Swift Vets, fraud and the huge obstacle we must overcome.

[smartvoter]

I was unhappy about the weak strategy for dealing with the Swift Boat Vets when they emerged with an attempt to rewrite history. However, if there ever was a political attack that should have blown up in the faces of those on the side launching the assault, the Swifty attack should have been it.

Although I prefer an in-the-face, hit-them-right-back style in dealing with the GOP bullyship, and was basically screaming for return fire from the sidelines, I can see logic behind the reserved approach Cahill and the others were taking. The Swifties were liars founded by people with a long, well-documented grudge against Kerry and funded by neocons who have repeatedly launched dishonest, character-assassinating attacks against challengers to their preferred (or chosen) candidates.

There was plenty of reason for the Kerry camp to believe that the Swifties would implode:

>O'Neill is on tape with Nixon about neutralizing Kerry.
>The allegations directly contradicted previous claims by the same Swift Vets.
>Members of Kerry's crew, who were the ones who actually saw what happened, backed Kerry's version of events.
>The citations of the same Swift Boat vets contradicted their own claims, and some received medals for actions in the same events.
>Rove's history is one of disinformation campaigns attacking opponents on their strongest, seeming unassailable strengths.
>The same funding sources and PR firm ran the same assault on John McCain in the 2000 primaries.
>I could go on, but you get the picture...

The most basic investigative journalism would completely debunk the Swifties, and I can see why the Kerry camp expected it to cause damage to the Bush campaign as the truth emerged. And, in reality, virtually every major newspaper in the country smashed the Swift Boat Vets' stories to pieces, catching them in lies and leading some to go into virtual hiding.

The BROADCAST media, however, kept the Swift Boat campaign of lies alive long after it had been debunked. It should have flipped on the Republicans, but it didn't, because major media outlets preferred a fictional scandal to the truth. They even continued to play the Swifty side of the story after Ted Koppel's crew went to Vietnam and not only validated Kerry's story but also discovered that the Swifties had been there ahead of them trying to convince the villagers that Kerry did not deserve to be president. O'Neill completely lost his composure when confronted with these lies, yet no one outside of the Nightline viewership knew it.

It appears that the critical judgment error on the part of the Kerry camp was believing the media would, if nothing else, report the facts.

Fast-forward to after the election. We had academic and statistical analyses, citizen and expert testimony, whistleblower affidavits and blatant law breaking during recounts, and were unable to get the media to simply report the facts.

The public is largely unaware of what happened in this election and a poll we placed out here last week indicated that, by and far, the single most common rebuttal we hear to claims of election fraud is that, if what we say is true, it would have been in the news.

Until we figure out how to overcome the broadcast media barrier, we will remain on the losing end of public relations battles, and our candidates -- and by extension, democracy -- will remain vulnerable to dishonesty.

[rodeodance]

1. I do not think want to believe that the WH is dishonest!-that is part of

problem. they have 'faith' in the BushCo--the recent poll just said that. Yes,-the Press is part of the problem and deserves our attention, but it much more than only the press.

....Until we figure out how to overcome the broadcast media barrier, we will remain on the losing end of public relations battles, and our candidates -- and by extension, democracy -- will remain vulnerable to dishonesty.........

[smartvoter]

2. But isn't the press at the heart of this as well? nt

[dzika]

4. The media is at the heart of it...

On small example: on Jan. 15th, the New York Times reports that

"Major Republican benefactors also responded like Alex Spanos, owner of the San Diego Chargers football team, and T. Boone Pickens, the Texas oil magnate. They supported Republicans heavily in the election and each gave $250,000 to the inauguration. "

NYT knows well that Pickens gave $5.5M to anti-Kerry organizations like Swift Vets but they don't bother to connect the dots for the reader.

[Name removed]

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