Posted on 11/04/2004 5:02:44 AM PST by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
Swift Boat Vets and POWs for Truth achieved its primary goal yesterday with Sen. John Kerry's concession to President Bush, but the deeply divisive issues the group has raised and the activists it has spawned might not fade with the closing of the 2004 election.
"The whole group was oriented to beating Kerry; now that that's been accomplished, there is a formative discussion to say, 'Where do we go from here?'" said Jerome Corsi, co-author of the group's influential New York Times No. 1 best seller "Unfit for Command."
Corsi believes current discussions indicate there will be post-election follow up, whether through some or all of the more than 250 veterans, or through independent investigators and journalists.
"There is a movement to get Kerry to continue to release all of his documents and to press forward on the military discharge issue," Corsi said, referring to discrepancies in Kerry's record suggesting he is hiding a less-than-honorable discharge.
Corsi also notes that the concerns about Kerry's anti-war activism have grown into a movement to restore the honor of veterans who contend they have been besmirched by the conventional, leftist interpretation of the Vietnam War.
"That's going to continue," he said. "So I see Kerry is not going to simply be able to go back peacefully into the Senate and shut the door on the Vietnam chapter of his life."
"It will dog him," Corsi said, "certainly in the next two years and when he attempts to run for re-election."
In a statement issued yesterday, the 527 group's organizer, retired Adm. Roy Hoffman, gave no indication of the group's future, but expressed pleasure at the election result.
"As we have stated since we formed, we believed that John Kerry's actions in Vietnam, coupled with the reprehensible statements he made after he returned, were serious and consequently made him unfit for command," he said.
Hoffman, one of Kerry's commanders during the war, said the group sought to "provide a voice for the courageous and honorable veterans of Vietnam, more than 280 Swift Boat Vets, Coast Guardsmen and POWs who served their country with honor."
He noted the grassroots effort attracted donors from every state, who gave more than $26 million, including more than $7 million in online contributions.
"We were the true embodiment of grassroots citizen action, complied fully with federal election law and had every right to participate in the public discussion of John Kerry's qualifications as commander in chief," Hoffman said.
'Negative, awful ads'
In their assessment of Kerry's campaign, many of the senator's defenders grudgingly point to the swiftboat vets' well-organized effort.
Asked to come up with a key moment in the campaign, analyst Juan Williams told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace "the turning point" was "distortions and caricatures" of Kerry, epitomized by the swiftboat vets.
Just after the Democratic convention, in which Kerry made his Vietnam service the foundation for his argument he is fit to lead the nation in a time of war, the swiftboat vets "came out with such negative, awful ads," Williams said.
"Initially, I think, the Kerry campaign didn't understand the damage that was being done [and] was slow to respond," he recalled.
"And that damage has been incalculable," Williams said. "It has stayed in the voters' minds. It has defined this campaign in such as way as to damage his opportunity to have a say. When he went into the debates, when I do focus groups and talk to people, they're still hearing the image and the echo of Swift Boat Veterans."
Discussing highlights of the campaign Tuesday, National Public Radio's Tavis Smiley told syndicated columnist Clarence Page, "We'll never forget this phrase, either, Clarence: Swiftboat ads.
"There was a flurry of political advertisements on both sides, but John Kerry was hit awfully hard by the Swift Boat Veterans," he said before playing a clip from one of nine advertisements that aired in battleground states from August through the end of the campaign.
Smiley then played a soundbite from an anti-Bush ad with "Fahrenheit 9/11" producer Michael Moore.
"So you get the swiftboat veterans on one side, you got Michael Moore on the other side. This campaign, Clarence, was unparalleled in the level of propaganda."
Page replied, "That's true, and both of those soundbites you have were turning points where you saw the anti-Bush side really began to take shape and get new energy after Michael Moore's movie came out."
Page said the swiftboat vets turned Kerry's "biggest positive into a big negative, or at least a big controversy. It really began to hurt his forward momentum, and as we saw, Kerry began to struggle going into the debates after his polling numbers fell behind those of George Bush."
