Real Swift
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are slowly but surely being run aground by a Democratic Presidential candidate who isn't afraid to throw a punch back. The past week has been very gratifying with the New York Times and Washington Post running very detailed stories showing the the SBVT group for what they really are.

First, let's take a look at the Washington Post's investigation into Larry Thurlow, one of the leading voices of SBVT:

In newspaper interviews and a best-selling book, Larry Thurlow, who commanded a Navy Swift boat alongside Kerry in Vietnam, has strongly disputed Kerry's claim that the Massachusetts Democrat's boat came under fire during a mission in Viet Cong-controlled territory on March 13, 1969. Kerry won a Bronze Star for his actions that day.

But Thurlow's military records, portions of which were released yesterday to The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, contain several references to "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at "all units" of the five-boat flotilla. Thurlow won his own Bronze Star that day, and the citation praises him for providing assistance to a damaged Swift boat "despite enemy bullets flying about him."

Today, the Chicago Tribune comes out with an account by one of its editors, William Rood, who was a part of this now infamous assault:

Rood, who commanded one of three swift boats during that 1969 mission, said that Kerry came under rocket and automatic weapons fire from Viet Cong forces and that Kerry devised an aggressive attack strategy that was praised by their superiors.

He called allegations that Kerry's accomplishments were "overblown" untrue.

"The critics have taken pains to say they're not trying to cast doubts on the merit of what others did, but their version of events has splashed doubt on all of us. It's gotten harder and harder for those of us who were there to listen to accounts we know to be untrue, especially when they come from people who were not there," Rood said in a 1,700-word first-person account published in Sunday's Tribune.

Here are a couple of key items from that article:

John O'Neill, author of a highly critical account of Kerry's Vietnam service, describes the man Kerry chased as a "teenager" in a "loincloth." I have no idea how old the gunner Kerry chased that day was, but both Leeds and I recall that he was a grown man, dressed in the kind of garb the VC usually wore.

The man Kerry chased was not the "lone" attacker at that site, as O'Neill suggests. There were others who fled. There was also firing from the tree line well behind the spider holes and at one point, from the opposite riverbank as well. It was not the work of just one attacker.

[...]

There's at least one mistake in that citation. It incorrectly identifies the river where the main action occurred, a reminder that such documents were often done in haste and sometimes authored for their signers by staffers. It's a cautionary note for those trying to piece it all together. There's no final authority on something that happened so long ago--not the documents and not even the strained recollections of those of us who were there.

But I know that what some people are saying now is wrong. While they mean to hurt Kerry, what they're saying impugns others who are not in the public eye.

Next up, the New York Times did an exhaustive look at the funding for the SVBT groups--complete with charts and graphs (linked to in a popup in a sidebar).

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 article goes on to look at comments made by many participants of the SVBT ads and the book, Unfit for Command, and finds many of these folks praising Kerry in the past, only to to an about-face this year. Here's one item:

The group's arguments have foundered on other contradictions. In the television commercial, Dr. Louis Letson looks into the camera and declares, "I know John Kerry is lying about his first Purple Heart because I treated him for that injury." Dr. Letson does not dispute the wound - a piece of shrapnel above Mr. Kerry's left elbow - but he and others in the group argue that it was minor and self-inflicted.

This "self-inflicted wound" is now being proffered by conservative pundits, but Chris Matthews of MSNBC's Hardball gave a smackdown to it when offered up by Michelle Malkin (which really needs to be read in full):

MATTHEWS: I have never heard anyone say he shot himself on purpose. I haven't heard you say it.

MALKIN: Have you tried to ask -- have you tried ask John Kerry these questions?

MATTHEWS: If he shot himself on purpose? No. I have not asked him that.

MALKIN: Don't you wonder?

MATTHEWS: No, I don't. It's never occurred to me.

So, now the Kerry campaign is fighting back, accusing SVBT of being a Republican fronted group and charging that there is evidence that there is coordination between them and the Bush/Cheney campaign--which only means that they're frickin' nuts:

From a Kerry press release, quote attributed to Kerry communications director Stephanie Cutter:

"Mr. McClellan needs to understand that John Kerry is not the type of leader who will sit and read `My Pet Goat' to a group of second graders while America is under attack.  John Kerry is a fighter, and he doesn't tolerate lies from others.   Some day Mr. McClellan, and George Bush, will have to face the truth about the health care and economic issues facing this country.  This election is about this country and its future.   When Mr. McClellan realizes that, it will be too late."

Bush 2000:
"A smear campaign of the ugliest sort is now coursing through the contest for the presidency in 2000. Using the code word 'temper,' a group of Senate Republicans, and at least some outriders of the George W. Bush campaign, are spreading the word that John McCain is unstable." [Washington Post, Elizabeth Drew, "Those Whispers About McCain," 11/19/99]

Bush 2004:
Scott McCellan: "I do think that Senator Kerry losing his cool should not be an excuse for him to lash out at the President" [White House Press Briefing, Crawford Middle School, Crawford, Texas8/20/04]

Marc Racicot: "I think they have completely unhinged. Senator Kerry, Tad, although I've certainly had time to get to know him, he looks to me to be wild-eyed." [CNN, Inside Politics, 8/20/04]

The most depressing thing about this whole event is that the Republican noise machine (as David Brock calls it) is once again trumpeting loud and winning ears. David Neiwert sums it up best:

I tuned in today to the whole phalanx of radio talk-show hosts still hopping about on the Swift Boat affair. And after awhile, I just wanted to say to them:
OK, fellas, go ahead and have your fun. After 10 years of racing after every right-wing smear planted in the press, we've come not to expect any better.

Just let us know when you're done with the trivia, will you?

Because it's clear that for the chattering classes, that's all that matters in this election: Trivia.

The Swift Boat Veterans flap -- like the "Kerry affair with an intern" rumor -- is clearly just a smear about nothing. It's a meaningless he said/she said tempest, and it reveals nothing meaningful about the two men running for president this year (except, perhaps, the eagerness of one of them to stoop to condoning gutter-level smears because he has nothing else to offer).

Someday, you might start thinking instead about discussing issues that are meaningful to the nation's citizens in fundamental and substantive ways:

-- What is the right course for securing the nation against terrorism, while protecting the civil liberties that define us?

-- How are we going to effectively extricate ourselves from the ongoing mess we created in Iraq, and bring our soldiers home and out of harm's way?

-- What can we do about the 2 million or so jobs that have been lost in the past four years -- as well as the continuing malaise in job creation?

-- What can we do about the ballooning federal budget deficit, for which our children and grandchildren will be paying?

-- How can we develop an effective energy policy that confronts and begins to reverse our longtime dependence not merely on oil, but on the giant congolmerates and Middle Eastern suzerains who control it -- because gasoline prices are reaching outrageous levels, because the spectre of stagflation continues to hover, and most of all, because oil continues to entangle us in military adventures that cost us both treasure and lives?

-- What can we do about better preserving our environment, and especially confronting global warming, now that we know it's not just a theory, and we know that its effects may be truly dire and truly destructive?

Wait. I know. These subjects are BORING, right? They do nothing for ratings.