you read all the way to the end of the Times’ interminable denunciation of the Vets, you do find this tidbit:
This week, as [the Vets’] leaders spoke with reporters, they have focused primarily on the one allegation in the book that Mr. Kerry’s campaign has not been able to put to rest: that he was not in Cambodia at Christmas in 1968, as he declared in a statement to the Senate in 1986. Even Mr. Brinkley, who has emerged as a defender of Mr. Kerry, said in an interview that it was unlikely that Mr. Kerry’s Swift boat ventured into Cambodia at Christmas, though he said he believed that Mr. Kerry was probably there shortly afterward.
They should have described Christmas in Cambodia as “the one allegation Kerry’s campaign has not been able to come up with a cover story for,” not “put to rest.” But wouldn’t you expect the Times to find some significance in the fact that Kerry has lied about one of the principal events in his campaign biography?
NOTE: This post is by Rocket Man. I pulled it out of his comment on a post of mine earlier this morning to direct attention to his observations by themselves.
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