Posted on 09/26/2004 2:05:21 PM PDT by billorites
My lawyer readers will immediately recognize this as an invitation to Kerry supporters to make a motion for partial summary judgment on the SwiftVets' claims.
This short paragraph from a New York Times article perfectly illustrates the liberal media's widespread characterization of the results to date of the SwiftVets' campaign (boldface added):
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which drew national attention with advertisements making unsubstantiated attacks against Mr. Kerry's military service, has less money and uses several strategies to stretch its dollars, said one of its leaders, John O'Neill.
To find a similar example from the blogosphere, one need look no farther than Andrew Sullivan's passing dismissal of the SwiftVets' campaign (boldface added):
As word spread, anti-Kerry forces sent in more money to the Swift Boat Veterans for truth website, allowing them to ramp up their ad efforts. And within a few days, the old media was forced to cover the claims extensively — even if much of their coverage amounted to a debunking.
As someone who's followed the SwiftVets' campaign closely — someone who's read Brinkley's Tour of Duty, O'Neill's Unfit for Command, and Kranish et al.'s John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography cover to cover, plus all of the mainstream media reports I could find on the internet and a goodly portion of what's appeared from both political sides of the blogosphere — I'm simply stunned to read these sorts of statements.
I can think of one major SwiftVets allegation on which they've arguably failed to offer more than circumstantial evidence — that Kerry "gamed the system" to get his medals. Kerry's stonewall — his refusal to sign Standard Form 180 and thereby release the documentation that should, if it exists, reveal still-hidden details like how he came to get his first Purple Heart — has been effective in keeping the SwiftVets from nailing down that point with direct evidence. Yet the circumstantial case is powerful — Kerry's commanding officer at the time, Skip Hibbard, says he refused to approve that Purple Heart in December 1968, yet Kerry showed up with the medal anyway in March 1969 in some as-yet-unexplained fashion.
I can think of other SwiftVets allegations on which there is directly competing evidence that requires the public to draw conclusions. For example, does one credit Adm. Bill Schachte's account of his first-hand knowledge of how Kerry received the trivial wound that led to his first Purple Heart, or does one credit Zaldonis' and Runyan's claims that Schachte wasn't aboard the skimmer? Which of the eyewitnesses does one choose to find credible on the question of whether Kerry was or wasn't under enemy fire when he plucked Rassmann from the Bay Hap River? Other allegations require an exercise of subjective judgment. For example, was Kerry's pursuit and dispatching of a single VC soldier sufficiently valorous to merit his Silver Star?
But on none of these issues I've just listed have the SwiftVets' allegations been "debunked" or proven "unsubstantiated." Andrew Sullivan or the NYT repeating over and over that they have been simply don't make them so. To employ the legal jargon of summary judgment proceedings, a rational factfinder could conclude from the evidence that the SwiftVets have produced on each of these allegations that, indeed, they're true. A trial judge who dismissed these allegations outright, without letting the factfinder (typically a jury) consider them, would certainly be reversed on appeal and told to let the jury do its work. They haven't, in lay terms, been "debunked" — but rather, they're fiercely disputed by competent evidence (some of it eyewitness, some of it circumstantial, some of it documentary).
Hence my challenge for the weekend to my readers — you're probably a minority, as these things go, but I know from my comments pages that you're out there — who may agree with the NYT or Mr. Sullivan:
Can you identify even one specific and material SwiftVets allegation that you believe to have been fully "debunked" or fully proven to be "unsubstantiated"?
Some ground rules for this challenge that I think are not unreasonable:
By "specific," I mean to exclude sweeping conclusions like "John Kerry wasn't as big a hero as he's made out." By material, I mean to exclude trivia like "the VC soldier John Kerry shot was in a uniform instead of in a loincloth." And I ask that if you're to make an honest effort to meet my challenge, you provide quotes and links, both to the SwiftVets' allegations and to the evidence that you offer to show debunking or lack of substantiation.
If you rely on documents — for example, Larry Thurlow's Bronze Star citation as support for the proposition that he and Kerry were under enemy fire after PCF 3 was struck by a mine — then to reach "debunked" status, you ought to show that there are no contrary eyewitness accounts to those documents, nor other contrary documents. Otherwise, you've merely established that a dispute exists — what lawyers would call a "genuine issue of fact" that must be resolved by a judgment call as to which side has the greater weight of the credible evidence.
Saying your side has the greater weight of the evidence isn't "debunking" or showing that something is "unsubstantiated," it's saying that your side ought to ultimately prevail on the factual dispute, and that's a very different kettle of fish. To use a converse example by way of illustration: I would argue that the "Christmas in Cambodia" story repeatedly told by Sen. Kerry has indeed been thoroughly debunked and proved unsubstantiated — that is, there simply is no credible evidence from which any rational factfinder could conclude that Kerry's claim to have spent Christmas 1968 several miles inside Cambodia, under friendly fire and on a secret mission, was truthful.
I of course reserve the right to offer a rebuttal, as will, I'm sure, my like-minded readers. But I'm genuinely curious about this, and will try to summarize the results of this challenge fairly in a new post sometime early next week.
every ranting head for the DNP makes SURE to get in "and all their claims have been debunked" or "who have been proven to be lies" or "proven to be liars"....they ALWAYS say that and no one calls them on it!!
