 |
SwiftVets.com
Service to Country
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Anker-Klanker
Admiral
Joined: 04 Sep 2004
Posts: 1033
Location: Richardson, TX
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
LewWaters
Admin
Joined: 18 May 2004
Posts: 4042
Location: Washington State
|
 Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2007 2:05 am Post subject: |
 |
|
Just ordered it and placed a link to it on the top of my blog site. Also sent links out in email.
_________________
Clark County Conservative |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kate
Admin
Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2007 2:40 am Post subject: |
|
|
Great news! Have been waiting patiently for this book to come out - got my order in too.
http://www.tosettherecordstraight.com/
| Quote: | To Set The Record Straight
How Swift Boat Veterans, POWs and the New Media Defeated John Kerry
by Scott Swett and Tim Ziegler
Sen. John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid became the catalyst for an unprecedented political movement by Vietnam veterans who had long resented his false 1971 testimony that U.S. troops were routinely committing war crimes.
Despite the best efforts of the Democratic Party and its media affiliates, they succeeded in reaching out to the public and turning the presidential campaign upside down.
Here, for the first time, is the complete story of how - and why - they did it.
During the Vietnam War, the original television networks and the leading liberal newspapers were near the peak of their formidable persuasive powers, able to dominate public opinion to an extent difficult to imagine today. In an age without cable news networks, popular conservative radio shows or the Internet, they were the only game in town. What these organizations chose to cover became news, and what they ignored did not. They used that power to instill Kerry's false portrait of American veterans as misfits, drug addicts and baby killers into the popular culture.
When John Kerry made his service in Vietnam the cornerstone of his presidential campaign in 2004, the wounds he had inflicted on millions of Vietnam veterans were re-opened. Many decided they could no longer stand by in silence while a man who had repeated the propaganda of America's enemies rose to the position of Commander-in-Chief.
Kerry and his advisors believed that their old media allies would suppress any challenge to their version of what Kerry had done during his time in Vietnam and in the antiwar movement. It didn't work out that way.
----------
To Set the Record Straight is the inside story of how an ad hoc collection of veterans and activists overcame their opponents' efforts to silence and marginalize them, and delivered the explosive truth about John Kerry's past to the public. It is a story of justice and vindication long delayed, of an insurgent assault on the old media by a new wave of online reporters, and of the long struggle of America's Vietnam veterans to make their way home.
|
Great review by Bruce Kesler at that Democracy Project link
Scott (aka Interesting Times) posted this book announcement at FReeRepublic here
As an aside - Scott is webmaster at WinterSoldier.com, and here 
_________________
.
one of..... We The People |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Me#1You#10
Site Admin
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2007 3:29 am Post subject: |
|
|
Yikes! I've been dealing with some family medical issues today and just now got tuned in!
Congratulations to Scott Swett and Tim Ziegler on the rollout. As far as I know, they're the first out of the gate with a treatment of Election 2004, a subject which "historians" have been curiously loathe to explore.
I think we know why. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
DADESID
Seaman
Joined: 07 Jul 2004
Posts: 157
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2007 10:07 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Order placed. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Me#1You#10
Site Admin
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2007 10:53 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Scott will be interviewed this evening (Thursday 12/16) at 9:30 PM EST on "Outside the Wire" with Bob Parks.
note: Scott's interview segment is archived here for replay. His segment commences at 27:18.
Last edited by Me#1You#10 on Fri Dec 07, 2007 8:14 pm; edited 2 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Me#1You#10
Site Admin
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 06, 2007 11:32 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Reuters has picked up the PR release...
| Quote: | New Book Counters Clinton, Kerry, Media Claims About 2004 Presidential Campaign
Thu Dec 6, 2007 12:06pm EST
FALLS CHURCH, Va., Dec. 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Last week former
president Bill Clinton, John Kerry and various members of the media once again
used "Swift boating" as a shorthand reference for misrepresenting a
candidate's record. In "To Set the Record Straight: How Swift Boat Veterans,
POWs and the New Media Defeated John Kerry," authors Scott Swett and Tim
Ziegler counter that assertion in a heavily researched 400 page work that
provides the first historical assessment of the 2004 Presidential campaign.
To Set the Record Straight is the definitive account of the ad hoc political
movement that dominated the 2004 Presidential campaign. Based on hundreds of
in-depth interviews with key participants and two years of meticulous
research, the book tells the inside story of how a group of Vietnam vets and
their supporters delivered the explosive truth about John Kerry's military
service and pro-Hanoi activism to the American public, despite relentless
efforts by old media gatekeepers to silence and discredit them.
