What are the serious big time lefty bloggers saying? Most are silent. But Yglesias is up with this. Not too promising from his POV.
Kerry's Secret Mission to Cambodia
Hugh Hewitt shockingly leaves me off the list of big lefty bloggers who've failed to comment on the Kerry-Cambodia story (see, e.g., here) even though I'm a regular guest on his show! Well speaking for myself, all Hugh's darkest fears are true -- I haven't commented yet because I've been busy all day on a conference call with Josh Marshall, Mary Beth Cahill, The New York Times editorial board, some dudes from the NEA, and Muqtada al-Sadr trying to figure out what our talking points are going to be.
Seriously, in my experience these damaging-looking allegations have a way of turning out not to be true, a fact that never seems to get as much coverage as the initial allegation. But it certainly looks bad from here, and I haven't seen a good explanation yet, perhaps because there isn't one. It's a little hard to see what could possibly be the motive for a Kerry lie on this front, which makes it plausible that there's a reasonable explanation, but also a little freaky if there does turn out to be one. Personally, I've never maintained that John Kerry had a George Washington-esque level of honesty (see, e.g., my article about how Kerry is basically lying about his trade policy) so my world won't be shaken to the core if this turns out to be a fib.
But how sure are we, really, that Kerry wasn't on a covert, illegal cross-border action in Cambodia and that fact isn't reflected in the official record because it was covert and illegal? Or are people who know their 'Nam history well (i.e., not me) quite certain that there were no such actions during the relevant time period?
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