Thank you for this post. As I have read commentators reading from the recent Dim talking points that the Swifties had been debunked, I wondered if there was even ONE point that they had been debunked on?
I can think of three they have been shown right about:
1. Kerry's campaign has backed off the first purple heart.
2. Kerry's campaign has admitted that if he was getting his brain seared on that Christmas eve, it was not in Cambodia.
3. Kerry's campaign has admitted his boat ran after the mine exploded and later came back.
But I could not think of a single point they had been debunked on?
1. The Democrats will minimize the truth by saying that the evil Repulicans are being mean and trying to avoid the real issues (not to mention that the MSM will keep using the same lie tactics that prompted your post).
2. The only people who are voting for Kerry work for him or want to. It's George Bush Supporters against George Bush Haters and they don't care how awful their cantidate is. As a matter of fact the special interest groups backing Kerry are probably happier the weaker he is.
You should go over and post this at the Dim Underground!
I'd love to see the mass hysteria!
I heard Jerry Corsi on WBAL (1090AM, Baltimore) on Friday. A caller asked him why the Swift Boat Vets had not been sued by Kerry for libel. Corsi answered that the best defense against libel is the truth.
He added that the Swift Boat Vets would welcome any libel suit from anyone because ALL THE CHALLENGES TO DATE HAVE BEEN BASELESS. NOT ONE OF THE STATEMENTS BY THE SWIFT BOAT VETS HAS BEEN "DEBUNKED" IN SPITE OF WHAT THE DSM (DOWN STREAM MEDIA) SAYS.
I've been putting the following on each and every email I send out (now and until election day)......
Memo to John SKerry: Sign the document (Form 180) that will release your military records, like Pres. Bush did, if you have nothing to hide and refute the Swifties with evidence!!
My boss (please say hello to him 'cuz he is starting to read FR and I'd like him to see how it works) would like to see the following cartoon:
The Johns running out of the bank, smoking Thompson in one hand, big overflowing bag of $$$ in the other. There's a crowd of citizens, Swifties and coppers. The caption reads: "No! Of course, we didn't rob the bank. Dubya did it!"
ROFLOL!
Today I saw a bumper sticker in NC: "Regime change in 2004." Can you believe that??? I tried to chase the vehicle down (a biga$$ SUV, BTW!!) to tell them they had no idea of the meaning of regime!! Stunning, really. Just stunning!
God please help us!
<><
Where have you been, lady?
I KNOW!!....I scream it at them all the time to ask them, but no one hears me :) hehe
The SBVfT is an outstanding example of what is wrong with the media. Develop conclusions first, reports facts that fit the conclusion. Hope the public doesn't check out the reporter.
That won't work for everybody, and fewer and fewer people trust the media.
I disagree with this. So does Mr. Elliott, who handled Mr. Kerry's Silver Star recommendation letter. The Silver Star Award is not about the single VC. It is about the conditions on the beach before and during Kerry turning his swift boat toward the beach. Were there numerically superior enemy? Was there intense enemy fire?
One of the supposed debunkers, Mr. Rood, does not support Kerry's or the official record's contention in this regard. Neither does Brinkley's book. And that is why Mr. Elliott's sworn affidavit says what it does about why he (Mr. Elliott) would not have passed the recommendation letter along, if he had the facts as presented by Brinkley.
John O'Neill asked to be sued by John Kerry numerous times. If the Swift Boat men have any reservations about the veracity of their claims he wouldn't be making that sort of invitation.
yeah they just sound like an out of tune outboard motor on a bass boat; Butt, Butt, but, Butt Butt, but........
David Broder says "the largely unsubstantiated" SBVFT. How can these a holes keep this up?
Those are good questions. If there had been numerically superior enemy and intense fire, it would have been a supremely bad decision to beach the boat. In those conditions, almost surely at least some of his men would have been injured or killed, and with the boat beached, they would have had no way to escape.
Beaching the boat under any but the safest of conditions would have been totally irresponsible.
That's why Eliott said "I don't whether to commend you or court martial you" when Kerry put in the after action report. I assume Kerry also suggested the preparation of a letter recommending a Silver Star, if he didn't prepare a draft himself.
I noticed my previous post was inartful in expressing that the official record did not support the award. Obviously, parts of the official record DO support the award, otherwise it would not have been made. At least one after action report, the letter recommending the award, and the award itself are all parts of the official record, and they tell the tale from Kerry's point of view.
I'd have to revisit my notes, but think that other after action reports are silent on the presence of superior enemy forces at the time of beaching, or are ambiguous (there was more than one beaching occurrence and the entire incident is fairly complex).
But what triggered Elliot's specific complaint was Brinkley's biography of Kerry. The version of events in that book does not resemble the version of events on Kerry's Silver Star citation. And the "gotcha" has nothing to do with the age, condition or clothing of the single fleeing Viet Cong. Hence, I suppose, the diversion by the press into exactly that area of discussion -it is irrelevant, as Elliott said in his sworn affidavits.
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