Silent Running - Kerry Record Hot Topic on Talking Heads
Being in the Central Time Zone, I missed Meet the Press, and only reviewed Fox News Sunday and This Week on ABC.
John Hurley (this one, not this one 1) , defending Kerry, and Van Odell from the SwiftVets were interviewed on Fox News Sunday, and Chris Wallace focused quite a bit on the Christmas in Cambodia story.
Hurley, pinned in a corner, admitted that the only documentation to support the assertion that Kerry was 5 Miles inside Cambodia on Christmas Eve is Kerry's word itself. Hurley danced around then, repeating the assertion he was in Cambodia, but maybe not Christmas Eve. Hurley admitted that non of Kerry's crew corroborate the Christmas in Cambodia story, but asserted that some of Kerry's crew would corroborate that he did run missions into Cambodia at other points during his tour. When pressed by Wallace to provide the name of the crewmember willing to step forward to testify that Kerry (and his boat) had in fact gone into Cambiodia, Hurley couldn't produce a single name.
When the subject turned to the criticisms of Kerry's 1971 testimony, Hurley ducked, dodged and weaved - dragging out the 'I don't see what this has to do with anything, it was 35 years ago' whine. When pressed to clarify whether or not Kerry stood by his testimony, Hurley tried the 'conventional wisdom' defense - citing My Lai, and the incidents reported by the Toledo Blade, and the statements given during the Winter Soldier activity in Detroit. Neither Wallace nor Odell challenged the Winter Soldier stories, or those telling them - but Wallace eventually cornered Hurley and asked him that Kerry wasn't going to in effect hide behind the dodge that his testimony was solely what others had told him - then asked wasn't he staking his credibility on the testimony. Hurley said he was putting his credibility behind the statements made under oath before Congress - well, Hurley claims it now, but it remains to be seen how firm this support remains when and if scrutiny focuses on the claims, and their source, Winter Soldier.
Also, Hurley spent quite a bit of time reeling off talking points while dodgeing Wallace's inquiries - and a great deal of that ducking and weaving was the same that has been used by a lot of media being dragged into discussing the issue - focusing on the medals controversy, and ignoring or dismissing the issue of Cambodia and the Congressional testimony.
The dodge won't hold up long - as with the kerfuful about whether he threw his ribbons or his medals over the fence - again, the medals flap is distractive. While the Kerry camp would probably love to leave it with the medals alone, which can be easily spun into a huge he-said/he-said mess that no one will want to pay attention to. And the Kerry camp would love to have it focus on the Bronze Star citation - an action for which Kerry's detractor's were also decorated.
On This Week, Stephanopoulous interviewed John O'Neill, author of 'Unfit for Command', with Kerry's defense mounted by former Clintonite John Podesta. O'Niell came across as focused, and well prepared with facts. Podesta's defense was innuendo about the Swiftvet backers, complaints of the timing, the motivations of the Swiftvets, with gratuitous jabs and misdirection by mentioning George Bush's National Guard service. Podesta was unable to directly address any of O'Neill's points succesfully. To Stephanopoulous's credit, the segment featured the four main charges of the Swiftvets, in bullet format - The Purple Hearts, the Bronze Star, the Cambodia story, and the Congressional testimony. Podesta was reduced to invoking the spectres of Nixon and Chuck Colson, claiming that O'Niell was a leftover relic of the Nixon era attempt to rebut the outrageous statements being made by Kerry and the VVAW.
Also to Stephanopoulous's credit, he actually went into the substance of the Cambodia issue - and Podesta's intial response was to try and re-write his on version of geopgraphy on the fly, then settled on a 'well, why does this matter, anyway?' conclusion. Well Mr. Podesta, it's huge, because it's a claim to fame that never happened. O'Neill was calm, and recounted the situation that the unit's patrol area didn't even approach the Cambodian border. The point of the conflicting statements and contemporary journal entries by Kerry didn't come up.
On discussing the Congressional testimony, Podesta tossed out the Kerry as a hero for speaking out spin, and claimed that Kerry's testimony was being quoted out of context, urging people to read the entire thing. Stephanopoulous played a portion of the new Swiftvets add juxtaposing Kerry's testimony, in his own voice, against the statements of former POW's recounting Kerry's words being used against them. This also related to one of Podesta's 'gotcha' moments, during shich he claimed connection between SwiftVets and the Bush campaign, due to the appearance of .... in the ad, and his position on a Bush vetran's advisory committee. O'Niell stated that the group was unaware of the affiliation, and re-iterated that the groups was in no way directed or associated with the Bush campaign - he also pointed out, in response to the charge Podesta repeated that the SwiftVets activities were a Republican funded smear campaign, that the group received over $360,000 in small donations averaging $59 each over the past few days alone - far outstripping any seed money provided to get them started.
These two rounds would have to be scored for the Swiftvets. Both O'Niell and Odell were calm, presented their position with facts, and answered all the questions put to them directly. On the other hand, the Kerry defenders, including Hurley, Podesta, Juan Williams, and Paul Krugman, were forced to use spin and sneering misdirection, and could only nitpick around the edges of the presentation of the issues. Podesta and Williams got worked up almost to the point of apoplexy.
While the controversy over the medals will undoubtedly receive the most coverage - as they are the murkier, messier, and thus most likely to be ignored by the average voter due to the spittle factor, Cambodia and the Congressional Testimony aspects are starting to get traction, and they're pretty clear cut. Guests on both programs today mentioned new coverage in the Washington Post, which includes several maps and graphics, as well as a .pdf copy of the after action report. A sidebar to the main story includes the basic points of the four issues under discussion.
The aspects of Kerry's behaviour during that period dealing with the fact that he was still a US Naval Officer when he testified under oath, and when he travelled to Paris to participate in extra-governmental negotiations with a delegation from a country we were at war with, then came home to peddle the product of those meetings, has yet to be breached. Judicial Watch addresses that aspect in a request for the opening of official investigations into these matters filed with the Department of the Navy and the DoD Inspector General's office2 . How long will it take the major media to pick up on these portions? So far, it's taken them since May to notice the Swiftvets.
silentrunning.tv |