Kerry campaign senior strategist Tad Devine has admitted the senator's low point was not answering the swiftboat ads right away.
But Douglas Brinkley, author of "Tour of Duty," the account of Kerry's war record that angered the swiftboat vets and prompted their campaign, has a different take on the group's effectiveness, contending they may even have helped him by energizing his base.
Brinkley wrote Tuesday in an article in the Financial Times that, "Nobody in U.S. politics can endure as many body blows without suffering psychological dents" as Kerry.
Brinkley said Kerry's initial silence amid the swiftboat vets' charges was part of his style and strategy.
"Mr. Kerry welcomes abuse," he said. "He goads his opponents to come out in the open and go for his jugular. They always do. They rise to the bait. When a group of Swift Boat vets attacked Mr. Kerry's record in August he said nothing for two weeks. Why not swing back immediately? That is not his style."
Brinkley maintains Kerry waited until the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post "exposed his critics as liars and frauds."
A defensive player by nature, Kerry waited," he said. "Ultimately, the Swift Boat attacks only helped Mr. Kerry solidify his base."
Moral values
On MSNBC's "Hardball" yesterday, reporter Andrea Mitchell tied the swiftboat campaign to the reported impact of moral values on the voting Tuesday.
She said "the way the swiftboat veterans and the other groups define John Kerry early in the campaign, is to make him seem as though he were as not in sync with moral values, because he was, you know, a flip-flopper or whatever. By having defined him that way they really put him in a box. And it was very hard for him to get out of that box.
Corsi sees a clash-of-moral-values angle also, noting parallels to Kerry's first run for Congress in 1972 as an anti-war candidate in the traditional, working-class town of Lowell, Mass.
After a big primary victory, financed by New York and Hollywood luminaries such as George Plimpton and Otto Preminger, Kerry encountered the disdain of what President Nixon termed "the silent majority," Corsi said, the people of traditional religious values who rejected the radicalism of Kerry and Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern.
But Corsi believes Kerry's biggest miscalculation was a lesson he should have learned from Nixon -- thinking he could lie to the American people and get away with it.
Kerry's lie, Corsi contends, was to "exaggerate his four short months of service in Vietnam and his minor wounds into a self-advanced glory of mythic proportions" and to falsely characterize Amerian servicemen as war criminals.
The senator, for example, was forced to backpedal on assertions he had made for decades, such as his presence in Cambodia during the war. And his refusal to release all of his military records amid numerous unanswered questions hurt his credibility, Corsi pointed out.
In his 1971 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry described the U.S. military as the "army of Genghis Kahn, "disgracing" the service of more than 2 million Americans who served with honor, Corsi added.
"All of this the American public might well have accepted and forgiven," he maintained, "if only John Kerry had told the truth and asked for forgiveness."
It'd be great if we could get the Swifties to hire temps in every Massachusetts city Kerry speaks in to yell "SIGN THE 180!" at him. Keep the issue on the table for the next election and all.
I was thinking the same thing. The truth must come out about his discharge.
How long has he to go on his senate term?
I believe they should keep after Kerry since I believe he is a traitor and shouldn't be in the Senate.
Without the Swiftboat Veterans and others Kerry might be President today.
I also think his military record should be exposed to the Sunlight and we should know about his Real Discharge papers and what they show.
Kerry is a Fraud.
John O'Neill and Co. are the Heroes of this election.
Thank You Mr. O'Neill
While it was a "useful tool" in helping to deny Kerry the presidency, I've never felt that it was only part of the Swift Boat Vets' intended purpose, and I greatly admire them for that. These are men of principle who were wronged and their cause wouldn't have received the degree of attention that it did, had it not come to light during a presidential campaign.
Remarkably, the scant attentiong paid them by the MSM was overwhelmingly negative, with the token appearances by John O'Neil (a true hero) on "old media" outlets being designed to try to discredit them. Failing that, they often resorted to trying to shout him down to suppress his voice. The behavior of Lawrence O'Donnel, Lanny Davis and Corporal Cueball, notwithstanding, Mr. O'Neil kept his composure and tenaciously stuck to his facts, vividly illustrating who the adult was.
