The group, funded by Bush supporters, has fueled questions
about the wounds that Kerry received in Vietnam. But
there's no question about the wounds that they have
successfully inflicted on his campaign. The Swift Boat
ad has had extraordinary legs and been bandied about
in a veritable media orgy with charges and counter charges
levied by both sides throughout the month of August.
The story has reverberated seemingly interminably through
the echo chamber of cable media stations and on conservative
talk radio; the latter of which has done it’s
best to keep the story going to bleed Kerry as much
as possible.
Even such ostensibly respected and straight shooting
Republicans as John McCain and Bob Dole seemingly
closed ranks behind Bush’s hatchet men and joined
the Kerry-bashing to aid Bush. McCain initially called
the Swift Boat ads “dishonest and dishonorable”
and called on Bush to condemn the ad, but he has since
allowed himself to be co-opted by the Bush plague
and their dishonest attempt to change the subject
by calling for an end to all 527s.
He also has rather shamelessly and gracelessly parroted
the Republican talking point that Kerry has somehow
brought all of this on himself by stressing his military
service to the exclusion of his overall Senate record.
McCain, of all people, should know just how bogus
this claim is.
During the 2000 primary in South Carolina, McCain
didn’t particularly stress his military service
yet Bush’s supporters and surrogates still attacked
him for it in the scorched earth campaign they mounted.
Bush’s minions in South Carolina called McCain
a “Manchurian Candidate,” a “traitor,”
and claimed he was “mentally unstable”
when he was released from a Vietnamese prison camp,
after he showed he was a threat to Bush by winning
the New Hampshire primary.
On a tangential note they also started a whispering
campaign which alleged that McCain’s adopted
Bangladeshi daughter was actually black and a product
of an out of wedlock, interracial tryst (The Republicans
eagerness to make false allegations about miscegenation
is very telling isn’t it?).
When the Bushies sense trouble this is consistently
their modus operandi; McCain’s insinuation that
these attacks are somehow Kerry’s fault is at
best ludicrous and at worst purposefully disingenuous.
Bob Dole, on the other hand, went on Wolf Blitzer’s
CNN show and proceeded to question Kerry’s Purple
Hearts by claiming he didn’t bleed. Dole either
didn’t know what he was talking about or wantonly
misrepresented the facts since he was demonstrably
wrong about the circumstances surrounding Kerry’s
war wounds. Blitzer didn’t call him on it however
because he hadn’t done his homework with regards
to the whole scandal and allowed Dole to spew lies.
Though Blitzer’s dereliction has been symptomatic
of some of the media’s coverage regarding the
Swift Boat Vets, other news outlets have actually
done yeoman work on the issue and have succeeded in
debunking many of the Swift Boaters claims. One example
was in a recent Newsweek
piece.
The fact is, most of the contemporaneous documentation,
citations, and accounts of (eyewitnesses)
support Kerry’s version of the events. Despite
these facts, however, the scandal has done significant
damage to Kerry’s credibility—if the recent
polls are to be believed—and if he is to win
he must learn lessons from it and adjust his campaign
accordingly.
Lessons Learned
Until now Kerry has tried to run a safe and inoffensive
campaign and was attempting to “draft”
(as Howard Fineman would say, using a cycling metaphor)
off of Bush by not taking any chances or making any
mistakes. As a result of rather milquetoast approach
he has allowed himself to consistently be put on the
defensive in this and other instances which has enabled
the Bushies and their surrogates to dictate which
issues will be discussed.
An example of this was when Kerry took Bush’s
bait and stated that he would still vote for the authorization
of force against Iraq when he was challenged. Instead
of boldly turning the question around on Bush and
illustrating how ridiculous it was that Bush would
still go to war in exactly the same way given the
quagmire we are in (Bush now claims enigmatically
that it was a “catastrophic success”),
Kerry played it safe which allowed the president to
further blur the distinctions between them on Iraq.
This coupled with the ferocity of the Swift Boat Vets
attacks, which have been echoed even by mainstream
Republicans, should indicate to Kerry that the time
to take the gloves off is here and that he should
no longer play it safe.
Hopefully in the future Kerry will learn to immediately
and forcefully respond to attacks from Bush supporters
and to not let them fester; it has been shown that
the veracity of an accusation isn’t necessarily
a prerequisite for it to be believed. While it may
be too late for Kerry to set up a ’92 Clinton
Campaign style War Room which would give rapid fire
responses to Bush’s attacks, he should make
sure he leaves few unanswered no matter how sordid
they may be. It’s also important for Kerry to
aggressively go on the offensive and assertively make
the campaign about Bush’s record because if
this election is indeed about the incumbent there
may be no way Bush can win given his disastrous four
years.
If Kerry learns the lessons of August well he may
become a better candidate and actually be able to
win in November. If not, it’s four more years
of Bush's “catastrophic success”
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