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TEWSPilot
Admiral
Joined: 26 Aug 2004
Posts: 1235
Location: Kansas (Transplanted Texan)
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 Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 5:14 pm Post subject: Swett: Media still lying about the Swift Boat Veterans |
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Scott Swett has nailed the Obama prevacators --- again.
| Quote: | Media still lying about the Swift Boat Veterans
May 25, 2009
Five years ago, a group of Vietnam veterans came forward at the National Press Club in Washington to dispute the "war hero" stories that formed the basis of candidate John Kerry's presidential campaign, and to challenge the claims of rampant US war crimes Kerry had used to launch his political career 33 years earlier -- false accusations, they said, that helped to poison the reputations of a generation of American troops. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth included Kerry's entire former chain of command from Vietnam and dozens of eyewitnesses to his actions there. Kerry, the veterans said, was not fit to be America's Commander-in-Chief
The Swift Vets intended to hold a single press conference and go home, thinking that Kerry would quickly be withdrawn as the nominee of his party. However, instead of reporting the veterans' charges accurately, the Democrat-dominated media either ignored or disparaged their testimony. In response, the Swift Vets planned and executed a remarkably effective end run to bypass the DNC media, presenting their case with the book Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, the website SwiftVets.com (which I managed), a devastating TV ad campaign, and thousands of individual interviews, mostly on talk radio. In early August 2004, the multipronged effort paid off. Unfit for Command topped the best-seller lists and millions of dollars in donations flooded into SwiftVets.com. The TV ads, as reporter Bill Sammon would later write, were "transfixing" the country. Polls showed that the veterans were perceived as highly credible. Kerry's support plummeted, especially among veterans, the families of veterans and independent voters.
Kerry ignored the firestorm for two weeks and his media allies followed suit. Finally, on August 20th, he denounced his critics by name. The media responded instantly with a blizzard of anti-Swift Vet articles. For ten weeks, the Kerry campaign and the DNC media worked desperately to discredit the veterans, but with little success. When Kerry narrowly lost the election, many observers cited the Swift Vets as the key factor.
The liberal spin after the election was that Kerry had been "too slow" to respond to his critics. Some Kerry advisors admitted that they had relied on the media to keep the Swift Vet story from breaking through. However, if ten weeks of attacks weren't enough, two more probably wouldn't have made much difference.
Ever since 2004, the media has tried to correct its failure to turn public opinion against the Swift Vets.
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Shortly after the election, the DNC media began using the term "swift boating" as a shorthand reference for supposedly dishonest political criticism - but only for criticism targeting Democrats or Democratic initiatives. Like the earlier use of "McCarthyism," this sloganeering was intended to silence debate through repetition.
In 2004, the media had eagerly repeated the Kerry campaign's unsupported charge that the Swift Vets were really a secret Republican operation rather than an independent group. Kerry filed a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission demanding a complete investigation, and the FEC responded with a flurry of subpoenas followed by a forensic examination of the Swift Vets' records. I was ordered to turn over some 10,000 emails to the FEC, and I was only a website contractor. After two years of exhaustive investigation, the FEC finally concluded in December 2006 that the Swift Vets "did not unlawfully coordinate its activities" with any party or candidate. The media ignored the group's exoneration, focusing instead on the FEC's decision to fine the Swift Vets for forming as a "527" organization instead of as a political action committee.
Meanwhile, Tim Ziegler and I were working on a book about the anti-Kerry veterans' movement, of which the Swift Vets had been the most visible part. Again and again our research uncovered new information that supported the Swift Vets' affidavit-backed testimony over the claims of the Kerry campaign. For example, we were able to interview a former Forward Air Control pilot who had observed Kerry's "No Man Left Behind" mission from above. We also located and spoke with former Special Forces officer Richard O'Connor, the mission commander, who had declined to be interviewed in 2004. His subordinate Jim Rassmann was the man Kerry had famously extracted from the river that day. Both O'Connor and the FAC pilot confirmed the Swift Vets' statement that there was no enemy fire during the mine explosion and subsequent rescue operations, flatly contradicting the campaign version promoted by Rassmann and Kerry.