It goes far beyond the race, and I wish the Swifiies the best of luck in pursuing the truth. America can handle the truth and it's about time that the other side of Kerry's story was told. The fact that he came so close to the presidency is an indication that there is something very wrong in modern "journalism."
Great job, Swifties. You are true American heroes. You were wronged by effin' Kerry and his fellow commie symp leftists thirty years ago, and you held him personally to account. But you have been wronged once again...by the media this time.
America did you right, but the media did you wrong. Take up the good fight now...hammer the media for their bias. Not covering Kerry's OTH discharge. The way John O'Neill was so wrongly treated by the likes of O'Donnell. The media blackout of your best selling book. The million other slights.
You know better than anyone that freedom isn't free, and we thank you paying for the price time and time again. If you are weary and want to lay down the burden to the next generation, I understand...you have already done more than your fair share. But if you keep up the good fight, may God continue to bless you. I have to stop now, with tears of thanks streaming down my face for you heroes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Not only that, but every self-glorifying lie that comes out of his mouth now is going to be noted, researched and exposed. Can he stop the narcissistic lying and self-glorification? If he couldn't during the campaign, he sure won't be able to now.
Watch for more of the same to come from Senator Kerry in the future. And he is not going to have such a protective media around him now that his usefulness is limited.
Yea...those lawsuits were indicative of that "welcoming" attitude for abuse.
I hope they dog him until the truth comes out!!! ThankYouSwifties.com Go tell 'em how you feel!
The left never gives up, never stops. Time to show them Republicans can do the same.
Hopefully cooler heads will prevail. There is nothing to be gained and a lot to lose.
"Kerry campaign senior strategist Tad Devine has admitted the senator's low point was not answering the swiftboat ads right away. "
Maybe he is ready to start now! ha ha
He should be removed from any meaningful committee assignments.
Hey Kerry ... SIGN THE 180 FORM
I'm so grateful to the SwiftVets, and I doubt that things would have been different had Kerry answered their charges earlier.
I hadn't given much thought to John Kerry's background. I didn't remember much about the Senate hearings or his anti-war actvities. I guess I wasn't paying much attention at the time. I only knew that he was a decorated Vietnam war hero. That's something that most people probably knew. Now we know a lot more about him, and it doesn't jibe with the official Kerry bio. In the end, he lost a lot more than the presidency.
I think the struggle must go on, to reveal not only the extent of communist influence on Kerry's antiwar activity; the corruption involved in his postwar coddling of communist Viet Nam, Cuba, & Nicaragua; and the involvement of others, including the many former "antiwar" creeps who are still in control of the Demonrat party and will be key figures in any future Demonrat campaigns & administrations.
SkyPilot, you got it exactly right. Even now the Kerryites and the MSM (or am I being redundant) are trying to spin this. The ONLY reason why Kerry didn't respond is that he knows the Swiftees were telling the truth, and he figured the MSM would cover for him.
Kerry STILL hasn't been asked by the MSM if he was ever in Cambodia. I challenge ANYONE to come up with video footage of Kerry answering the Cambodia charges after the Swiftees raised the issue.
I think Kerry needs some wood.
It will take two years for the story to get MSM traction. They need to keep going.
Kerry had a less than honorable discharge and his medals revoked. He has 'nuanced' his way around the truth. You will notice that no one on the Left denies the General Discharge, they just keep stating that he has an Honorable. Lawyer-speak to stay in that grey area.
The triumph of moral relativism. We used to call telling a half-truth, a lie.
In any case, the libs will feel sorry for him, that he stood his ground as a traitor and paid the price...boo hoo! He can become another victim.
In two years there won't be a MSM -- But they may just take up the defense if you pile on. Piling on is never good. There is nothing productive to be gained until Kerry runs again.
Have a parade, welcome the Vietnam vets home. Celebrate the victory. Consolidate the gains -- wait.
I'll contribute to that.
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