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-- Times Watch Special Report
Sen. John Kerry emerged as the likely Democratic candidate for president after racking up primary wins February 3. The next day, in a foreshadowing of campaign controversies to come, New York Times reporters Elisabeth Bumiller and David Halbfinger compared Kerry and Bush on their Vietnam service.
From the very first line, the Times found in favor of Kerry: "The contrast could not be more striking. In March 1969, John Kerry, a 25-year-old Navy lieutenant, reached down from the boat he was piloting in Vietnam's treacherous Bay Hap River and in a spray of enemy fire pulled a soldier out of the water to safety. For his valor, Mr. Kerry won the Bronze Star with a combat 'V' and his third Purple Heart. That very same month, George W. Bush was on far-safer ground in Valdosta, Ga., learning to fly fighter planes for the Texas National Guard, a coveted post that greatly reduced any risk that he would be sent to Vietnam -- and one that he might not have obtained had his father not been a member of Congress."
When the Times reporters insisted "the contrast could not be more striking," they could also have been describing the paper's starkly slanted coverage of Bush and Kerry's respective Vietnam controversies.
Throughout the presidential campaign, the paper faithfully pursued Democratic charges that Bush failed to fulfill his National Guard obligations during the Vietnam War, forwarding unsubstantiated Democratic allegations without questioning the source or motivation behind the charges and without characterizing their merit. When Democratic Party boss Terry McAuliffe accused Bush on the February 1
This Week with George Stephanopoulos of being "AWOL" from the National Guard during Vietnam, the partisan origins of the story didn't stop the Times from eagerly pursuing the charge.
Yet when it came to Vietnam-era controversies involving Kerry, the combat boot was on the other foot. When Kerry's purported strong point (Vietnam) came under surprising fire over the summer by a group of veterans who served with Kerry, the Times at first ignored, then dismissed as partisan and "unsubstantiated"
the allegations from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. The barest hint of Republican ties by the group gave the Times an excuse to ignore the substance of the charges from the 200-plus veterans. Instead, the Times scoured for links between the Swift Boat vets and the Republican Party, even publishing a
chart
alleging "ties" between the Swift Boat vets and the G.O.P.
After mentioning the group in passing May 4 and covering the group's initial press conference the next day, mentions of the controversy were sparse and sporadic until July 27, when the group's name popped up on the news pages in a pro-Kerry story by David Halbfinger, "In Battle of Patriotic Symbols, Veterans Muster in Kerry Camp."
Throughout the life of the story, the Times tarred the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth veterans group and focused its journalistic resources on discrediting the group rather than investigating the charges it was making. This occurred even while at least one accusation -- that Kerry was not on a secret mission to Cambodia as he'd long claimed -- was proven correct.
When it finally began focusing on the Swift Boat vets, the paper's tone was wall-to-wall hostile, sticking the warning label of "unsubstantiated" on the group's allegations no less than 20 times. By contrast, not once did the Times describe even the wildest "Bush-was-AWOL" charges as "unsubstantiated" (regarding the AWOL smear, one story suggested mildly that it "appears to be exaggerated based on the balance of evidence available to date.").
In addition to showing a stark
double standard in condemning the Swift vets while leaping on unsubstantiated
stories about Bush, the New York Times:
Demanded Bush denounce the Swift Boat vets.
Glossed over the partisan and unreliable history of Bush accuser Bill Burkett.
Placed the National Guard story on its front page even after CBS's memo meltdown.
Editorialized how Bush had made his National Guard service "fair game," yet later condemned media outlets that reported the anti-Kerry Swift Boat charges.
Leaping on Unsubstantiated Bush National Guard
Story
Democratic Chief Says 'AWOL' Bush Will Be an Issue After a Nominee Emerges"
-- Headline over a Feb. 2 story by Katharine Seelye.
Mr. Kerry turned an eye to the general election, saying he had not made up his mind about whether to follow up attacks made by senior Democrats challenging Mr. Bush's record of attendance in the Air National Guard. On Sunday, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Terry McAuliffe, accused Mr. Bush of being AWOL, a reference to questions about whether Mr. Bush showed up at required drills in his final months of service."
-- Adam Nagourney, February 3.
In a rare broadcast interview that he agreed to do as his poll numbers were falling and Democrats were increasingly hopeful of ousting him in November, Mr. Bush said on 'Meet the Press' that he was far from alone in judging Saddam Hussein to be a threat. He rebutted accusations that he did not complete all of his duties while in the National Guard in 1972."
-- Richard Stevenson, February 9.
"I think that the bottom line is that there is nothing beyond the president's dental examination that he had in Alabama in January of 1973 that puts him in Alabama. That's critical because the contention of some of the Democrats is that the president never turned up for his military National Guard duty in Alabama for a six-month period in '72 and '73….And there's also the issue that some people in the Guard in those years were paid when they didn't show up. The White House then on Wednesday -- Tuesday or Wednesday -- released a very strange document, which was a diagram of teeth. And with it, was the president's dental exam from the base in Alabama in 1973. And this, to this point, even after this big document drop tonight, that remains the only document that definitively shows that the president was in Alabama."
-- White House reporter Elisabeth Bumiller on the February 13 Washington Week in Review after the White House released Bush's National Guard records.
"Until this month, the Republican defense of Mr. Bush's military record, sticking to the bare essentials, had successfully neutralized a succession of newspaper articles that raised questions about Mr. Bush's service. But now, with Iraq casualties mounting, with angry Democrats coalescing behind a decorated Vietnam veteran and with credibility questions dogging Mr. Bush, the broad-brush defense has been abandoned….On the question of whether he was ever AWOL, that charge appears to be exaggerated based on the balance of evidence available to date."
-- David Barstow, February 15.
Republicans had expected Mr. Bush to enter the general election campaign benefiting from his leadership in the war on terrorism. But the continued deaths of American troops in Iraq, the apparent absence of stockpiles of banned weapons there and the questions about Mr. Bush's service in the Guard in the Vietnam era have all eaten into his support, left the White House scrambling and emboldened Democrats."
-- Richard Stevenson, February 18.
"When Democrats accused Mr. Bush this year of being AWOL for part of his tour of duty, he released guard records. But the documents did not make clear how often Mr. Bush reported for duty."
-- Katharine Seelye, April 22.
"Not until he was accused this year of having been AWOL from the National Guard in the 1970's did he release some of his military records, and they did not establish whether he reported for duty."
-- Katharine Seelye and David Rosenbaum, April 25.
But Dismissing "Unsubstantiated" Allegations by
"Republican-Financed" Swifties
"But on close examination, the accounts of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth prove to be riddled with inconsistencies. In many cases, material offered as proof by these veterans is undercut by official Navy records and the men's own statements."
-- Jim Rutenberg and Kate Zernike, August
20.
"In fairness to Mr. Kerry, his aides were faced with a strategic dilemma that has become distressingly familiar to campaigns in this era when so much unsubstantiated or even false information can reach the public through so many different forums, be it blogs or talk-show radio."
-- Adam Nagourney, August 21.
"Mr. Bush spoke to reporters at his Texas ranch after a weekend in which veterans supporting and opposing Mr. Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, furiously debated mostly unsubstantiated accusations against him by a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth."
-- Elisabeth Bumiller and Kate Zernike, August
24.
"Though Mr. Kerry's long-planned speech was billed as an issue-based blueprint for the campaign's remaining 10 weeks, it was laced with language invoking the controversy spurred by a Republican-financed group of Vietnam veterans vilifying Mr. Kerry in television advertisements and a book….The group has extensive ties to Texas Republicans. The White House has denied any connections."
-- Jodi Wilgoren, August 25.
"Mr. Bush's campaign aides have repeatedly said they have no connection to the group, almost all of whose challenges to Mr. Kerry and his war record have been contradicted by official war records and even some of its members' own past statements….But it has gradually acknowledged ties to people close to the Republican Party and Mr. Bush's campaign."
-- Jim Rutenberg and Kate Zernike, August
25.
"The national counsel for President Bush's re-election campaign resigned on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after he acknowledged that he had provided legal advice to a veterans group that has leveled unsubstantiated attacks on Senator John Kerry's Vietnam War record in a book and on the air."
-- Elisabeth Bumiller, August 26.
"But the advertisements by one group of veterans attacking the war record of Mr. Kerry, advertisements that are closely tied to supporters of President Bush, have reopened wounds about class and service and frayed some of the unifying threads."
-- Timothy Egan, August 26.
"The Swift boat veterans, whose most serious charges have been contradicted by official records, some of their own past statements and a number of witnesses, got most of their initial money from Texans supportive of the president."
-- Jim Rutenberg and Kate Zernike, August
27.
"One young man, Mr. Kerry, had misgivings about the Vietnam War but volunteered anyway, took and saved lives and won medals for valor, then came home and led other veterans trying to stop the war -- while antagonizing countless others in uniform. The anger over his antiwar period remains on fire to this day, consuming a group of veterans who have lobbed unsubstantiated charges that he did not earn his medals and are questioning his fitness to be president."
-- David Halbfinger, August 29.
"Benjamin Ginsberg…resigned as the national counsel to the Bush campaign last week after he acknowledged providing legal advice to a veterans group that had leveled unsubstantiated criticism at Senator John Kerry's Vietnam War record."
-- Sam Roberts, August 31.
"[Democrats] argue that the Bush family has long resorted to brutal political tactics when cornered and is known for its parallel campaign tracks, one on the high road, and one on what Democrats would call the low road. Those accusations have grown particularly strong in the last month, in which Mr. Kerry has been the subject of unsubstantiated charges by veterans about his Vietnam combat medals."
-- Adam Nagourney, September 1.
"The arrival of the new staff members came after several weeks in which Mr. Kerry was slow to respond to an assault on his Vietnam combat record and character, with largely unsubstantiated accusations, by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth."
-- David Halbfinger and Jodi Wilgoren, September
1.
"When speakers at the Republican convention discuss Senator John Kerry's service in Vietnam, they use words like 'respect,' as Rudolph W. Giuliani did on Monday, giving nary a hint of the unsubstantiated charges by a veteran's group that Mr. Kerry lied to get his war medals, which dominated the campaign for two weeks before the convention began."
-- Jim Rutenberg, September 1.
"But Mr. Kerry was thrown off-stride by the largely unsubstantiated attacks of a group of conservative Vietnam veterans last month,"
-- Robin Toner and Jodi Wilgoren, September 3.
"Most of all, Democrats were perturbed with what they described as the Kerry campaign's unsteady response to the Vietnam veterans groups making unsubstantiated charges about the combat medals Mr. Kerry won while in Vietnam."
-- Adam Nagourney and Jodi Wilgoren, September 5.
"But [an undecided female voter] was worried that Mr. Kerry had somehow falsified his military record, perhaps influenced by the unsubstantiated accusations made in anti-Kerry commercials."
-- Katharine Seelye, September 6.
"With advertisements, through a book and on talk shows, the group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, leveled largely unsubstantiated accusations about Mr. Kerry's record and told how his antiwar statements had demoralized veterans."
-- Katharine Seelye and Ralph Blumenthal, September
9.
"Kitty Kelley's catty new book about the Bush family is a perfect artifact of our current political culture in which unsubstantiated attacks on Senator John Kerry's Vietnam War record and old questions about President Bush's National Guard service get more attention than present-day issues like the Iraq war, the economy, intelligence reform or the assault weapons ban."
-- Book critic Michiko Kakutani, September 14.
"The poll findings suggest that Kerry has suffered considerable damage after a summer in which he was the subject of mostly unsubstantiated attacks on his Vietnam war record by a group of veterans with ties to Bush's campaign."
-- Adam Nagourney and Janet Elder, September 18 (from the Times' international
edition -- the NYT's version of the story replaces the word "unsubstantiated").
Denounce the GOP-Financed
Swifties, Mr. President!
Times' coverage was also marked by a constant drumbeat pressuring President Bush to denounce the Swift Boat vets -- no matter that by law the Bush campaign couldn't coordinate with such outside groups in the first place. While the Times wasn't bothered by the DNC origins of the "Bush was AWOL" accusation, the Times searched hard for links between the Swift Boat vets and the GOP.
On August 31, longtime political correspondent
R.W. Apple opined: "The advertisements questioning Mr. Kerry's war record, the work of a 527 group of Swift boat veterans, were largely financed, at least initially, by rich Texas Republicans, some with past links to Mr. Bush. But Mr. Bush has never specifically condemned the Swift boat commercial, confining himself to a mild statement that Mr. Kerry served honorably."
Elisabeth Bumiller and David Sanger argued
August 27: "But when pressed repeatedly if he would specifically denounce the advertisements, which Mr. Kerry has said were being run with the tacit approval of the Bush campaign, the president refused to condemn then [sic]. Instead, he said he would talk only of the 'broader issue' of the political committees that take to the airwaves with attack advertisements."
On August 25, Jim Rutenberg and Kate Zernike
asserted: "Mr. Bush's campaign aides have repeatedly said they have no connection to the group, almost all of whose challenges to Mr. Kerry and his war record have been contradicted by official war records and even some of its members' own past statements….Yesterday, the chairman of the Federal Election Commission defended the group's right to advertise. But it has gradually acknowledged ties to people close to the Republican Party and Mr. Bush's campaign."
Burying the Real Bill Burkett
While the Times was able to sniff out partisan motivations on the part of the Swift Boat Veterans, the trail went cold when it came to investigating those rehashing anti-Bush charges. Former Texas National Guardsman Bill Burkett, an unreliable witness with a long history of anti-Bush hostility, was recently revealed to be Dan Rather's source for forged documents purportedly showing Bush shirked his Guard duty. But Burkett was spinning tales about Bush's National Guard service long before that -- stories that went unchallenged by the Times.
In a February 12
story by reporter Ralph Blumenthal, Burkett claimed Bush aides improperly screened Bush's National Guard files. But Blumenthal failed to flag a March 2003 piece from Burkett published on a left-wing website that includes some conspiratorial rambling in which Burkett likens Bush to Hitler: "Now I feel sickness that today another massive group of people, held worthless by this anointed king, will be trampled upon like grapes. But their blood will not be rendered into wine. It will be spilled into the sands of this desert or another, or on the streets of Washington, or in the halls of the US Congress, or in the courts….We must now revert to the history of Europe to discern what to do. We must study the nemesis of France and how Napoleon was felled before understanding the damage a tyrant does to a nation and society. We must examine the ruthless and dictatorial rise of yet another of the three small men -- one whose name is not spoken out of fear of reprisal, but his name was
Adolf.
On Feb. 13, the Times' sister paper, the Boston Globe, disputed Burkett's allegations. Globe staff reporter Michael Rezendes noted: "George O. Conn, a former chief warrant officer with the Guard and a friend of Burkett's, is the person whom Burkett says led him to the room where the Bush records were being vetted. But Conn says he never saw anyone combing through the Bush file or discarding records." Yet the Times didn't follow up with a story about Conn's rebuttal.
A later profile by Blumenthal from September 16, at the height of the forged documents controversy, again ignored Burkett's past conspiratorial ravings comparing Bush to Hitler.
In a September 18 story on Burkett's attempts to contact the Kerry campaign, David Kirkpatrick and Jim Rutenberg do quote some of Burkett's postings from another left-wing website, comments they characterize as showing "his intense desire to remove Mr. Bush from office," but don't bring up the
"Adolf" angle.
A Tale of Two Editorials
A February 11 editorial penned after the White House's release of payroll records from Bush's National Guard days argued that questions about Bush's service were perfectly justified: "Mr. Bush himself also made the issue of military service fair game by posturing as a swashbuckling pilot when welcoming a carrier home from Iraq. Now, the president needs to make a fuller explanation of how he spent his last two years in the Guard."
Yet for some reason, the military trappings of the Democrats' Vietnam-centric convention didn't make John Kerry's military service "fair game" in the eyes of the Times. Here's an excerpt from an
August 19 editorial on the "assault" by the Swift Boat veterans: "It may seem outlandish to launch a campaign broadside by television ad and book flackery devoted to discrediting the respectable Vietnam War record of Senator John Kerry, who has five combat medals. But that is exactly what a Republican-financed group of partisans is doing in presenting itself as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and tattooing the Democratic presidential nominee with accusations of lying about his service and war wounds."
The editorial even attacked media outlets that actually reported the story: "The assault is gaining attention, with Internet and cable television zealots debating combat minutiae and even whether Mr. Kerry enacted wartime events with his political future in mind or held secret meetings with Communists."
Burying Memo-Gate
While the Times did it best to kill anti-Kerry allegations from the Swift Boat vets, it didn't miss an opportunity to resuscitate old anti-Bush charges about Bush's National Guard service, putting the story on the front page even after CBS's meltdown over forged memos.
The National Guard story perked up again September 8 via an alleged scoop from CBS anchor Dan Rather on "60 Minutes" -- a tale based on the now-infamous forged memos that purported to show Bush had shirked his National Guard duty. The Times showcased the story on its front page the next day.
Yet when the story fell apart within hours of airing, thanks to the work of bloggers, the Times buried the follow-up pieces on the CBS controversy on the back pages of the paper. Only after Dan Rather made an on-air apology did the controversy make the September 21 front page. By contrast, the Washington Post put "Rathergate" on its front page four times.
On the night of Monday, September 20, anchor Dan Rather would go on the CBS Evening News and apologize for the story. That morning's Times (on page A20) pointed out CBS was gearing up to announce "that it had been deceived about the documents' origins." Yet CBS's impending mea culpa didn't stop the Times from giving the anti-Bush story a front-page push that day.
Sara Rimer's September 20 story, which contained little new information, breezed right past the wreckage of CBS's "memogate": "This year of inconsequence has grown increasingly consequential for President Bush because of persistent, unanswered questions about his National Guard service -- why he failed to take his pilot's physical and whether he fulfilled his commitment to the Guard. If anything, those issues became still murkier this past week, with the controversy over the authenticity of four documents disclosed by CBS News and its program '60 Minutes' purporting to shed light on that Guard record."
While the Times insisted Bush's National Guard record was "murky," the paper's stark double standard on Bush and Kerry's Vietnam controversies was crystal clear.
This article was published by TimesWatch.org.
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