Swett said, "John Kerry lost all the key debates in 2004 to the anti-Kerry
veterans. Since then, he has tried to paper over his failure with
sloganeering and empty promises of new evidence." He added, "The 2004
campaign was a watershed in American political history, marking the first time
that online forums and blogs were able to have a real impact on the national
conversation. These new media outlets made it impossible for the liberal
press to hide or dismiss what the veterans had to say."
The Foreword for the book was written by John E. O'Neill, the lead spokesman
for the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth in 2004. One chapter that underscores
the impact of the new media on the campaign has been made available online at
ToSetTheRecordStraight.com. "Rather's Ruin and the Rise of the Pajamahadeen"
tells how ordinary citizens with computers exposed the phony documents 60
Minutes used to attack George Bush's National Guard service, effectively
ending Dan Rather's career at CBS News.
To Set the Record Straight also contains:
-- Conclusive evidence that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth acted
independently, and were not a creation of the Bush campaign as their opponents
repeatedly claimed
-- Detailed analysis of the efforts by the old media to blunt the impact of
the anti-Kerry veterans by distorting and misrepresenting their charges
-- Previously unpublished information on the "war crimes" propaganda effort
that John Kerry led during the Vietnam War, including material showing how the
antiwar movement worked with the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong
-- New eyewitness perspectives on Kerry's "No Man Left Behind" engagement from
a Forward Air Control pilot and the mission's Special Forces commander
-- The powerful story of a former member of the Vietnam Veterans Against the
War who testified that John Kerry personally pressured him to tell lies about
military atrocities and war crimes at the group's 1971 "Winter Soldier"
conference
To Set the Record Straight is essential reading for those who care about
politics, the media, current events or the U. S. military. The book can be
purchased online at ToSetTheRecordStraight.com (TSTRS.com).
SOURCE New American Media Publishing, LLC
Audrey Mullen for New American Media Publishing, LLC, +1-703-548-1160 or
media@ToSetTheRecordStraight.com
Reuters |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rhv5862
PO2
Joined: 21 Aug 2004
Posts: 379
Location: Massachusetts
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 12:13 am Post subject: To set the record straight |
|
|
Ordered my copy today. Should be great reading.
rhv5862 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
JN173
Commander
Joined: 10 May 2004
Posts: 341
Location: Anchorage, Alaska
|
| Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 2:21 am Post subject: |
|
|
Ordered 3. 2 are for Christmas gifts. 
_________________
A Grunt
2/503 173rd Airborne Brigade
RVN '65-'66 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Deuce
Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined: 19 Mar 2005
Posts: 589
Location: FL
|
| Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2007 8:32 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Here's hoping T Boone Pickens orders a couple for his 'research team'...tho' that would be overkill, heh.
got mine ordered, too. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Me#1You#10
Site Admin
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 5:43 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Tom Maguire at "Just One Minute" with a nice mention...
| Quote: | For Your Christmas Consideration
"When somebody's attacking your military record, you reach a boiling point" If you are at an impasse for holiday gift ideas, let me make a suggestion - I have been loving "To Set The Record Straight" (website), a book by Scott Swett and Tim Ziegler with a foreword by John O'Neill recounting the Swift Boat battles of 2004. I daresay I followed the Swifties quite closely (and this blog gets a mention!) but I have found all sorts of interesting new details about Kerry's activities in Vietnam and after. There is also plenty of background about the formation of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and an excellent recounting of the failure of the main stream media to quash their story.
This book ought to be a must read for journalism professors and students, and should delight anyone likely to enjoy a story of media bias or even a good Kerry-basher. Blog coverage of the Swifties was an important part of the 2004 story and bloggers are cited extensively - Captain Ed, Hugh Hewitt and Beldar spring to mind but many others are referenced or quoted as well. And of course Dan Rather gets a special chapter.
However, what I think is my own unique contribution to the pile-on does not seem to have been noted; the topic is Kerry's first Purple Heart, awarded based on a "skimmer op" in December 1968. Kerry crewman Zaladonis was interviewed by Douglas Brinkley (repeatedly) and the Globe's Michael Kranish in 2003 for their research efforts, but never mentioned his role in Kerry's skimmer op. Then, when Kerry took criticism for that medal in the spring of 2004, Zaladonis was suddenly a part of the mission and vouching for Kerry, and telling people it was the scariest night of his life. So scary he forgot to regale reporters when they asked for any Kerry stories in 2003? C'mon - it was his first joint task with Kerry, the first time they met, the first combat for both of them, and the scariest night of his life but he forgot to mention it in 2003? A troubling lapse of interview technique, repeatedly, and by two researchers.
Oh, enough about me and back to the book. Here are some links - an interview with Scott Swett; NewsMax review; Bruce Kesler's thoughts. And the mystery quote from the top is not from John O'Neill, a fellow Swiftie, or anyone else from the army of Ghengis Khan. It is a comedy classic from Kerry flack Stephanie Cutter.
