John Kerry’s Republican foes wanted the Swiftboat Veterans for Bush to get widespread media attention. They wanted the group’s attacks to be taken seriously. They insisted that these were voices that deserve to be heard.
Well, if this doesn’t prove “be careful what you wish for,” then nothing will.
As the SBVfT became more aggressive, the attacks on Kerry’s heroic military service became more extreme. As a result, three things have happened: Kerry was pushed too far and now he’s fighting back hard; media demands for a Bush response are growing more assertive; and media scrutiny of the group’s charges is becoming more intense. As it happens, all three of these things help Kerry.
First, Kerry has drawn a line in the sand and he’ll no longer tolerate this group’s slanderous lies.
“More than 30 years ago, I learned an important lesson. When you’re under attack, the best thing to do is turn your boat into the attack,” Kerry told a few thousand union supporters here. “Thirty years ago, official Navy reports documented my service in Vietnam and awarded me the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. Thirty years ago, this was the plain truth. It still is.”
Second, the pressure is growing on the White House to denounce the group’s vicious smears, but Bush aides are going to comical lengths to avoided the issue. Yesterday, Scott McClellan dodged and weaved to the great annoyance of the press corps during a brief gaggle in Texas.
After a painful back-and-forth, reporters tried to make it easy for McClellan to do the right thing. He just wouldn’t.
Q: Let me ask it this way: The President has said and believes that John Kerry served honorably in Vietnam, right?
MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, he’s made that very clear. We’ve made it very clear that we will not make his — will never raise questions about his service. We haven’t, and we won’t.
Q: This advertisement raises questions about his service, and in fact concludes that he served dishonorably. So the President thinks this ad is false, right?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, the issue here is these unregulated soft money groups that exist.
No, the issue here is that the president’s buddies are doing his dirty work for him. Bush could just denounce the ads, but give the SBVfT a wink and a nod so they’ll keep up their efforts. He won’t even go that far.
And finally, media scrutiny of the group’s ads have torn what was left of their credibility to shreds, and just as importantly, connected the group to Bush and his top aides.
A series of interviews and a review of documents show a web of connections to the Bush family, high-profile Texas political figures and President Bush’s chief political aide, Karl Rove.
Records show that the group received the bulk of its initial financing from two men with ties to the president and his family — one a longtime political associate of Mr. Rove’s, the other a trustee of the foundation for Mr. Bush’s father’s presidential library. A Texas publicist who once helped prepare Mr. Bush’s father for his debate when he was running for vice president provided them with strategic advice. And the group’s television commercial was produced by the same team that made the devastating ad mocking Michael S. Dukakis in an oversized tank helmet when he and Mr. Bush’s father faced off in the 1988 presidential election.
The strategy the veterans devised would ultimately paint John Kerry the war hero as John Kerry the “baby killer” and the fabricator of the events that resulted in his war medals. But on close examination, the accounts of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth’ prove to be riddled with inconsistencies. In many cases, material offered as proof by these veterans is undercut by official Navy records and the men’s own statements.
Even some of the testimonials the Swiftboat hacks relied on have been fabricated and twisted into lies. In fact, some of the veterans the group claims as supporters now feel like they were conned.
Patrick Runyon, who served on a mission with Mr. Kerry, said he initially thought the caller was from a pro-Kerry group, and happily gave a statement about the night Mr. Kerry won his first Purple Heart. The investigator said he would send it to him by e-mail for his signature. Mr. Runyon said the edited version was stripped of all references to enemy combat, making it look like just another night in the Mekong Delta.
“It made it sound like I didn’t believe we got any returned fire,” he said. “He made it sound like it was a normal operation. It was the scariest night of my life.”
The Times report is the definitive debunking. This group simply has nothing left. Their charges are false, their campaign discredited, their motivations polluted by blind partisanship, their claims contradictory, and their funding corrupt. They are small men driven by a callous desire to smear a war hero.
On a purely academic level, though, it’s a fascinating case study in the GOP attack machine’s tactics. Indeed, should Kerry lose in November, the Swiftboat story will be one for the books — a model on how right-wing allies of two draft dodgers used lies to take away the one thing their opponent has that their guy wants: a decorated service record.