MediaMatters discredits Drudge Kerry lies in his latest "World Exclusive," where he dredged up discredited charge that Kerry filmed reenacted combat scenes for future political career
On July 28, Internet gossip Matt Drudge revived and expanded on a discredited charge about Senator John Kerry (D-MA). On his highly trafficked website, The Drudge Report, Drudge reported that Kerry reenacted combat scenes on videotape during his service in the Vietnam War in order to enhance his future political ambitions. Drudge cited a 1996 Boston Globe article and two books by known Kerry-bashers: retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Robert "Buzz" Patterson and anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth founder John O'Neill.
On September 7, 2002, The New York Times' current executive editor and then-columnist Bill Keller took up the issue of Kerry's wartime films and debunked the reenactment charge, which he wrote that he believed at first: "elying on a report in the usually dependable Boston Globe, I mocked him for pulling out a movie camera after a shootout in the Mekong Delta and re-enacting the exploit, as if preening for campaign commercials to come."
Simply not true, Keller found after sitting through 40 minutes of footage in Kerry's office. Contrary to Drudge's assertion -- which apparently quoted O'Neill's upcoming book -- that Kerry would "reenact combat scenes where he would portray the hero," Keller wrote:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200407290002