Swift Boating the Swift Boaters (updated)
By feedback@qando.net (McQ)
The QandO Blog
It has become an article of truth to many on the left that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were a pack of liars. They believe that this group of Vietnam Swift Boat vets were enticed by Republican operatives to sell themselves out to sink the presidential aspirations of John Kerry. And they further believe that the only reason it worked was because Kerry was slow to respond.
I hate to buck the left’s conventional wisdom, but I don’t buy that at all.
A couple of points. John Kerry made both Vietnam and his service there the major backdrop of his campaign. Not the SBVT, but Kerry. And after shunning his "band of brothers" in the ’70s and calling them killers, murderers, torturers and the like, Kerry suddenly rediscovered them when it was politically expedient to do so.
This, as you might guess, rankled some of his peers from that era, especially when he started making claims about his service that just didn’t add up. And I spent an enormous amount of time combing through their claims, reasearching them and writing about them.
What becomes clear now, is that some on the left are busy trying to swift boat the Swift Boaters. And yes, "swift boat" is now a verb meaning to unfairly and untruthfully attack someone. The latest media effort comes from a rather strident Rosa Brooks in the LA Times. The opening paragraph is a classic:
<<< IF YOU HATED IT the first time, you might like the sequel better.
Remember Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the right-wing goon squad whose defamatory insinuations helped sink John Kerry’s presidential campaign? They’re back! This afternoon, key Swift boaters George "Bud" Day, Mary Jane McManus and Carlton Sherwood are holding a little reunion, in the guise of a panel discussion at the American Conservative Union’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference. The panel topic? "The Left’s Repeated Campaign Against the American Soldier." >>>
The George "Bud" Day she refers too as a member of this "defamatory" "right-wing goon squad" is a Medal of Honor recipient. To call Bud Day any type of a "goon" is simply disgraceful. But Ms. Brooks, displaying complete acceptance of the left’s conventional wisdom, attempts to broad brush anyone even remotely associated with the SBVT as a part of the "lunatic right" (headline), even those awarded the Medal of Honor.
Still don’t believe me? Feast your eyes at this selective description of the group:
<<< What’s depressing about the reemergence of the Swifties, though, is that it’s symbolic of the increasing takeover of the "conservative" movement by unprincipled, right-wing extremists.
The Swifties began as a fringe group. Their anti-Kerry attack ads were effective in 2004 (thanks in part to Kerry’s slowness in responding), but they were condemned universally as a new low in the history of bottom-feeding smear campaigns. John McCain criticized them as "dishonest and dishonorable," and the Bush campaign sought to distance itself from the group’s tactics. Association with the Swifties forced the resignations of two Bush campaign aides, including Ben Ginsburg, the campaign’s top election law expert. >>>
In reality, the "depressing" aspect of the "reemergence" of the "Swiftees" is they were previously quite effective and the left fears them. While Brooks is obviously of the opinion that they were a goon-squad, it appears that much of the American public, at least those who took the time to read what they said, were inclined to believe them over Kerry. I happen to be one of those (and, full disclosure, I wanted nothing to do with Kerry, but that didn’t stop me from examining, in detail, their charges and, in a few cases, discounting them).
For the most part, I found the SBVT accounts both reasonable and credible, far more reasonable and credible than Kerry’s.
For instance. I found out that Kerry’s account of what happened when he dumped the SF officer in the water and then went back and "rescued" him differed markedly from that of the other Swift Boat commanders and the official record. I examined that in detail to reach the conclusion that Kerry’s account was almost entirely a fabrication. A single mine went off, there was no fire from the banks, and the boats stayed on station for 90 minutes rescuing the crew of the 3 boat and getting that boat in tow. 90 minutes on station, no bullet wounds, no bullet holes. Tell me again how they were under "hostile fire"?
I found out that it seems probable that two of Kerry’s Purple Hearts were from self-inflicted wounds, neither wound inflicted during hostile action (and the requirement for a PH is very specific about such wounds and their circumstances).
