The Media III - Falsehoods about Kerry

In my last posting entitled, "The Media II - Falsehood about Gore" I concluded with the promise, “NEXT TIME THE KERRY CAMPAIGN!”

I will deal with this here, but before I get into this subject I feel I must make another overall observation. In preparing these commentaries I extensively use Google to research the facts. However, here too I have found the deck to be stacked. For instance when I was researching the vicious and sustained attacks on Clinton during his Administration which I summarized in Media I, I first went to Google and entered “Lies about Bill Clinton”. Of the first 10 hits one was one about books for sale and would have to be considered neutral, but the other nine identified websites attacking Clinton for lying. Not one dealt with the subject I had identified.

Similarly, when I started researching “Lies about Gore” I put that subject into Google and guess what? It brought up seven sites alleging lies by Gore and only three on the subject requested. Next “Lies about Kerry” brought a similar result. Of the first ten hits 6 were claims of Kerry lies, 3 on target, and one not relevant. So even here the deck is stacked.

What are the facts? While serving in Vietnam, Kerry was awarded three Purple Hearts, one Bronze Star, and one Silver Star. That was in 1968.

The details of how he earned those medals are too long to be related in the body of this essay, but for those who interested the details are available here. For those who are not familiar with Snopes, it is a website which picks up allegations circulating in cyberspace and checks them. It then summarizes the allegation and designates them as, "false" "partially true" or "true". It then goes into details as to the allegations and then goes into detail as to he true facts. It is non-partisan and non-ideological.

During the next 35 years no one questioned the basis for these medals but in 2004 Kerry was running for President and the vicious lies commenced. First a book was published under the name “Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry. The publisher was Regnery a publisher who specializes in books of the Right. The authors were John E. O’Neil, whose history with the Republican party go back to the Nixon Administration, and Jerome E. Corsi who has made such hate comments about Catholics and Muslims and Jews as well as calling Hillary Clinton a “lesbo” that he became such an embarrassment to the publishers of the book that it was claimed that he wasn’t actually a co-author. The book claimed to be based on the testimony of men who had served with Kerry in Vietnam. It turned out that while all had served in Vietnam all but one had never served with Kerry or been present at the scene where the events, which led to Kerry’s medals, took place. Only one, Stephen Gardner, served on John Kerry's boat, and he was not present for the events that led to any of Kerry's medals or any of Kerry's three Purple Hearts. In other words, even a cursory examination of the book revealed that it had no basis in fact and was a totally contrived pack of lies. Yet the book was treated as a serious piece of journalism by the media and reviewed in that manner.

This was followed by a series of TV ads sponsored by a group that identified itself as “Swift Vets and POWs for Truth” and featured people who had no personal knowledge of the relevant events including women whose husbands had purportedly been prisoners of the Vietcong.

John McCain described these television ads as "dishonest and dishonorable." and called on President Bush to condemn the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush ads. JIM RASSMANN, a Republican, who was there, wrote in the Wall Street Journal, (Yes, The Wall Street Journal) on March 13, 1969, “John Kerry's courage and leadership saved my life.”

Despite this the media as usual acted as a megaphone referring to the book and the ads over and over again thus multiplying the effectiveness of the ads by a large multiple. Howard Kurz writing in the Washington Post said: “Without that echo chamber, this dinky little ad would have sunk without a trace. The irony was that the Post was one of the worst offenders. During one twelve-day span in late August, the Washington Post mentioned the Swifties in page one stories on August 19, 20, 21 (two separate articles), 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31. More than 100 NY Times articles and columns made mention of the Swifties. CNN mentioned them in nearly 300 separate news segments. The easily attainable facts got lost in the media’s zest for he said/he said, with U.S.A. for example reporting, “ A clear picture of what John Kerry did or did not do in Vietnam 35 years ago may never emerge…” with the Times describing it as “murky”. It was not murky. The fact that the allegations had no basis in fact was easy to document, as were the endless contradictions. (See pp. 178-186 of Lapdogs by Eric Boehlert)

But contrast this with the way the media treated the allegations against Bush, his using his connections to get into the National Guard and his then going AWOL. These allegations were, according to the media, not noteworthy because they were old. Despite the fact that it was supported by many facts and Guard records, the press was anxious to avoid discussion and when CBS publicized a memo that turned out to be a forgery, the media was so anxious to make the story about the carelessness of 60 Minutes, that they quickly decided that this proved beyond any doubt that the allegations were untrue.

No one ever investigated who might have forged the memo. I have always suspected that it was forged by the Bush Re-election Committee, who having taken a leaf out the Nixon playbook planted the forgery in order to discredit it and thus discredit the facts of Bush’s malfeasance. They must have celebrated at how easily the media took the bait.

Until we get a courageous, independent investigative media worthy of Edward R. Murrow, our Democracy will be at the mercy of the liars, the dissemblers, and the prevaricators.