Poodle's House of Cards.... That's what Neal calls it when he jumps aboard the Swift Band-Boat-Wagon for "truth". If you haven't been paying attention, here's the short version.

John O'Neill's involvement began three decades ago, when he was recruited by the Nixon White House on Tricky Dick's orders to attempt to discredit John Kerry personally and thereby damage the anti-war cause. Currently, O'Neill and some other swift boat vets, Jerome Corsi, for instance, have made national news by writing a book and airing a television ad that makes some pretty ugly accusations against John Kerry, concerning his actions in Vietnam. One allegation is that he shot a Vietnamese boy in the back. Another is that he faked one or more injuries in order to secure an early discharge from duty. The group is funded, organized and assisted by several republican operatives. They are not, as some would have you believe, representative of the Veterans who actually served with Kerry in his craft - all of whom enthusiastically support him and testify to his courage and leadership under fire (Video link features them that served on Kerry's boat). The Swift Boat Veterans for the "truth" are not, as some would have you believe, a self-organized grass roots, non-partisan group that would be doing the same thing if Kerry were running as a Republican. Joe Conason scratches the surface of their GOP connections (Another link from Conasan... You may need to ask for a "free day pass", then click the link again after watching the silly ad).

Despite the fact that the Swift Boat Veterans' ad is not substantiated by any evidence or even any credible witnesses' testimony, and is contradicted by the available eye-witness testimony, it has been in the news quite a bit in the last few days. O'Neill has been on CNN with Wolf Blitzer, and generally speaking, the major media outlets are eating it up... because it sounds big and they don't have to put a lot of invesment into research. SBVT will be happy to spoon feed them their lines.

These allegations don't hold up to scrutiny, but they are big news to our media. They are even bigger news to Neal Boortz, who claims the name of Libertarian, but who will stop at nothing to help one of the most anti-libertarian politicians in recent history get elected President. Boortz says,

The Kerry campaign is of course, calling the whole thing trash, and asking 'how low can they go?' There's only one problem with all of this. There are 13 Vietnam veterans in that television ad....are they all liars? Have they all decided to interrupt their private lives for the glare of the media spotlight just so they could lie about The Great and Omnipotent John Kerry?

Well, the answer is in. No, they are not all liars. George Elliot was in the ad, but he had the honesty to correct himself and the SBVT. Others in the ad, like O'Neill, did not serve with Kerry. So maybe they are not liars themselves. Maybe they are just being deceived by a crafty liar who learned the art under the tutelage of Watergate's Chuck Colson.

Item number two is YOU KNOW THIS TO BE TRUE .. THOUGH YOU PROBABLY WON'T ADMIT IT.

Reverse the situation. If Bush were the Democrat, and Kerry were the Republican, the mainstream media would be erupting in a chorus of demands today for a full investigation of the charges that Kerry's first Purple Heart came from a self-inflicted wound. They would want all of the details about Kerry's alleged torching of an entire Vietnamese village with his Zippo, and the charge that he shot a fleeing Vietnamese teenager wearing only a loin cloth in the back. The Democrats would be demanding an investigation because of the "seriousness of the charge." The double standard is clear.

The double standard is that the media continues to regurgitate whatever anyone with a cheap and sensationalist story spoon feeds them. A healthy media would be doing the investigation of these charges that Neal suggests. Then they would be reporting that they lack credibility. As it is, the media (Fox "News" excepted) is doing the same thing that people have always found it convenient to confuse with media partisanship: they've been uncritically reporting what they are told by the spin-rooms and flunkies of the political parties. "Moon Made of Green Cheese" is just fine as long as it's got "According to So & So's campaign". You'll never hear "Claim that Moon is Made of Green Cheese is clearly erroneous" from our media. You'd be more likely to hear them talk about an actual policy issue

That's it for Boortz. A final note to you-know-who-you-are, and others that might share the feeling that "character" matters a lot in presidential campaigns: Politicians don't have character. They have charisma, loosely defined as the ability to appear to have character. A politician's job is to make and implement policy. If he does this in a way that helps us, that's good. If he does it in a way that hurts us, that's bad. "Character" does have a role to play, but most times, its relatively minor. More important are intelligence, values, and the ability to make policy that helps move the nation forward.

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Posted by smijer at August 6, 2004 10:35 PM