SwiftVets.com

[fortdixlover]

Excerpts from article "The Swifties are gettin' to Kerry" - I particularly like the paragraphs bolded below.

Ha - maybe this is the article Leftists will use to show the SwiftVets are part of an International Jewish Conspiracy!


FDL

http://jewishworldreview.com/0804/jkelly082404.asp

When John Kerry went postal last week, the major media's preferred strategy for dealing with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth — to ignore them — went down the toilet.

Kerry melted down because the Swifties' exposure of Kerry's "Christmas in Cambodia" fantasy has struck a nerve, and is gaining traction, despite the major media's refusal to report on it.

...

The Swifties have provided evidence that Kerry spent Christmas eve in Sa Dec, 55 miles from Cambodia. None of the sailors who served with Kerry on the two swift boats he commanded, PCF-44 and PCF-94, have supported his claim, though Mike Medeiros, a crewmate on PCF-94, said they may have strayed into Cambodian waters inadvertently.

...

But this was impossible, according to Doug Regelin, a swift boat commander in 1969, but who is not a member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. PCF-94 was part of Coastal Division 11, which was stationed at An Thoi.

...

After Kerry blasted the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in a speech to firefighters, and filed lawsuits to block publication of their book and broadcast of their ads, the Swifties were impossible for the major media to ignore. So it was time for Plan B: blow smoke.

The New York Times published its first story on the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Aug. 20. It was a doozy: 3,500 words beginning at the top of the front page.

The gist of the Times' story is that Houston lawyer John O'Neill, principal author of the book "Unfit for Command," knows Republicans who know other Republicans who know George Bush. It's purpose is to shore up Kerry's claim that the Swifties are a GOP front group.

It is necessary for Kerry to claim the Swifties are Republican tools, because to discuss the real reason why they despise him — for falsely accusing them and other Viet vets of grisly war crimes — would not enhance Kerry's appeal to swing voters.

O'Neill says he's an independent who voted for Al Gore in 2000. The Times doesn't mention this.

The Times doesn't mention Christmas in Cambodia until the fourth from the last paragraph of the story, describing it only as "the one allegation that Mr. Kerry's campaign has not been able to put to rest."

The challenges to Kerry's medals have been put to rest, the Times and other major newspapers said, because "official records" — chiefly Kerry's medal citations — support Kerry. The Swifties' charge that the medal citations were based on highly imaginative reports written by Kerry himself apparently were not investigated.

Kerry's meltdown is a triumph for the Swifties, whose meager budget permitted them to place only a handful of ads on a few mid-market tv stations in Ohio, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. Now lots more people have heard of them, and will be curious about what they have to say. (The Swifties say Internet contributions jumped the day Kerry attacked them.)

It's a triumph also for the blogosphere, which reported on a story the major media were trying to bury. Congratulations to Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit), Ed Morrissey (Captains Quarters), John Hindraker, and Scott Johnson (Power Line), Hugh Hewitt and many others for doing the job "mainstream" journalists are supposed to do, but wouldn't.

JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration.