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Me#1You#10
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Joined: 06 May 2004
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 Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 4:18 pm Post subject: National Review Online Editorial: "Not Too Swift" |
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National Review Online editorializes today on the vacuity of the left's incessant attempt at pejoratizing the "swiftboat" noun as a verb. Perhaps an exercise in futility, given the depth of the wound and the lambasting that the SVPT subjected them to, it is none the less reassuring that a leading voice of conservative America steadfastly refuses to yield the point...or the field of battle...
| Quote: | The Editorial
National Review Online
July 11, 2008, 7:00 a.m.
Not Too Swift
By the Editors
“Swift boat’ has become the synonym for the nastiest of campaign smears,” the New York Times declared recently. The Times’s assessment — in a front-page news story, mind you, not in an editorial — has become the conventional wisdom of the 2008 presidential race. And indeed, references to “swift boating” are everywhere. “Instead of the word ‘demonizing,’ we could use the words ‘swift boating,’ ” CNN’s Wolf Blitzer said the other day during an interview with a Republican and a Democratic strategist. “Will Republicans go ahead and try to swift boat Barack Obama?”
Well, we all know the answer to that, don’t we? In much of the media, as in the Democratic party’s talking points, “swift boating” has come to be defined not only as a smear but as any criticism of Barack Obama. But before the phrase slips irretrievably into the general usage, can we take one moment to remember how this all got started?
The organization Swift Boat Veterans for Truth emerged just four years ago, in the 2004 presidential campaign. It was founded by a group of former Navy officers who served alongside Sen. John Kerry in Vietnam. They were with him in that place, at that time. They were in a position to know about Kerry and his actions in Vietnam. Based on what they had personally witnessed, they questioned Kerry’s version of his service.
For example, you might remember that Kerry claimed to have been in Cambodia in Christmas 1968, a memory which he said was “seared — seared — in me.” The Swift Boat vets made a very convincing case that this never happened. They also raised doubts about the wound that resulted in the first of Kerry’s three Purple Hearts, a wound the doctor who treated Kerry described as a shrapnel scratch so minor that it was treated with a Band-Aid. The Swifties also cast an engagement in which Kerry won the Bronze Star in decidedly less heroic fashion than the Kerry campaign.
More than that, the Swift Boat vets were appalled and angry over what Kerry said when he returned home from Vietnam. This was the Kerry who told the Senate in 1971 of American servicemen who “raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan. . . . ” As officers who had served side-by-side with Kerry in Vietnam, the Swift Boat vets were personally insulted by what they maintained were outrageous lies from John Kerry.
So they spoke out, and they did serious damage to Kerry’s campaign. Now, not everything they said, based on their 35-year-old memories, checked out; for example, their criticism of Kerry’s actions in winning his second Purple Heart, as well as in winning the Silver Star, were less than persuasive. But the Swifties were honorable men, defending both their own honor and that of the U.S. military they had served. Given that they had extensive personal knowledge of Kerry’s service, it was entirely proper that their criticisms be heard.
But now, what they did has become synonymous with “smear.” Kerry’s big mistake, the conventional wisdom goes, was not in embellishing his record, nor in slandering the United States military, but in failing to push back quickly against the Swift boat “smear.” The lesson: Hit back hard and fast. So Barack Obama vows he won’t be swift boated.
And he won’t — at least not unless several close associates from his past, relying on personal, firsthand knowledge, get together to criticize his behavior at some key point in his life. Were that to happen, the swift-boat analogy might be apt. But otherwise, when it comes to the run-of-the-mill, day-to-day attacks that presidential campaigns launch at one another, can we please dispense with the s-word?
National Review Online |
Last edited by Me#1You#10 on Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:09 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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TEWSPilot
Admiral
Joined: 26 Aug 2004
Posts: 1235
Location: Kansas (Transplanted Texan)
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| Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Now, not everything they said, based on their 35-year-old memories, checked out; for example, their criticism of Kerry’s actions in winning his second Purple Heart, as well as in winning the Silver Star, were less than persuasive. |
HUH? ...that "nuance" talk really slays me.....  |
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Me#1You#10
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Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
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| Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 5:47 pm Post subject: |
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| TEWSPilot wrote: | | HUH? ...that "nuance" talk really slays me..... |
IMHO, their characterization of those 2 elements as "less than persuasive" needs to be kept in perspective. While legitimate issues were raised in both instances, neither stands out in their evidenciary strength when compared to the remaining elements of the SVPT case against Kerry.
I believe that is what NRO was implying and it should be noted that "less than persuasive" does not equate to illegitimate and false any more than "more than persuasive" equates to legitimacy and absolute certainty.
If I can fault them at all, perhaps here...
| Quote: | | For example, you might remember that Kerry claimed to have been in Cambodia in Christmas 1968, a memory which he said was “seared — seared — in me.” The Swift Boat vets made a very convincing case that this never happened. |
A "convincing case"? A bit understated, I think, as Kerry himself admitted to the lie.
Last edited by Me#1You#10 on Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:21 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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TEWSPilot
Admiral
Joined: 26 Aug 2004
Posts: 1235
Location: Kansas (Transplanted Texan)
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| Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Fair enough, but it still casts a cloud over their testimony. Wars have been started with less evidence of substantiation. |
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Deuce
Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 19 Mar 2005
Posts: 589
Location: FL
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| Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 5:03 pm Post subject: |
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following written by an 'eternal optimist'...
Ya know, it IS possible, that an electorate by November will be so pumped full of BS by the media (a la 1980) that regardless of who the 'presumptive Democrat nominee' is, the vote will be "Media v. McCain". And if we* can 'help' it along a little bit and change it to "Media v. Hanoi Hilton, Room 7", I can see about 30 million or so sudden votes 'against the media' (a la 1980)! I hope to look back on 2008 next January and say to myself..."Like 1980, it didn't matter who was running, the Media lost again".
* the "we" above was the all-inclusive "Veterans" "we", of course including SVPT...and of course there will be exceptions that prove the rule, but sure would be nice to see a Dole-Stockman payback, rather than an Algore payback, wouldn't it!
Deuce |
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