I found no evidence of Kerry’s supposed trip to Cambodia. None. In fact, it became pretty clear it never happened when you read not only the statements of crew members, but Kerry’s own journal entries themselves. And any military man would point out that a) you’d never choose the most junior Swift Boat skipper when more senior and experienced skippers were available, and b) you’d most likely not want a loud and noisy Swift Boat anyway when you had assault boat teams available through SEAL units stationed in the area whose job it was to make clandestine insertions by water.
I actually supported his claim of the Silver Star as I understood it was given to the person heading an operation as an impact award. I also pointed out that while I could support that award, his tactics were abominable and he could just as easily have gotten his whole crew killed with them.
I also closely examined his fitness reports, or at least the ones he released. I’ve written hundreds of them over my career (we call them efficiency reports) and served on promotion boards which review them for promotion. I found Kerry’s claims that they put him among the best of officers to be wildly exaggerated. He was at best a mediocre officer.
I, among others, also discovered that when Mr. Kerry applied for Swift Boats in Vietnam, he applied knowing they were running coastal patrols. Coastal patrols were about as dangerous as driving to work on the freeway each morning, or perhaps less.
When he arrived the mission had been changed to riverine patrols, something he was not at all enamored with and worked diligently to get out of. And, of course, you know that story.
So I disagree with Ms. Brooks characterization of the SBVT and what they put out there. If anyone is being disingenuous here, it is Ms Brooks.
I’d also venture to say that this concerted attempt by the left to brand the SBVT as deceitful, a "hit squad" and smear merchants, is an obvious attempt to compromise a group that was very effective. It won’t work. Oh, it’ll be accepted by those already inclined to believe they were lying about Kerry. But anyone who took the time to check their claims by independent research came away feeling much more inclined to accept their version of the truth than the Kerry version.
The desperation of the left to compromise the SBVT, however, is sickeningly evident when you see columnists like Brooks stoop to calling Medal of Honor recipients "goons" because they disagree politically.
She should be ashamed.
UPDATE: This apparently passes for a credible critique among those who buy into the Brooks message:
<<< Q and O accuses Brooks of Swift Boating the Swift Boaters. Besides the more serious problem that they repeat false claims against Kerry which have been debunked so many times and are no longer taken seriously by anyone with any degree of objectivity, I find the title rather ironic. Swift Boating refers to spreading politcally motivated lies. If, for the sake of discussion you ignore reality and you accept Q and O’s position that the Swifties were not lying you would not accept this definition of Swift Boating. In that case to accuse Brooks of Swift Boating, which is obviously done in a derogatory manner in their blog post, makes no sense. The only way it make sense is in the mind set of the lunatic right where, by definition, what they say is true and what liberals say is false, regardless of how much the evidence contradicts them. That, of course, gets back to the heart of the Swift Boat issue. >>>
Heh ... uh, yeah, the title is ironic. That’s it’s purpose. There is tremendous irony found in Brooks’ position on the SBVT.
Just as interesting and obvious is the person writing the critique didn’t bother follow the links in the article. Had they done so, they’d have had some difficulty making the claim that the SBVT positions had been "debunked" with a straight face. But on the bright side, it did give them an opportunity to use "lunatic right" in a sentence.
UPDATE II: It would have been nice if the LA Times had offered a little disclosure about Ms. Brooks:
From Virgina Law School faculty briefs:
<<< ...and served as coordinator of the Kerry- Edwards campaign’s Human Rights, Democracy & Development policy team. >>>
This from Georgetown Law-Faculty.
<<< Rosa Brooks is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. (She is currently on leave from Georgetown to serve as Special Counsel at the Open Society Institute in New York). >>>
and Open Society Institute.
George Soros is founder and chairman of the Open Society
Institute and the Soros foundations network.
Well. What a surprise. Just MoveOn.
Heh ... can you say "lunatic left?"
(HT: Tom Scott)
UPDATE III: Another critique which offers absolutely nothing of substance and instead attempts, albeit poorly, to validate the conventional wisdom that the SBVT were liars by simple declaration. Amazing.
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