The "major media" didn't cover the story at first because they couldn't corroborate the SmearVet stories
That's perfect nonsense. The vets are giving out their real names and addresses, and went to Washington to be interviewed, and the WaPo reporters declined to interview them. Nor did the reporters bother to actually read the book to see what the charges were. They just started with the assumption that the vets were scumbags, the charges were all false, and if they couldn't keep silent, then repeating the DNC talking points was adequate coverage.
Since then, they have had to row back from some false talking points that the DNC gave them, such as the claim that no one on Kerry's boat supported the charges (Steve Gardner does, and he was Kerry's gunner's mate) and that nobody who wasn't on Kerry's own boat could know what was going on (a really silly claim since swift boats operate in tight formation).
Now the major media is covering the story because it is a political smear story
Smear stories come from the shadows from anonymous sources. These 250 swift vets have given their names, and can be sued. The book lays out charges, with dates, with places, with documents. So either this is one grand conspiracy to libel John Kerry, or it's something more than an ordinary smear job. So far they have scored one clear hit - Christmas in Cambodia was pretty clearly a fairytale. Not even Kerry's 'Band of Brothers' will corroborate that one.
I have read excerpts of the book and it reads like a prosecutor's brief to me - fact based, but building a story that makes the defendent look very guilty. I don't know if they are being fair to Kerry, and since they are so angry at him for his 1971 testimony they probably aren't. But it can't just be dismissed as a smear job.
I'm sure Fox has pointed out that the SmearVets have been completely discredited - NOT!
How have they been discredited? Are they fake vets? Aren't they who they say they are? Weren't they where they said they were? For all the discrediting that's been attempted, the only true charge against them is that they are funded by Republicans, some of whom are lawyers who know Republican politicians. Well, what a shock. You expected the Democrats to fund these ads?
If the NYT was half so assiduous finding webs of connection in the Mideast as they are in Texas, they would have backed the President on the links between Saddam and terrorist groups 100 times over. |