Early in 2008, Wintersoldier.com published summary reports of the Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) investigations into the atrocity allegations made by Vietnam Veterans Against the War -- the very claims Kerry presented to the Senate during the testimony that launched his political career. The CID documents, unseen for more than thirty years, showed that the "winter soldiers" had been utterly unable to support their claims with real evidence. Several of the activists had backtracked or disavowed their stories entirely when interviewed by military investigators. The DNC media couldn't have been less interested.
One of John Kerry's key veteran supporters in 2004 was Wade Sanders, who helped to introduce the candidate at the Democratic National Convention and was mentioned as a candidate for Secretary of Defense. Sanders also acted as Kerry's lead attack dog against the Swift Vets, whom he repeatedly compared to Nazis.
Two weeks ago, Sanders was sentenced to 37 months in prison on child pornography charges. Rather than admit to wrongdoing, Sanders claimed that he had been doing "research." He blamed his obsessive interest in the subject on a flare-up of post-traumatic stress caused by -- you guessed it -- the Swift Vets. Alas, as James Taranto pointed out, Sanders' acquisition of child pornography began in 2003, before the Swift Vets even existed. The DNC media, including Kerry's troubled hometown Boston Globe, ignored Sanders conviction.
Imagine the media coverage if the offender had been someone like Swift Vet spokesman John O'Neill.
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The Swift Vets were created for a single purpose: to inform the public about John Kerry. The group did not engage in any political activity after 2004, and it disbanded a few months after the FEC investigation ended.
Nevertheless, the DNC media continued to report that the Swift Vets were engaged in a wide variety of anti-Democrat political ventures. Usually, the only connection was to one of the group's former contractors - political consultants who have done work for hundreds of clients over the years. On other occasions, the culprits were wealthy Republicans who gave money in support of the veterans, as they have for many other political initiatives. The reports always dishonestly implied that the Swift Vets themselves were involved.
Ironically, this was the same style of attack Dan Rather and CBS News used the very first day the Swift Vets went public. Parroting talking points provided by the Kerry campaign, Rather falsely labeled the group a "Republican operation" while Byron Pitts claimed that the Swift Vets had used similar tactics against Senators Max Cleland and John McCain. In fact, none of the veterans had taken part in any such effort.
The latest canard is that "swiftboaters" are behind an effort to oppose President Obama's health care plan. Obama's former campaign manager David Plouffe recently sent out an email to Obama supporters on behalf of a DNC-managed group claiming that "the same people behind the notorious ‘swiftboat' ads of 2004 are already pumping millions of dollars into deceptive television ads." Plouffe asked for $5 to help "fight back."
The health care effort is coordinated by CRC Public Relations, which did do contract work on the Swift Vets' successful TV ads. Of CRC's many PR campaigns, however, a far more relevant example is the "Harry and Louise" series that helped derail the Clintons' attempt to socialize the American medical system back in 1993.
Perhaps an honest reporter might want to ask Mr. Plouffe this question:
"Sir, you recently suggested that the Swift boat veterans group is opposing the President's health care proposal. How is that possible given that the organization has been inactive since 2004?"
Don't hold your breath while you wait.
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Scott Swett is the primary author of a new book on the 2004 presidential campaign, To Set The Record Straight: How Swift Boat Veterans, POWs and the New Media Defeated John Kerry. He is also webmaster for SwiftVets.com and WinterSoldier.com.
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Admin note: I've given Scott's commentary its own topic. Thanks for posting this/me#1 |
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LewWaters
Admin
Joined: 18 May 2004
Posts: 4042
Location: Washington State
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| Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 7:17 pm Post subject: |
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All this shows just how effective a real grassroots effort was in 2004.
The guys delivered a knockout blow to the Democrats that they can never forget and must now demonize, as they do to those who oppose them.
Sounds like what happened with the formation of the Soviet Union.
