After watching the drama of the last few weeks unfold between the Swiftboat Vets for Truth and John Kerry, I offer a few observations, none of which are particularly unique.
First, none of us can really be sure of what happened in Vietnam all those years ago. This is true even of the participants due to the fog of war and different viewpoints.
Second, the mainstream press has tried to protect John Kerry from these attacks until the pressure from the blogosphere, talk radio and outlets such as Fox News made it impossible to do so any longer. They hid behind their claims that the evidence did not rise to the level of journalistic standards. However, this is what journalists are supposed to do; take both sides of a dispute and sort out the facts, not decide in advance who they believe. In addition, the New York Times, former home of Jayson Blair, has attacked the blogosphere for inaccuracy. That takes nerve!
The Kerry campaign is squealing like a stuck pig and is calling on President Bush to call of these attacks. They are also running ads claiming that the Bush campaign is behind the ads even though there is no evidence of any collusion between them and the Swiftvets for the Truth. That seems to be their new strategy, try to get the Bush campaign caught in a backlash. Hey, where are the Kerry people when liberal 527 groups like MoveOn.org and ACT are spending huge sums of money attacking the President? Live by the 527, die by the 527. We did not hear very much from Kerry when Michael Moore was passing off his lies as a documentary either. Turnaround is a bitch, huh John?
We also now know that John Kerry was lying when he talked about spending Christmas Eve in Cambodia. Seems to me that JFK is the one with the credibility issue, not the Swift Vets.
One last point, the second SwiftVets ad is more damaging than the first as it uses John Kerry's own testimony and the vets, including two former POW's, reactions. Hard to attack the credibility of a person's feelings as they are about to learn.
I may add more later, but those were a few initial reactions.