MORE: I picked up a relevant tidbit about the recent T Boone Pickens challenge to John Kerry. Pickens challenged anyone to prove that the Swifties had lied about anything; he eventually limited his challenge to claims made in the Swift ads.
From the book I have learned that, in order to provide legal cover to stations running the ads, the SBVT had prepared extensive documentation backing the ads; for example, the final support package for the first ad was 65 pages of documentation and affidavits. And back in 2004 the DNC lawyers wrote to the stations airing the ads claiming that they were lies but eventually backed down. So Pickens probably feels like he is on comfortable ground.
ERRATA: I knew about Kerry and Kansas City, where Scot Camil proposed a plot to assassinate US Senators - Kerry had denied all of this, then claimed he forgot. But now I know (p. 60-1 of book) that Scot Camil claimed in an interview to have discussed a similar assassination plan well before Kansas City (probably in February of that year, before the VAW's April Dewey Canyon III protest), and, per Camil, "people like Kerry totally flipped out". Looks like Kerry forgot more than we knew.
Just One Minute |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Me#1You#10
Site Admin
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
|
| Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 10:30 am Post subject: |
|
|
Denis Keohane of "American Thinker" with an inciteful review...not the least of which is the timeliness and relevance of TSTRS given IVAW'S tentative plans for this March...
| Quote: | Swiftboating History
By Denis Keohane
American Thinker
December 23, 2007
It may be Providential that a book of history is soon to be released dealing extensively with certain shameful events of nearly four decades ago, just as others are now seeking to shamelessly and eagerly repeat those events.
Scott Swett and Tim Ziegler have co-authored To Set The Record Straight with the apt subtitle How Swift Boat Veterans, POWs and the New Media Defeated John Kerry. The book all but begins with details of the Winter Soldier Investigation (WSI) of 1971, an event I wrote about here at American Thinker last October. The WSI, organized by the Vietnam Veterans Againt the War (VVAW) was pure anti-American and anti-soldier leftist political theater.
Owing to leading Senators and the monolithic liberal big media of the time, WSI was the primary catalyst in legitimizing the longstanding and widely accepted defamation of 2.9 million Americans who served in Vietnam as baby killers, rapists, war criminals, losers, misfits, drug abusers and psychological "time bombs", to use Makubin T. Owens terminology.
Those broad sweeping charges against the Vietnam vets have survived as a part of our established historical narritive for millions and has been all but enshrined in the arts community, particularly film.
The left side of the web is busy spreading the word that next March the ideological descendent of the VVAW, the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) is planning another WSI dealing with Iraq and Afghanistan, thereby intending to smear another generation of over a million and a half Americans who have served to date in those wars and those who will serve.
Swett and Ziegler's book may serve to prevent history from repeating and in so doing facilitate a cleansing light shining back in time on that first WSI and the despicable defaming of those veterans.
American Thinker - cont'd |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Me#1You#10
Site Admin
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 5:32 pm Post subject: |
|
|
For archive purposes, re-posted from "Media Events"...
Wednesday, Dec. 19
12:00 noon Eastern: Scott Swett will appear on The Thom Hartmann Show, KPOJ 620 AM, Portland, OR. Nationally syndicated on Air America, Sirius and XM.
Direct Audio Link - SRG - Call-in: 866-303-2270
Update: Here's a direct link to Scott's "interview" today. Hartmann launches immediately into the "...but they weren't on his boat" mode and then a fully-flowered BDS attack...I believe you can count on one hand the number of times he even mentions Kerry...
Audio Link |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Me#1You#10
Site Admin
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 5:58 pm Post subject: |
|
|
"Captain Ed" of "Captain's Quarters" blog comments...
| Quote: | December 26, 2007
On My Desk: To Set The Record Straight
The Swift Boat controversy continues to resonate in American politics. The term "swift-boated" intends to convey an unfair or untruthful massive attack on a political candidate, riding along with the notion that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and their leader John O'Neill had been substantially rebutted. However, despite the occasional claim by John Kerry that their myriad claims had been proven false, the vast majority of their allegations went unanswered.
Scott Swett and Tim Ziegler have written a new book to set the record straight, entitled -- of course -- To Set The Record Straight. Scott will appear on tomorrow's Heading Right Radio show to discuss the book, which is exclusively available through their website. I'm quoted occasionally in the book, and we'll discuss the blogospheric response as well. King Banaian joins me as co-host.
Posted by Ed Morrissey on December 26, 2007 5:48 PM | Comments (47) | TrackBacks (0) |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
GenrXr
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 05 Aug 2004
Posts: 1720
Location: Houston
|
| Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:41 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I ordered a copy and if it turns out being really good will order more for friends and family.
_________________
"An activist is the person who cleans up the water, not the one claiming its dirty."
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Founder of Conservative Philosophy |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