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Deuce
Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 19 Mar 2005
Posts: 589
Location: FL
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| Posted: Sat Jun 06, 2009 5:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | bypass the DNC media |
Now a national passtime, thanks to Liars, Inc (DNC), bypassing the DNC media has become America's most ubiquitous export product! Great article! |
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Leeman
PO3
Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 265
Location: Connecticut
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| Posted: Sat Jun 06, 2009 9:36 pm Post subject: |
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They can call it whatever they want, but I agree it was such a kockout that they have not recovered & never will.
I am sure John Kerry & his ILk see swifty's comming at Them from all directions & in all forms.
anything that don't look right, is a swifty lurking..close by.
It will take them a few more elections to realize the Swifty's have stood down.
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Leeman
"We are all Ghost now"
"But once we were men"
from an unsigned diary recovered from Cabanatuan Camp |
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jalexson
PO3
Joined: 11 May 2004
Posts: 272
Location: Hutchinson, Kansas
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| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 1:23 am Post subject: |
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The problem with many Democrats and their media prostitutes is that they live in a make believe fantasy world in which whatever they believe is supposed to be the truth no matter how ridiculous it might be. Anyone who disagrees with their fantasies becomes a liar and an enemy to their limited minds.
The Washington Post got in trouble recently for initially promoting a salon to allow lobbyists and newsmakers to meet.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24496.html
_________________
"That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoe making and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poor house."
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Me#1You#10
Site Admin
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
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| Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Leeman wrote: | anything that don't look right, is a swifty lurking..close by.
It will take them a few more elections to realize the Swifty's have stood down. |
Quite often I'll see comments in this forum that might appear to attribute leftist ideological conduct to some benign state of ignorance on the subject at hand. While I'm confident they're probably the product of casual humor and/or sarcasm, your observation, to my mind, somewhat mis-states (perhaps understates) the actual case. No "soapbox" rant at you Leeman...just an opportunity for me to coalesce my own thoughts on these leftist/liberal/"progressive" vermin.
"They" understand quite well that the "Swifty's have stood down"...just as the prime promulgators of the pejoratization of "swiftboat" understood, also quite well, that the Swiftvet's long-overdue assault on Kerry's contrived and fraudulent biography was both grassroot, "substantive" and eminently truthful. Of those who now readily parrot the "swiftboat" pejorative, few would be able to actually defend its ideological root...nor are they or will they be called upon to do so.
The leftist response to any perceived attack on their ideological agenda (or any representative-by-proxy such as Kerry) is boilerplate and, by now, child's play to discern within the framework of purported (cough) "discourse" surrounding the societal-changing issues raging today...- Formulate and establish an unwavering ideological position
- Rigorously disseminate the propaganda
- Demonize all opposition
- Shut down debate
- Institutionalize
In a better American day, a "gameplan" such as this would be thwarted by an impartial, by-nature cynical and inquisitive "press". Today, for the most part, that same press has been incorporated into an integral part of the cabal...and the prognosis is decidedly dour. But I have not yet lost all hope for the survival of "journalism" and its role in preserving America as we know it. Perhaps a small anecdote...
Recently in a moment of "channel surfing", I happened to stop at CNN where anchor Rick Sanchez was in the process of interviewing an authority on Honduran government, Otto Reich. I've had the occasion to watch a few minutes of Sanchez in the past...enough for me to characterize him (perhaps wrongly?) as a rather stereotypical CNN "anchor" in terms of political inclination. Sanchez was somewhat perplexed that the purported "coup" (as Obama would have it) or the "unusual coup" (as today's Washington Post would have it) in Honduras might be no "coup" at all...but more the product of an adherence to a process defined by the Honduran Constitution itself. He couldn't help wondering aloud why this fact hadn't yet been more broadly brought to the attention of the American people. What's more, he even suggested a personal effort to see that this as yet unheard "fact" received more "media" attention.
Sanchez got publicly "educated"...and so did his CNN audience. Perhaps this "interview" was actually a product of his previously mentioned commitment to get out ALL the facts on this issue? Perhaps some of his media brethren are also candidates for redemption? I'll still hope for some "renaissance" or "reformation" that might save the soul of contemporary journalism.
P.S. Lew has a nice commentary in his blog on the Honduras situation. Check it out. |
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