SwiftVets.com

[Jeff Carrington]

Swiftvets FYI letter to editor re: todays front page. Have to keep them digging on this and stop the "sappers" from trying to breach the wire via insinuations about distortions etc. -- hound them to make the reporters stay on task and land on them as hard as possible when their political agenda veers the story off track
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8/22/04

To: Editor, Washington Post

A Shadow of Truth

At last it appears the Post has come out of its Rip Van Winkle state concerning the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth allegations and has apparently initiated some serious steps to gather and evaluate information. As time goes by, we will be better able to judge the real diligence and fairness of the scope and depth of your efforts. The prognosis is uncertain, given your recent bouts of slanted intonation in the reporting of this critical story. For validation of that doubt I refer to the contrast between your most notable earlier articles --“Swift Boat Smears”, 8/12/04 and “Records Counter a Critic of Kerry”, 8/20/04—and today’s front page Swift boat coverage by Michael Dobbs. Even the most jaded observer can see a pretty obvious difference in the present attempt at a more balanced view. . .sort of. You still have a ways to go in sharpening your reporter’s native curiosity about repeated self-contradictions, dubious explanations, and stubbornly withheld records. Incidentally, regarding the latter, what’s your theory as to the reason?

Kerry’s War (including epilogue) is a story that deserves very, very careful investigation. Just the amount of digging you have done in this first excavation, reveals cracks in the legend serious enough to generate flickers of real concern in the toughest skeptic, if not the blindly committed partisan. To any genuinely dedicated journalist the message could not be clearer: keep digging. You will certainly discover.

It’s an open secret that the spooling-up outrage emanating from the Kerry campaign about Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and Unfit for Command, has everything to do with the snowballing erosion of the lavishly staged Kerry-as-Sergeant York fairy tale and nothing at all to do with their offended sensibilities over the blaspheming of a Man Who Served His Country So Nobly.

As it turns out The Man Who Served His Country was quite a blasphemer himself back in his own day, so that charge doesn’t seem to have legs. What does have some real legs is the possibility, growing more tangible with every passing day and clarification, that John Kerry seriously manipulated the system and yes, perhaps even the truth in order to artificially decorate his resume for personal gain. That would be repulsive enough for most folks. But compounded with his clear lust for limelight and cynical use of an improperly embellished (best case) or fraudulent combat record as a soapbox for wildly exaggerated anti-U.S. charges in the protracted VVAW debacle. . .surely that overall picture is one sufficient to give disgrace a bad name. How could America afford to put a man with a deviate streak like that in the position of commander in chief? It would be a particularly lunatic move while the country is at war. Anyone who can’t or won’t comprehend that simple idea is very far gone.

At the end of the day, the impressionistic vision of Vietnam that John Kerry artfully painted as a decoy to divert attention from his congressional mediocrity, may instead turn into a doppelganger of repugnant facts that destroys his bid for the presidency. For my money, there would be a kind of cosmic justice in that.

Jeff Carrington
West Simsbury, CT
860-651-4885

[Navy wife]

This is an excellent letter, Jeff, and I hope they publish it. That may be a wasted dream on my part, however! I frankly thought the article was a very interesting one and the first attempt at a balanced look at the evidence.

I can not fathom why Kerry refuses to 1) sign the Form 180 if he is telling the truth and 2) release Doug Brinkley from the "exclusivity agreement" so that Kerry's journals and other private papers can become public. These are part of the questions I posed to Mr. Dobbs for his Monday noon online discussion.

[Dimsdale]

Brilliant letter!! Concise and to the point!!

I am still laughing about the "lavishly staged Kerry-as-Sergeant York" line!!

I hope you watched Brit Hume this morning as he pointed out Kerry's shameless and constant opportunism in every controversy (hence his Boston nickname of "Liveshot!"

He also lambasted Juan Willians. No, actually he verbally spanked Juan this morning. I thought Juan was literally going to cry.

[fortdixlover]

[Tony]

Wow....Bravo Zulu! To not publish such a well written letter would say something as well.
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